Six months she’d been gone. They’d never been close, despite their husbands being brothers. Croia has always been timid, soft spoken, seemingly far too gentle for Ruarc. A true arranged marriage if she ever saw one. Nylah had at least made it look at though she liked Kieran in the early days of their marriage. Croia had looked like she’d rather stab herself in the eye. The quiet girl had always been Nylahs exact opposite, they mixed like oil and water.
Where Croia is demure, Nylah is high strung. When Croia would simply offer up the other cheek, Nylah fights back tooth and nail. When she went missing, Nylah had quickly lost hope that she’d be found alive. The weak didn’t survive captivity. No one knew who took her or why, though the speculations were endless. Kieran and Ruarc spoke endlessly, formulating plan after plan, following dead lead after dead lead. But Nylah? She is all too familiar with the depravity of men. Men who consider women to be commodities, something to flaunt, something to enjoy at their leisure. If they found Croia alive, she’d be a shell of her former self.
When Kieran found her, Nylah had nearly burned their new house to the ground when he side lined her. She huffed and she puffed, knowing that sending a group of men to rescue a woman who had likely been thoroughly abused by men, was their dumbest idea yet. Ready to breath fire upon her husband, it was his quick pleading that her reining her temper in. She wasn’t blind to the haunted look in his eyes. She knew what he was remembering.
She didn’t like it, especially when Kieran decided he was going. Begrudgingly, she conceded, only so she didn’t wind up chained to their bed in his absence. In the end, she’d given him a list. A list only Kieran would understand. No one touch her. She’d practically beaten it into his head by the time the door shut behind him. Keeping his brother on a leash would be an impossible task - Ruarc had all but disappeared inside himself over the last six months - but if he had any hopes of getting his wife back, then Kieran needed to figure it out.
Nylah didn’t know restless until those hours passed, so painfully slow. She was fairly certain she developed a stomach ulcer by the time Kieran’s name popped up on her phone. He was safe, in the same condition in which he left her, as promised. And they had Croia. Huffing out a sigh of relief and her shoulders sagging, Nylah left Ruarcs home. She hadn’t been the least bit shy about breaking into his home and picking out a bedroom. She picked the one that was both closest to the master and farthest from the noisier parts of the house. She’d jerked the curtains closed, sealing out most of the light. Because she didn’t know Croia, she didn’t know her favorite snacks, so Nylah took liberties and filled the nightstand drawers with an assortment. She stocked the bathroom with scentless products and swept the entirety of the room until it was safely neutral. Comfort, security, neutrality. Nylah remembers how nauseating it had been, to walk into her home and be surrounded by the pictures of the pieces of herself that she’d lost, that had been stripped from her. That hadn’t been Nylah anymore in those photos.
She raided Croia’s closet next, filling the spare bedroom with more things of comforts. Sweats, shorts, baggie shirts, sweatshirts, clean underwear., bras and socks. Croia didn’t have to leave this room if she didn’t want to. And then Nylah left and didn’t return for a few weeks.
When she finally did step foot in the apartment, she first stopped by Ruarcs private selection of booze. A bottle of very expensive bourbon in hand, she grabbed two glasses and set off to Croia’s room. Kieran had practically dragged him out of the house kicking and screaming. It was only the promise that Nylah could help, that she could relate, that had Ruarc grumbling his departure. She knocked twice on the door, waiting for a response before she cracked the door open. ”Its Nylah. Can I come in?”
The first thing she'd done was the longest, hottest shower of her life. She sat on the tile floor with her ankles crossed and knees drawn up to her chest, abusing her skin with aggressive scrubbing and scalding water until she was a faint shade of raw pink all over. When she finally felt as clean as she was going to, she'd sat cross-legged in the steaming shower with her back to the wall, and spent well over an hour painstakingly working conditioner and her fingers through the tangled mess of her curls. After everything else they'd taken from her...she wouldn't let them take her hair too, even if cropping it short would have been easier.
When she'd finally emerged from the bathroom, Croía had snooped through the dresser until she found an oversize hoodie and basketball shorts, refusing to think too hard about where the clothes came from, and then she'd crawled into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin, where she'd fallen asleep for eighteen straight hours.
Since then, Croía hasn't improved much. She spends long hours sleeping, and when she is awake, she's not...there. She picks at the meals left for her with less interest and vigor than she does her own nails, which have all been abused down to nubs. When she hears the babble of children now and then in the hall, it makes her heart twist painfully, and she'll block it out with her head buried under a pillow, her eyes almost always burning with tears. Sometimes she'll take comfort in thumbing through an old book, in smelling its weathered pages, but she can't ever focus enough to read them. It's like her body and mind are two different entities, split too far apart to understand one another anymore.
