Nicole Edwards - Zane

The sound of metal crushing bone echoed in her ears. Make it stop!

“I’m walking you in,” he demanded, and she heard the insistence in his tone. When he took her elbow, she forced her feet to move. They hadn’t taken five steps before the shaking began and V knew she was on the cusp of freaking out. This was becoming a frequent thing, and she didn’t want Zane to see her like this.

“Please, just go,” she told him, ripping her arm out of his grasp and forcing her legs to move faster.

God, please don’t let them hurt Zane again. Please. Please.

Zane didn’t seem to care what she was saying because he was right there beside her. When she tried to push her key into the lock, she couldn’t get the damn thing to line up because she was trembling like a leaf in a windstorm.

Need to get inside! Must get inside. Please don’t let Jake be close.

Zane stilled her hand with his, taking the key and dexterously inserting it into the lock. Once he had the door open, he took her hand and led her inside before shutting it behind them. V efficiently locked the door, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t move.

“What’s the matter, V?” Zane asked, his tone low and soothing.

The images played like a horror movie that she couldn’t erase from my memory. The grunts and growls of grown men hitting one another, iron striking bone, Zane falling to the ground, not moving. Oh God!

She couldn’t get any words out, and she was immediately overwhelmed with a cold chill that raced down her spine. Without meaning to, she dropped her purse on the floor, her arms wrapping around her body while she tried to hold herself together. She was shaking, her teeth chattering, her mind whirling with memories she so desperately wanted to eradicate from her mind.

“V?” Zane’s voice was no longer soothing. He was visibly worried, and she couldn’t blame him.

Here she was falling apart, and he had no idea why, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Hell, she didn’t know why, other than the fact that she hated coming back here. Hated remembering that day when Jake Sanders brutally attacked Zane right outside her front door. Watching as Zane fell to the ground, doing his best to hold his own against his attackers while she lay bruised and bloodied on the ground after one of Jake’s friends pushed her away. She couldn’t save him. Couldn’t stop them. Helpless and cold. So cold.

“Dammit, V! Talk to me,” Zane’s deep, booming voice penetrated her thoughts, and when he pulled her against him, V didn’t try to fight. She let him wrap his strong arms around her, holding her as she tried to soak up some of his warmth.

“That’s it!” Zane exclaimed, grabbing her purse from the floor at her feet while still holding her close and once again moving out onto the front porch. V’s panic intensified as she stood there with him, her eyes roaming the area surrounding her house as she waited for the horror to rain down on them once again.

What was that shadow? Was it Jake? Or one of his friends? What were they going to do? Please no!

The next thing she knew, V was back in Zane’s Jeep, but she had no idea how she got there. He carried her if she had to guess because even then she couldn’t feel her legs.

“Where are we going?” she asked when she finally found her voice. She was sucking in air like she’d just run a marathon.

“My house,” he responded, but said nothing more.

V watched as he rapidly shifted gears, pushing the Jeeps engine past the red line as he drove, the deep rumble eerily similar to the anger she could detect in his voice. She couldn’t imagine why he was mad at her, but having gone back to her house, she couldn’t necessarily blame him. Every time she went home, she felt the overwhelming panic ignite like a flame in her belly, tightening her chest and making her bones ache from the chill.

By the time they reached Zane’s house, V was feeling remotely better. The trembling had subsided, but now she just felt tired. And cold.

“Come on,” he said when he opened her door for her, grabbing her purse from the floorboard and gripping her elbow gently.

“I shouldn’t be here, Zane,” she said halfheartedly as he all but dragged her up the steps to his porch. “I need to go home.”

“The fuck you do,” he growled and pushed open his front door, waiting for her to precede him into the house.

By the time V was sitting on Zane’s couch, a bottle of water in her hand and a big, growling man sitting beside her, she was beginning to feel normal, not to mention, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she said when the silence began closing in on her.

“For what?”

Zane clearly wanted her to explain what had just happened, and she knew she should tell him. Tell someone. Only she didn’t want to explain it. He shouldn’t have to worry about her or her apparent mental issues. He had enough to worry about. Like his new job at the resort.

