The storm clouds began brewing the night after Emmett and I disclosed the full extent of our feelings towards each other. Call it my subconscious trying to protect myself and put up walls to make sure that this didn't completely and utterly destroy me when Emmett realized just how little I deserved someone as amazing as him, but the lightning and thunder that greeted me as I awoke the next morning was something fierce and not to be trifled with.

The nightmares all swirled together into one writhing mass. At first it was Christian's face, gorged on blood as if a vampire, then his eyes morphed into those of my mother's disapproving and unbelieving of my claims even as I cried in anguish at her feet.

And then I was transported to that court room the first time. The lawyers berated me and then suddenly I turned into the evil prosecution throwing blameful allegations my own way, I was destroying myself.

I spotted Amalia in the audience, being held hostage by Raphael but each and every time I rose to try and help her, I was strapped down by handcuffs and soon I was draped in an orange jumpsuit, the implications of this imagery self explanatory.

A large dancing heart in the background had a crack right down the middle taking pictures of the whole ordeal, like a person in a heart mascot was documenting my pain for the world to see.

Nate was there, then, hiding in the back and snickering to himself while he plied himself with alcohol and slapped around a girl he was with that looked just like Layla, but it wasn't her. No, Layla was in a cemetery a few scenes over and I was then grieving her death even though she had only done me wrong.

And then there was a mass grave filled with the victims I'd tried to help at one point in time, and then Christian came back, standing atop his pile smiling proud of what he deemed his accomplishments.

I didn't realize until after I'd woken up that one person in that pile wasn't female, but a very male and very familiar face.

I tried to reason with myself, to tell myself that I was worthy enough for Emmett's love and that this case with Christian wasn't going to tear us apart, that I had healed enough in our time apart to be enough for him to love, but there was always that nagging self doubt in the back of my mind that always kept me so completely unwell, on the edge of healthy but still firmly planted in the sickness.

If Emmett noticed my sour mood he didn't comment on it, but a chirp from my cell phone brought me out of my trance as soon as I read the words in the contents of the email, but before I could even process the words Malcolm's face was flashing back up at me and I was almost paralyzed, unable to answer it.

Emmett noticed my state of disarray and grabbed up the phone for me, answering it hastily.

"He what? Well, how do you know he's in the area? Why the hell do you think he'd be a danger to her? Well yeah but that's a coincidence, isn't it? Shit. Why would he even come back here, especially after all that he's done? So I need to up my security, yeah that's fine I can do that. He won't come anywhere near her, trust me on that. Okay, I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for calling man and I will let her know that she's off of this, I'm glad the professor knows of the personal stakes in this case. Alright, later man."

A paragraph of words, a handful of sentences, and still the weight and gravity of those syllables stitched together in a language that I was supposed to be fluent in sounded like straight up gibberish because of the roaring behind my ears, the blood pushing everything through my body faster than ever and I was dangerously close to a panic attack.

I slid down the ground, my back against the wall of the granite island in the kitchen and drew my bare knees up to my chest, allowing my robe to fall to my sides and shivered as I was only wearing a bra and underwear underneath the satin material.

I could only feel cold at first, as if it was the first sensation to pass through my numb field of pain. I was scared to let everything else back in.

Christian had skipped town, broken his house arrest for the second time. The cops had searched his place once they found out he had escaped, and gained access to their second home on Lake Charles. They'd found the murder weapon. Apparently he was too proud to throw it out.

It was an old pistol, one that had been in the family for a generation or two, and he couldn't just throw it out considering it had been displayed in a glass case in their lake house. He used it, murdered an innocent, and then put the weapon right back as if it had never been used.

The email from my professor was so nonchalant. She was so professional, noting how she hadn't known of my personal stake in the case until recently and that of course my help was 'appreciated' but I was no longer permitted to work on the case. She went on to say that he had been spotted in my area and "due to the extenuating circumstances" I needed to keep an eye out. Apparently he'd exhibited some concerning mental health issues and was deemed both a danger to himself and others and was to be considered armed and dangerous.

I stared straight ahead at the wall in front of me, pretending that the light grey painted sheetrock wasn't about to close in on me completely.

"Lydia? What can I do?"

Nothing. There was nothing that Emmett could do in that moment, nothing but just be there and be present and hold my hand and distract me, to let me think that everything was okay when it most certainly was not okay.

"Just hold me, please."

And he did, his arms encircling me immediately and I allowed myself to rest my head against him, the comfort immediate and perfect, but I knew that I couldn't use him as a crutch forever. Soon, I was going to have to figure out how to cope without him, sometime very soon, but I basked in his love that he was willing to give and tried to forget that I was an absolute fucked up mess that could be destroyed in a millisecond and that Emmett deserved so much better than me.

I was losing myself in him, something that I allowed myself to do with Nate after Christian...but I obviously intentionally blocked out all the abuse that Nate gave me. There was something that they used to say, about how predators would be able to sniff out those vulnerable and those that had already been abused themselves, because it was easier to manipulate and hurt them even further because of how fragile they were.

And that was what I was- fragile. I had tried to prove to myself and everyone else that I wasn't. I went out to the bars and I made sure that women were safe from those very predators that had preyed upon me.

But what was I supposed to do when they just wouldn't stop coming back?

It was like this whole thing had started with Christian, and I knew that that was how it was going to end. I just didn't know if that meant that I would end up in a body bag because of him, the ending of this story so ridiculously unclear.

One thing was for sure, though. I wouldn't let Christian hurt Emmett. I would gladly give myself for him no matter what, and what was amazing was the fact that I knew he would do the same for me without hesitation.

We were the definition of unconditional love, and I didn't know where that left us in terms of using each other to heal from our own personal traumas but I knew that as we sat there on the kitchen floor wrapped up in each other's arms digesting the very real danger that I was in, that there was no one else that I would have rather been in mortal danger with, and if that didn't completely sum up our entire relationship then I didn't know what could.