The curtains are drawn, though some light filters into the room from the window in the bathroom, and artificial colors from a tv cast a shifting kaleidoscope across the comforter. The television is on mute, and Croía is curled up on her side beneath the covers as she flips mindlessly through the channels, not really interested in any of them. A knock at the door has her head darting up, eyes flicking towards it, but she doesn't say anything—she always freezes up when someone comes to her room. The door cracks open, and the husky female voice that drifts into the space is not at all what she expected. Her and Nylah have never been friends; she could probably count on both hands the number of sentences they've exchanged, so what she's doing here now, Croía has no idea.
Turning off the tv, she sits up slowly, propping her spine against the headboard and pulling her knees up to her chest. Her sweatshirt hood rests over her mane of dark curls, and she's wearing long pants as well today, leaving only her hands and feet exposed. Her arms curl around her knees as she warily eyes the cracked the door, and finally says, "okay."
Okay. The quiet voice barely touches her ears. Slowly, she lets the door swing open, the light from the hall casting a soft light into the otherwise dark room. Stepping in, she closes the door behind her, but not all the way. She leaves it slightly cracked open - an escape. Leaning back against the wall beside the door, Nylah makes no effort to come any closer, nor does her body language suggests she’s going to move anytime soon. Every move she does make is intentional, slow and deliberate. It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark room but when she does, she recognizes the wary look in Croias eyes. She’s seen it staring back at her in the mirror countless times.
Kieran had said she was thin, but any evidence of that was hidden under baggie clothing and shadows. ”Has anyone offered you a drink yet?” Lord knows how Nylah drowned a stiff drink afterwards. She holds up the bottle and glasses before making her way, slowly, to a dresser closer to the door than the bed. Glass clinks gently and the sound of liquid pouring seems loud in the quiet room. It’s almost too quiet. Turning, with a glass in each hand, Nylah approaches one of the nightstands before she places a glass on the end farthest from Croia. With a little push, she sends it sliding closer.
Nylah chooses an arm chair nestled in one of the far corners of the room. Making herself comfortable, she crosses her legs and rests them on the small ottoman. The amber liquid burns, a sharp contrast to the cool glass. The tv is the only light on in the room, aside from a few rays of natural light that comes in through the breaks in the curtains. It’s a comfortable cave. One that has so many memories rushing in. Her nostrils flare. She hasn’t anticipated this. Nylah takes another sip to her quiet her thoughts. ”It helps with the dreams.” She comments almost idly, gesturing with a tip of her head to the glass of booze. It’s all she says before she lets the silence consume them.
Nylah holds up a bottle, her slender fingers curled around its neck as she asks if anyone has brought her a drink. Water, tea, juices and anything else she requests are always easily at her fingertips, but...Croía shakes her head. No one has offered her alcohol, and she hasn't asked. A part of her is afraid that if she starts, she won't be able to stop. Drowning herself in a bottle is a temptation she's not strong enough to resist. Maybe Nylah knows that, because in the midst of every slow, deliberate movement she makes, she's wise enough to pour two drinks and leave the decanter on the dresser, across the room and safely out of reach.
She drags the hem of her sweatshirt over her knees as Nylah comes just close enough to set a glass on the nightstand and scooch it casually towards her before she retreats—not to the door, but to the armchair in the corner, making herself comfortable. Croía watches it all with her brows pulled together in mild confusion, but as Nylah takes a sip of her drink, she reaches out for the one on her bedside table, drawing it to her chest and holding it with both hands. "It helps with the dreams." Croía stares at her. There's a spark of understanding, a shared pain she isn't ready to acknowledge.
So she doesn't. She raises the glass of whiskey to her lips, but unlike Nylah, she doesn't sip it. Croía drinks the whole thing in long swallows, the bourbon burning a blazing trail down her throat; she holds onto the empty glass, spinning it thoughtlessly between her fingers as her head leans back against the headboard, her eyes closed. "I see it when I'm awake, too," she whispers. Sees it. Hears it. Feels it. She can still feel those hands all over her bare skin, like they owned her. And they had—for all those months (six of them, she'd later been told) they'd used and owned her.
Croía has no idea what to do with freedom.
She's still trapped within the walls she built in her mind.
Than can damn near feel the confusion in Croia’s stare. Then understanding. And neither of them acknowledge it. It’s a secret that so few people hold and now Croia is the newest member. Nylahs past is a closely guarded secret, one she keeps under lock and key. Everyday. Kieran knew nothing for the first part of their marriage. Sure he had guessed that something had happened to her, to make her so distrustful, so hateful. But it wasn’t until later on that she told him. Everything. She painted the pictures of her first two marriages, or the horrors she endured while still getting up every morning to maintain her spot in her father’s organization. Nylah didn’t have the luxury of hiding in a room, with people at her beck and call. Nylah still had to carry on. It wasn’t until she became a widow the first time that she got to truly wallow. It was the day of the funeral. That night. She’d gotten so drunk, Harlow nearly took her to the hospital.
Croia downs her drink like her life depends on it. And in some ways, it probably does. Nylah remembers that first drink. That vicious burn of alcohol as she chugged it like she’d die if she didn’t forget immediately. She also remembers the urge to drown herself in a glass. It was a painless place, lost in the haze of a drunk, where nothing mattered and the world was a little less fucked up. But it’s always worse in the morning.