“Are you really going to manage one of the clubs at AI?” Her voice still sounded a little distant. It was clear she was trying to change the subject.

“Not talking about that right now. I want to know what the hell just happened to you, V,” he argued.

Damn it. She did not want to talk about this. She had issues, and she had no idea what they were, but seriously, it wasn’t any of his business.

“I need to go,” she said, standing to her feet abruptly.

“Sit down, V,” Zane ordered, not moving from where he was sitting.

V plopped back down on the couch, resting her butt on the edge of the cushion, still holding the damn water bottle that she didn’t want.

♂♀

“How long have you been having panic attacks?” Zane questioned as he moved to sit closer to V. He almost couldn’t believe what he witnessed just a short while ago at V’s house. With everything that had happened, it appeared no one thought to check on V during the last few months. Did Zoey know about these anxiety attacks? Was anyone worried about how she was holding up? Or did V manage to keep everyone in the dark all this time?

Sitting close to her, his thigh against her thigh, his arm against her arm, he stared down at the floor, his hands clasped in front of him between his spread knees.

“I’m scared to go in my own house,” V whispered.

For a moment, Zane wasn’t sure that he hadn’t just imagined the words. He waited patiently to see if she would continue. When she didn’t, he prodded her to tell him more.

“Is it because of what happened?” he asked, hanging his head low, knowing the answer was yes, but wanting to hear it from her.

“I keep seeing you lying on the ground, beaten and bloody,” V’s voice was soft and she swallowed hard before continuing, “and I hate that it’s my fault –”

“Stop!” Zane barked, pushing to his feet instantly. “It wasn’t your fault, Vanessa. You couldn’t have stopped Jake from doing what he did.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, her tone still sad. “If it weren’t for me and the fact that the town thinks of me the same as they do my mother...” V didn’t finish her sentence, but Zane didn’t need her to.

“Do they, V?” he questioned angrily. “Do they really think you’re like your mother? Or is that something you’ve conjured up in your head?” Zane had heard some of the rumors, but he never paid them any mind. The rumors were nothing more than a bunch of hot air, spoken by people who didn’t have anything better to do with their time.

“They call her a whore, Zane.” Vanessa’s tone firmed as she stared up at him.

“I know what they call her, but that doesn’t make the rumors true. Do you believe them?”

V stared down at her hands, but she didn’t respond. Zane had a hard time thinking anyone could think so lowly of their mother. The rumors had spanned two decades now, with Regina Carmichael painted as a woman looking to bed a billionaire. With several sharing their stories of bedding V’s mom, never intending to have a relationship with her, but wanting to see just how far she’d go. True or not, V’s mother had issues, but that didn’t make her a terrible person.

“No, I don’t. I think she has problems. I think she loved the wrong men, but no, I don’t think she’s a whore. She’s made some mistakes, but she’s my mother, Zane.”

Zane sat back down beside her, taking one of her hands in both of his and holding it firmly. “We can’t change how people want to view things, V. And we can’t change how they’ll react. I know you hated what I did that day, but, there won’t be a single person who is allowed to talk about you like that when I’m around. You didn’t cause Jake to go off the deep end. I did. And honestly, I’d do the same thing all over again.”

“How can you say that?” It was V’s turn to jump up from her seat. She paced the floor in front of him, her long hair flowing down her back, the same color as creamy milk chocolate.

“I care about you, V. I won’t sit back and let anyone talk to you that way.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re saying. You don’t care about me. It’s sex.”

“What’s ‘sex’?” Standing to his feet again, wanting to be on a level playing field with her, Zane watched her intently.

She was purposely trying to piss him off, and if it worked to erase that look of utter helplessness he’d seen on her face earlier, he’d oblige her. “I don’t see any sex going on here at the moment, do you?”

V pinned him with a glare, and he could detect her exasperation. Vanessa Carmichael was never going to accept the fact that he felt more for her than she wanted him to. It couldn’t be changed, and he wasn’t looking to change it. But, Zane also knew when to keep his mouth shut.