The Woman in the Woods by Jessica Gadziala

Author:Jessica Gadziala [Gadziala, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Millie

“Millie!” a voice shouted just a second before hands grabbed my shoulders, shaking me until the nightmare finally released its hold on me, making me snap back to the present. “Christ,” Silvano said, eyes wide, chest heaving.

Like he’d run down those steps to get to me, trying to rouse me from the depths of my horror, before finally deciding to just grab me and give me a solid shake.

“Sorry,” I said, hand going to my chest, feeling the way my heart was knocking against my ribcage.

A cold sweat had broken out across my skin, chilling me.

Storm was at my feet, whimpering.

“Bad one, huh?” Silvano asked, moving to sit beside me, his warmth making me want to curl up into him. The most I allowed myself was to lean closer, then reach to pull the blanket up over me.

“Yeah,” I admitted, taking a deep breath.

“Wanna talk about it?”

No.

God, no.

But the fact of the matter was, the nightmares were getting worse. Night by night. The past two, Silvano had needed to wake me up because, apparently, I was screaming out in my sleep.

I’d been actively just trying to bank the memories and worries down, to try to take my grief and put a future date on it.

Clearly, it didn’t work that way.

“Mills,” Silvano said, head ducked, his dark gaze on me. “It’s time,” he said, voice coaxing.

He wasn’t wrong.

I’d been in his house for two weeks already.

We’d both been careful to sidestep the topic of how he’d found me, why I’d been there.

It got easier as time went on, both of us just falling into a rhythm.

In the early mornings, he took Storm out, coming back with breakfast.

In the afternoons, we both went for a walk since my ribs were mostly feeling better. I knew from experience that I still had to be really careful with turning too fast, or trying to lift much, but other than that, I was doing alright enough to start to get out of the apartment.

We often caught lunch on the way to bring Storm home.

In the evenings, Silvano would show me around to his favorite spots in the city. Then let me drag him to see some of the things I’d always wanted to experience. The Museum of Natural History. The Met. The usual tourist attractions.

And we just… actively didn’t talk about my recent past. Though I did tell him details about my childhood, about how my father raised me, and my mom just… never wanted to be a mom, so she never even took me home from the hospital.

We laughed about the stories I told that my father had relayed to me about how he used to bathe me in five-gallon buckets because he didn’t know any better. Or how he kept my hair boy-short until I was almost in middle school because he didn’t know how to take care of anything more complicated than that.

And in turn he told me about how he’d always been made to feel—by his step-father—like he wasn’t part of his family because he wasn’t related by blood.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.