Chapter 39: Trembling Thresholds
The dream wasn’t a narrative. It was a sensation. The cold grip of polished steel around her wrists, not tight, but immutable. The smell of industrial cleaner and male sweat. The utter dark, so complete it felt like a substance pressed against her eyeballs. And her faceless kidnapper’s voice, not shouting, but precise, a scalpel of sound in the blackness: “He thinks your a whore, you know. He always has.”
Sammy woke with a jolt, a silent scream lodged in her throat.
The room was drowning in a deep, velvety black. The kind of dark that swallowed outlines and bred formless terror. No city glow leaked around the edges of the unfamiliar blackout curtains. No familiar hum of her own refrigerator, the distant traffic of Sunset Boulevard. Just the heavy, suffocating silence of a hillside estate miles from anything, broken only by the frantic drum of her own heart.
She fumbled for the lamp on the nightstand, her fingers clumsy with panic. The switch clicked. Nothing happened. She clicked it again, up, down. Darkness.
A fresh, cold fear seeped into her veins. He’d cut the power. He was here. He was in the house.
She froze, listening so hard her ears ached. The house sighed, an old timber settling. The wind teased a branch against a windowpane somewhere down the hall. Normal sounds. Monstrous sounds.
Logic, thin and reedy, tried to assert itself. A blown fuse. A tripped breaker. Rebel would have backup systems, generators. He’d have thought of that.
But the animal part of her brain, the part that had learned terror in a concrete room, didn’t care. The dark was an enemy. It was his domain.
She couldn’t stay here. The four walls of the guest room, were now just a smaller box within the larger, unknown one. She needed light. She needed a door that wasn’t her own. She needed him.
Moving by memory and touch, she slid out of the tangle of sheets. The floor was cool tile under her bare feet. She found his discarded shirt from earlier, pulled it on over her tank top. The worn cotton smelled faintly of him—clean laundry, leather, and something uniquely Rebel. It was a talisman.
She inched her way to the door, her hand skimming the wall.
She inched her way to the door, her hand skimming the wall. The lock disengaged with a soft, definitive click that echoed in the silent dark. She pulled the door open just a crack, peering into the deeper blackness of the hallway.
A sliver of cool, blue-tinged light painted the far end of the hall. It was faint, emanating from under a door. His door. The relief was so physical it weakened her knees. The power wasn’t out; she’d just never found the switch for the overhead light.
She padded silently down the hall, the tile chilling her feet. The rest of the house was a study in shadows, every arched doorway a void. She stopped before the band of light, raising a trembling hand. She knocked, three soft but urgent raps.
There was no sound for a beat, just the hum of a computer fan from within. Then, the sound of a chair rolling back, quick footsteps. The door opened inward so fast it stirred the air.
Rebel stood there, backlit by the glow of multiple computer monitors. He was shirtless, a pair of low-slung sweatpants riding his hips, his tattoos a storybook of shadows across his chest and arms. He held a gun down at his side, pointed at the floor, his other hand braced against the doorframe. His eyes were sharp, immediately scanning the hall behind her before landing on her face.
“Sammy?” His voice was alert, clear. He hadn’t been sleeping.
The gun didn’t frighten her. Its presence was just another facet of him, like his watchfulness or his hands that could cook a perfect grilled cheese. She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching his oversized shirt.
“The light in my room doesn’t work,” she whispered, her voice sounding small. “And the dark… it got loud.”
He didn’t offer solutions or false comfort. He just waited, his gaze intent, reading the fear etched into her posture.
“Can I sleep in here?” The question rushed out, bare and childlike. “I don’t want to sleep alone. I’m scared.”
He didn’t hesitate. He stepped back, opening the door wider. “Yeah. Always.”
The room was cool, lit only by the soft, shifting glow of the computer screens. Security camera feeds cycled silently—a view of the moonlit driveway—that was it. That was the only camera
She hovered in the doorway, a ghost in his clothes. He ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, the tattoos on his arm shifting in the low light.
“Bed’s over there,” he said, gesturing to a simple platform frame in the corner. “It’s not much. But it’s comfortable .”
She walked past him, the scent of her fear mixing with the clean smell of him on the shirt. She slipped under the gray covers, pulling them up to her chin. He watched for a second, then turned back to his desk, closing some windows on the screens. The room plunged into near darkness, lit only by a single, small blue power light.
He slid into the bed beside her, keeping a careful foot of space between them. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His bare arm was close enough for her to feel his body heat.
“It was just a dead bulb in your lamp,” he said quietly into the dark. “I’ll fix it tomorrow.”
“I know,” she whispered. “My brain just… short-circuits.”
“Mine too,” he admitted.
She shifted onto her side, facing him. His profile was a sharp cutout against the faint blue glow.
“What were you watching on the cameras?”
“Nothing. Everything.” He let out a slow breath. “Just making sure nothing moved.”
“I thought you said there were no cameras.”
“Just the one pointed at the gate.”
They lay in silence for a long time. The house creaked. The wind sighed. Her breathing began to slow, matching the rhythm of his. It was safe here. He was a barrier between her and the void.
Her hand moved, tentatively, across the cool sheet. Her fingers found his, brushing against his knuckles. He went completely still, a statue beside her.
“Rebel?” Her voice was barely a sound.
“Yeah.”
“Can you hold me? Like you did…” She trailed off, unable to say ‘at your apartment in LA.’ The memory of that night was a live wire in the room—the shocking, perfect freedom of it, the way he’d worshiped her body with a focus that erased the world, the slow, sweet way he’d woken her up. It had been more than sex. It had been a claiming, and she’d reveled in it.
He didn’t move. “Sammy, I don’t think that’s—”
“Please.” The word was a fragile thing. “Do you see me differently now? After what happened?
He flinched as if struck. “Jesus. No.” The denial was vehement, raw. “That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
He rolled onto his side to face her. In the dark, his eyes were pools of shadow, his expression pained.
“I’m scared of being the thing that scares you,” he said, each word weighted. “My hands on you… I’m terrified the memory will flip, that you’ll be back in that room but it’ll be me holding you down.”
Her heart squeezed. She reached out in the dark, her palm finding the rough plane of his cheek. His breath hitched.
“Your hands are the only ones that don’t scare me,” she whispered. “They make the grilled cheese.”
A sound escaped him—a half-choked laugh, a sigh. He moved then, closing the distance. He didn’t pull her to him roughly. He opened his arm, an invitation. She slid into the space, her back to his chest, fitting herself against him like a key finally finding its lock. His arm came over her ribs, his hand splaying wide and firm over her sternum, holding her secure to the solid warmth of him.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath hot against her skin. “Is this okay?”
She nodded, pressing back into him, her hand covering his on her chest. “It’s okay.”
He held her like that, a fortress against the night, until her muscles unlocked and her breathing deepened. His own body slowly relaxed around hers, though the arm that held her never loosened its protective cage.
“Rebel?” she murmured, half asleep.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you for the sandwich.” It was a stupid thing to say. It was everything.
His lips brushed the skin behind her ear, the ghost of a kiss. “Anytime.”