Dark Side of Dawn: The Nightmare Chronicles (2 page)

I cast a glance at him, noting the strain around his eyes and mouth. “How are you doing?”

He squeezed my hand, directing a brittle but sincere smile in my direction. “Don’t worry about me, Doc.”

As far as answers went, it wasn’t a great one, but I knew Noah well enough to know that he was having a hard time of it. He prided himself on control, and violence against women was something that pushed his buttons, having spent his formative years watching his father beat his mother. No doubt this brought
back memories of hospital visits from years ago, and his mother telling doctors she had fallen down stairs or ran into a door.

A tall woman with graying red hair smoothed into a neat twist stood beside the nurses’ station as we approached. “Mr. Clarke? I’m Dr. Van Owen.”

Noah held my hand with his left and accepted the doctor’s with his right. “How’s Amanda?”

Dr. Van Own looked at me, as though she didn’t want to say anything in front of me.

Noah made the introductions, adding, “Dawn’s a psychologist.”

Apparently the good doctor was satisfied with that explanation and she divided her attention between the two of us as she spoke. “Your wife sustained quite a few serious injuries, Mr. Clarke. I’m going to recommend that she stay here for a couple of days.”

He didn’t correct her on the term wife and I told myself it didn’t matter. I should be ashamed of myself for even feeling so jealous at a time like this. “How serious?”

The older woman flashed a quick look at me before continuing, as though she was glad I was the one who would have to deal with the barely restrained anger lurking under Noah’s polite exterior. “Lacerations of the scalp and face. She was beaten, choked, and sexually assaulted. However, I don’t believe any of her injuries
will require surgery. She should be able to go home in a day or two, but I would suggest she see a specialist.”

Noah frowned. “I thought you said she didn’t need surgery?”

I put my hand on his arm, and kept my voice low. “I don’t think that’s the kind of specialist the doctor means, Noah.” I was already running through my mental address book. Did I know anyone who dealt with victims of violent crime? Surely the hospital could make a referral.

Noah stiffened beside me, his cheeks flushing scarlet. For a moment I thought he might simply explode.

“The police have already spoken to her,” the doctor continued, taking a wary step back. “I’m sure an officer can give you particulars. Amanda asked that you be allowed to see her as soon as you arrived. She’s two doors down on the left.”

Noah thanked her, and I waited until she’d left us to ask, “Do you want me to wait for you?”

“Come with me.” He met my gaze with dark, worried eyes. “You know the right things to say.”

I knew what he meant, and shook my head. “Noah, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m not comfortable acting in a professional capacity with your ex-wife.”

He squeezed my fingers. “Okay. Come anyway.”

“All right.” But only because I knew deep down that he needed me in that room when he saw Amanda.

“I’m going to stay toward the back, though,” I said, holding his hand as we walked down the hall. “Amanda might not appreciate my presence as much as you do.” I knew that I wouldn’t were the situation reversed.

Two doors down wasn’t far. I walked behind Noah as he entered the room, and heard his sharply indrawn breath as he saw the occupant of the lone bed. Private room. That was good.

“Noah,” a voice croaked. I recognized it as Amanda’s, but it was hoarse and faint. I didn’t want to see the face that went with that voice.

He released my hand to move closer to the bed. I didn’t follow, but let him go. The stupid jealousy I’d felt earlier was gone, and when Noah stepped to the side, giving me a view of the woman on the bed, every emotion I was capable of fled, replaced by an overwhelming surge of pitiful sorrow.

And horror. There was a lot of that as well.

The Amanda I’d first met a few weeks ago at Noah’s gallery showing had been lovely to a fault; a golden-tanned blonde with big eyes and delicate features. She was petite and I’d felt like a pale, lumbering oaf standing next to her.

This woman looked nothing like that Amanda. This woman was swollen, her skin darkened with so many bruises I couldn’t begin to count. One eye was purple, shut tight. That side of her face was discolored all the
way down to her throat, where a circle of purple and red formed a handprint necklace. No wonder her voice had sounded so awful—the bastard had choked her.