I see it when I’m awake, too.
Nylah sighs before tossing back the rest of her own drink. Clearly, she hadn’t thought it through, coming here. She hadn’t anticipated reopening old wounds. ”You will for a while.” A long fucking time actually. ”It doesn’t ever really go away.” It’s there when strangers get too close, when they offer a hug out of politeness or offering a guiding hand because she’s a lady. It’s there when the nightmares randomly resurface, when you least expect it.
Rising, Nylah makes her way back to the dresser. Getting drunk today, on Ruarcs private stash no less, hadn’t been on the agenda. But it is now. She pours herself a drink, a large one. She holds the bottle out in offering, approaching only if Croia offered her glass. ”It just gets easier to deal with.” A truth and a lie, all in one. Nylah had buried her trauma, buried it under her work until she crafted herself a reputation that made her the monster under your bed. The only thing that had actually made it easier was Kieran. Back then, if you had told her she’d be married a third time, and she’d be happy this time, she would have laughed. A faint, almost melancholy smile touched her lips. She likely wouldn’t have met Kieran, if not for everything she endured in her first two marriages. But those scars are still etched deeply into her soul. And they have been viciously torn open a year ago. Idly, she wonders what Ruarc had told her about that week, if anything.
The soft clink of glass and pouring liquid has her cracking an eye open, peering through her lashes at the proffered bottle in the other woman's grip. She quirks a brow at Nylah's comment that it gets easier, like she doesn't believe her. But she opens her eyes the rest of the way and extends an empty hand anyway, wordlessly demanding the entire decanter. Nylah seems willing enough to enable her, so Croía decides to take advantage of it—especially if they're going to be talking about their traumas or whatever. Once the bottle is in her possession, she wastes no time in taking a large swallow of the bourbon; her sweatshirt sleeve slips down in the process, revealing part of the raised scar that runs from her wrist to her elbow before she yanks the sleeve back up.
"You did this," Croía murmurs as realization dawns, her eyes drifting around the room and eventually landing on Nylah's. "You—you put this room together." It makes sense now. Ruarc doesn't know what she wants or needs, and she couldn't fathom him putting such thought into a safe place for her to hide, even if he'd tried. He can't help her, no matter the guilt and sadness in his eyes every time he looks at her. Croía is pretty sure he's afraid of her.
Her head tilts as she studies Nylah, who seems...well adjusted to her life, at the least. "Do you love Kieran?" she asks curiously, suddenly changing the topic. Croía knows she doesn't love Ruarc—she never has. But she doesn't fear him anymore, either. She didn't think he'd loved her back then, but she can see it now; she can see it in the proof of his fierce determination to find her, in his bloody sense of justice, in his refusal to leave this apartment unless he's forced, even though she won't let him near her.
She doesn't love Ruarc—but it's comforting to think that if Nylah can overcome that hurdle with Kieran, then maybe, someday, she'll be put together enough to try it, too.
A slender hand extends towards her, reaching for the entire bottle. Ruarc is going to shit his hands. So naturally, Nylah hands it over. Like thousands of dollars worth of bourbon, gone in a single morning. She almost cracks a smile. Topping off a bit of her own drink, she crosses the room to hand Croia the decanter. She’s an enabler for the day. The battered woman immediately takes another swig. In the process, her sleeve slips down her too thin arm. Even in the low light, a jagged red scar is revealed, one that extends from her wrist up her forearm. Nylah doesn’t comment nor do her eyes linger. Even at her lowest point, Nylah was far too stubborn, far too vengeful to take her own life. She’d bring all of hell with her before she stepped into the next life because of a man.
In silence they drink. Until realization settles. You did this. She nods but doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t seek her thanks or appreciation. Helping Croia helps Ruarc, but much helps Kieran. Her intentions aren’t completely pure. Nylah has been all to aware of the pressure Kieran placed upon himself to find her, to bring his brothers wife home. The same way Ruarc had brought her home. Nylah also knows how Ruarc would unravel even more if Croia drowned in her despair and took her own life. No one else had experience dealing with a woman so utterly broken under the heavy hand of a man.
Croias question is a bit a surprise, one that she doesn’t expect. But it pulls a small smile across her lips all the same. ”I do now.” Kieran probably would have laughed if he heard her question. ”I didn’t want to be married again. Sold like cattle to the highest bidder.” Her lip curled as she remembers the disdain. The rage that had consumed her when her father told her that he had found her another husband. She shook her head. ”I hated him and everything he represented.” A husband, someone to keep her, someone else to hold her leash when her father was done with her. Another man to use and abuse her like she was his property to play with. That wasn’t ever Kieran. ”I had a plan to kill him.” The look on Kieran’s face had been priceless when she told him that. A small giggle rolled off her tongue. ”But now? Yes, I do love him.” And all his sappy, lovey dovey nonsense. Now he’s her entire world.