Free Singed by Kaylea Cross Page A

intended to come to her, then stopped himself, his features set. Resigned.
    “Come sit down, Claire.” His voice was soft. Too soft, almost cajoling.
    The fear turned into a full blown panic. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She shook her head and took an instinctive step back. She didn’t want to sit down. Didn’t want to hear what they were going to tell her. Denial and terror shot through her because deep down she already knew what they were going to say. “No.” She shook her head and took another stumbling step back. “No, I don’t want to hear it.”
    “Honey,” her father rasped out, voice shot. His expression was filled with such anguish she knew her worst fears had just been confirmed.
    Danny.
    “No!” Before either of them could move she turned and bolted for the bathroom down the hall. Slamming the door shut behind her she locked it and leaned her back to it, clenching her hands in her hair, a wail of grief clawing its way up her throat. Her wobbling legs gave out and she slowly sank to the floor, caught between wanting to scream and the urge to crawl over to the toilet and throw up.
    “Jesus, oh Jesus,” she whimpered, rocking there on the cold tile floor with her arms wrapped around herself. She dimly realized she was shaking, hot tears rolling down her face. The horror and pain flooding her were too much. A hot pressure gripped her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs until it felt like her heart was about to implode. She fought to contain it, shove the agony away where it couldn’t touch her but all that did was make her throat turn raw with the ugly, harsh sounds coming out of her. So many emotions crashed through her she couldn’t process them all. Denial. Panic. Rage. And a deep, aching guilt that this was her fault.
    “Claire.” Gage’s voice, steady and calm, just on the other side of the door. She hadn’t heard him coming. “Claire, open the door.”
    No. She couldn’t. Couldn’t deal with this or having Gage see her at her most vulnerable. She curled into a tight ball and covered her head with her arms, wanting to scream. This had to be a bad dream. Any second now she’d wake up and everything would be okay again.
    “Claire. Open it.”
    “N-no,” she managed, gulping in ragged breaths in between the harsh sobs wracking her. She heard the sound of him settling against the door, heard his knees crack as he bent down.
    Then, so gently she wept even harder, he kept talking to her. “Come out, sweetheart. You don’t have to do this alone.”
    Claire curled up tighter and kept crying until she gagged. She lurched to her knees and lunged blindly for the toilet, got the seat up just in time. Her fingers curled around the edge of the plastic seat. As those first few terrible waves tore through her she dimly heard the sound of the lock rattling behind her. The door swung open a moment later. Still bent over the toilet bowl, she made a sound of misery and flung one hand out behind her to stave him off, humiliated and angry that he’d invade her privacy at a time like this. Then another wave seized her and she kept her head over the bowl as her stomach emptied itself with a gut-wrenching spasm.
    Ignoring her wishes, Gage knelt beside her. One hand wrapped around the wad of hair she’d been trying to hold back while the other reached out to tear a strip of toilet paper from the holder on the wall beside the toilet. Between the vomiting and the crying she barely had enough control to suck in the occasional lungful of air, let alone have the strength to argue or fight him.
    Her eyes watered too much for her to see what he was doing beside her. When nothing came up but bitter, acidic bile, her stomach eventually stopped rebelling and she weakly leaned her cheek against her forearms, braced on the toilet rim. Her eyes felt so swollen she could barely open them and she was shivering uncontrollably. Too weak to protest, she didn’t resist when Gage raised her upper body to brace her