The bruising extended to the flesh of her shoulders. I could see the ruddy abrasions where the neck of her hospital gown had slipped down. Christ, were those teeth marks? I swallowed. Hard.

But it was her head that was the hardest for me to look at. Her golden hair was matted with blood, held back from her face by a sterile gauze head band that held a bandage to her scalp. A quarter-sized circle of blood had soaked through, terribly red against the stark white.

Years of watching
Law and Order: SVU
hadn’t prepared me for that stain. TV never got the color of blood just right.

Christ. Part of me thought there were all kinds of crazy in this world. The professional part of me wondered what could happen to a person to compel them to such behavior.

I still didn’t like Amanda, knowing how she had betrayed Noah, but my heart went out to her. I’d had my own control taken away from me before, when a Night Terror who tried to possess Noah forcibly “seduced” me. He’d made my body want him even though I knew it was wrong. He hadn’t hurt me—not then—but the thought of what he’d done made my stomach twist like
a French braid. Even using me as a punching bag hadn’t left scars as thick as that violation.

But that was in the past. I had survived, and so would Amanda. Drawing another deep breath for strength, I eased myself forward, close enough to hear some of what was being said, but not enough to be an intrusion.

“Do you need anything?” Noah asked. He held one of his ex-wife’s hands in his. Her knuckles were raw and swollen. She had fought back, brave thing.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Amanda replied in that awful voice. “Having you here is enough.”

I definitely didn’t want to hear this. I was an outsider. I shouldn’t be here, witnessing this woman’s pain, witnessing the safety she felt now that her husband—
ex-
husband—was there with her.

“Dawn is here too.” Noah surprised me by glancing over his shoulder at me. Making sure I was still there, I suppose.

“Dawn?” Amanda peered past Noah, meeting my gaze with her one good eye.

No more hiding for me. I was forced to hold that battered gaze as I walked toward the two of them. She looked worse with every step. “Hi, Amanda.” I should apologize for being present, for witnessing her pain, but I couldn’t find the words to express it without sounding like an ass.

Her expression was a mixture of defiance and wari
ness that I recognized from having worked with a few victims of violent crime. Granted the last few years I’d dealt mostly with dreams, but some of those dreamers were victims of violence suffering from post-traumatic shock.

“Thank you for coming.” She was all grace and elegance despite having been beaten and brutalized. This show of strength wasn’t merely for my benefit, or even for Noah’s. It was for herself. Amanda was determined to hold it together no matter what.

When she held out her poor little battered hand, I came forward and took it. If I had any strength in me worthy of her, she was welcome to it.

Standing there, holding her delicate fingers, feeling those birdlike bones beneath my own, filled me with a profound sense of protection. I wanted to help her, and keep her from ever being hurt again. She was so much smaller than I, in height and weight. Blond to my dark, brown to my blue, and tanned to my pale. She was like delicate gold filigree and I was sturdy brass; and yet looking at her, I thought she was the strongest woman I had ever met, simply because she held it together when I would have been a sniveling, snot-spewing mess.

A Bambi-like gaze bore into mine, but that was where the Disney comparison stopped. Bambi never looked so angry or defiant. “Have you ever been raped?”

Whoa. Hadn’t seen that coming. Anyone else and I
would have told her it was none of her damn business, but this was something of a “quid pro quo, Clarisse” moment. I knew what she had been through, and in her mind that put me at some kind of advantage. And she’d had enough power taken away.

“Yes,” I replied, stomping down the urge to look at Noah. As it was, I could feel the tension in his body as he stood rigid and still beside me.

Something changed in Amanda’s expression—a softening for lack of better term. She looked at me like a sister of sorts, one of the other two women who helped form the “three out of four” women who were supposedly raped or victim to some kind of sexual assault in the course of their lifetime.

Three. Out of fucking four.

Noah cleared his throat. It was a ragged sound. “I thought you might want to talk to Dawn.”

Amanda’s gaze was blank as it turned to him. “About what?”

“About what happened.”

Her features hardened, just the slightest bit as she looked at him—as someone who had just betrayed her trust. “I don’t.”

I respected that. Hell, I was glad for it. This was not my specialty, and even if it was, this was way too close for comfort. Part of me was annoyed with Noah for suggesting it, even though his heart was in the right place.

Thankfully, before Noah could say anything else, Amanda’s parents arrived. Noah must have called them after he called me. Her father, a stocky man with thick gray hair, was white with shock. Her mother, a pretty little blonde, had obviously been crying, though she had pulled herself together before entering the room. It wouldn’t be long before she lost it again—I could see it in the slight tremble of her shoulders.

Parents. Always trying to be so strong for their children. My own parents were pretty weak in the parental-support department. They were really there for each other, though.

Noah took them both aside, speaking to them quietly. Amanda’s mother began to sob softly. I tried not to eavesdrop or stare, but there wasn’t much else to focus on, except for Amanda.

Reluctantly, I turned to the woman on the bed, the woman who was watching me as though daring me to face her. Or maybe, like me, she couldn’t bare looking at her parents.

“You can’t stand the sight of me, can you?” she asked hoarsely.

I shook my head. “It’s not you. It’s what he did that’s difficult to look at it.” She deserved my honesty if nothing else.

Her mouth trembled. “Is it that bad?”

I lied. “I’ve seen worse.”

That was when Noah finished talking and Amanda’s parents came to the bed. Her father was stiff and uncertain, pain etched all over his face. Her mother was bowed, obvious in her pain, but there was no hesitation. I was removed from the situation just enough to find these subtle differences in strength interesting.

Noah and I left then. I didn’t want to witness the family’s interaction, and I don’t think Noah was comfortable around his former in-laws. They certainly didn’t try to hide the fact that they weren’t impressed to see him there. Probably, they weren’t impressed that he was the one Amanda wanted there first. Had I the inclination, I’d probably put my mind to all kinds of theories as to why that was.

Quite frankly, I just didn’t want to go there.

Out in the corridor, Noah cupped his hand around the back of my neck as we walked, and pulled me to his side. He pressed his lips to my temple as his fingers gently squeezed.

“Thank you,” he said.

I glanced up at him, my hip bumping his as we matched our stride. “For what? I didn’t do anything.”

“You came when I called,” he replied with a soft smile. “I knew you’d know what to do if I didn’t.”

I was flattered that he had such a high opinion of me. “I wish there was something I could do for her,” I remarked. And I meant it.

Noah stopped walking and so did I. When I turned to ask what was up, he caught me in a kiss that made my lips tingle and my heart pound. “What was that for?” I asked, slightly dazed.

His thumb brushed my cheek. “For being the best person I know.”

It might not have been a declaration of love, but damn if it didn’t feel like it.

We didn’t immediately return to Noah’s apartment as we met up with Amanda’s sisters at the elevators. He had to fill them in on what had happened to Amanda and how she was doing.

All I could think about was that he had torn out a chunk of her hair. Why did I think about that? Hair would grow back. Her external injuries would heal. The injuries to her psyche should be what concerned me, but as a woman—and a rather vain, girly one at that, all I could think about was that missing chunk of hair that would take so very long to look natural again.

For a moment, I thought about what I would do in that situation. I would want revenge. I would track the S.O.B. through his dreams and give him dreams that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

But it wasn’t me, and the last time I had messed with someone that way had been a girl in junior high back in Toronto. Jackey Jenkins humiliated me and I went into
her dreams and hurt her way more than I ever meant to. I’d never tried to do anything like that again. I swore I never would.

We grabbed some food at an all-night diner and talked a little about his trip to L.A. He’d been there for a showing of some of his paintings. It had gone well, and he seemed genuinely pleased. I was glad for that.

Over coffee we caught up on our lives like nothing bad had happened, yet there was a dark cloud over us—that invisible film that shock and tragedy leaves behind on your skin.

It was just before dawn when we reached Noah’s apartment. My aunt Eos, the goddess charged with bringing light to the earth, lightened the sky with a glimmer of golden gray that would build and intensify into a riot of pinks, oranges, reds, and yellows before the sun rose into the sky, bringing day to the world. I was named after Eos’s domain—for the wonder spreading across the horizon, bathing Manhattan in a sweet, almost preternatural glow—and I was proud of that.