Hothouse Flower

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RYKE MEADOWS

I can’t sleep.

Not when I know what’s going to happen.

She tosses and turns underneath her covers, kicking an invisible fucking enemy. And then around 5:00 a.m., she starts screaming. She shoots up, her eyes snapped open, and she thrashes, scurrying back towards the headboard and swatting at the air.

Her high-pitched shrieks blister my ears and instantly wake up Connor and Lo. I’m already on my feet, by her side while she stares off, focused on something that I can’t see, on something that’s not there.

She’s still asleep.

That’s the scary fucking part.

“What the hell?” Lo says, rising with Connor.

“Daisy, Daisy,” I try, but I know it’s fucking useless. She’ll wake up when she’s ready. I slide on the bed, kneeling, and I reach out to hold her, but her fist flies at my shoulder, punching me hard, like I’m the attacker.

“Get away!” she screams, fear pulsing in her big green eyes. “Leave me alone! Just leave me alone! I don’t want this! I don’t want this!” Terrified fucking tears pour down her cheeks.

Fucking A.

Lo rushes to the bed. “Daisy?! What the hell…” He climbs on the bed while she screams and cries, kicking back so quickly that the sheets bunch at her feet. She clutches the mattress beside her. Lo stands up on the bed and tries to pick her up underneath the arms.

She wails on him the moment he touches her, kicking and whipping her fists every which way. Lo raises his hands in the air in surrender and glances at me. “What the fuck?”

I stand up with him on the bed, towering over her. I smack his chest slightly with my hand. “She’s still fucking asleep.”

His brows furrow. “Her eyes are open.” He kicks a pillow at her and she freaks out again, tears running down her cheeks. My heart is racing.

“Daisy, you’re okay,” Lo tells her. “No one is in here.” She’s still unresponsive, and Lo turns to Connor who’s beside the bed, on the ground unlike us.

He wears an unreadable expression, watching Daisy’s hysterical fit.

I’m afraid she’s going to fucking hurt herself. Her nails start digging into her palms. So I grab her ankle and drag her back down onto the bed. She rolls over on her stomach like she’s crawling through barbed wire.

I bend down and flip Daisy onto her back. She thrashes. “No, no!”

I hate how wrong this looks. I want her to wake up so fucking badly, especially before someone hears her screams through the walls and calls the hotel staff.

I press my knees onto her legs, pinning her down. And I hold her wrists on either side of her body, and she screams bloody fucking murder at being trapped like this. I end up having to use one hand to cover her mouth, and she slaps me hard across the face. The sting burns, and I taste blood, my lip busting open.

Lo kneels and grabs her hand, not letting her go.

She’s stronger in these nightmares than she is awake because she’s driven by fear, an adrenaline rush that I can’t fucking begin to imagine.

Her tears well and redden her eyes. I lean forward, my face close to hers, my fingers digging into her cheek. “Wake up!” I shout. “Daisy, wake the fuck up!” Come on, sweetheart. Fight this.

“Her pulse is out of control,” Lo says, his voice flooded with worry.

I take my hand off her mouth and touch the top of her breast, her heart practically pounding through. She has to fucking wake up and calm down.

“No!” she cries like she’s dying, like someone’s killing her. Sweat beads her forehead, hot tears dripping off her jaw. “Please,” she cries, shaking her head from side to side. “Please…”

“Wake up,” I growl in her ear, combing her damp hair out of her face. Wake the fuck up.

“Be careful,” Lo tells me.

I’m not hurting her. Whoever’s tormenting Daisy in her head is. I glance over my shoulder at Connor. “Can you hand me a glass of water.”

Daisy is about to start screaming again, so I muffle her noises with my hand once more.

“You shouldn’t pour water on her face if she’s having a night terror.”

Lo glares at Connor. “You know what’s going on and you didn’t think to share?”

I stare hard at the mattress, ignoring the guilt that tries to fuck me over. You’ve known all along what’s going on, Ryke For months.

“She’s asleep,” Connor starts to explain.

“Just give me the fucking water,” I tell him. “I’m not going to drown her.” I’ve done this before.

Connor’s brows pinch as he scrutinizes me, and then he hands me her water bottle—I think more out of curiosity of what I’m about to do.

I pour some water on my free hand, and then stroke her hair out of her face again, cooling her down and hopefully waking her up soon.

She jolts at the new sensation and thrashes again. But I keep her pinned in the same position. Lo clasps her whole arm as she tries jerking out of his grasp. My muscles burn the longer I watch tears squeeze out of her eyes and fear wash over her face.

“How can she still be asleep?” Lo asks. “She’s looking at Ryke.”

“It’s a state between REM sleep and wakefulness,” Connor explains. His eyes meet mine. “How long has she had this problem?”

I shake my head, and Daisy’s leg slips beneath my knee, trying to fucking kick me again. I shift her back. “I wouldn’t fucking know.”

He doesn’t believe me. “You haven’t seen her like this before?” he questions with an arched brow.

“Why would you think I have?” I retort with a dark glare.

“Because you’re the closest person to her, and you don’t look surprised by this.”

“I am fucking surprised,” I retort.

Connor shakes his head, still disbelieving.

“I just fucking reacted, Connor,” I retort, my brother frowning between me and him. He’s trying to give me the benefit of the doubt, which is making this fucking painful. “Stop turning it into a thing.”

And then Daisy’s eyes slowly focus on me. Her tense limbs slacken, but the panic stays in her gaze.

I peel my hand off her mouth. “Daisy?”

She blinks a few times, and Lo releases her arm. I sit up off her body, and she touches her head in confusion. When she truly meets my eyes, her face breaks and she starts crying again.

I immediately lift her into my arms, and she hides her face in her hands. “They were here,” she says. “They were stabbing me—”

“Hey,” I say roughly, stroking the back of her head. “You’re safe. No one’s here but me, Connor and Lo.” She’s on my lap, in my arms, where she’s been so many times before.

But it’s fucking different now.

We’ve never been in front of other people. And we’ve never called ourselves anything other than friends.

Lo climbs off the bed. “Daisy, who’s them?”

Her hot tears wet my gray shirt, and she mumbles into my chest, “Bad guys.”

Lo frowns. “What’d she say?” he asks me.

“Bad guys,” I say. “It was a fucking nightmare.” But no matter how imaginary her dream was, to her, in those three minutes, it felt real, more so than any kind of bad dream I’m used to.

I understand why she’d rather not take the medicine at all, but she has to sleep some. It’s trading one bad place for another.

Daisy’s arms wrap underneath mine, clutching onto me tightly. My brother gives me a single warning look like, You can’t lead her on.

His concern is warranted. I would feel the same fucking thing if I was him in this situation. But no part of me wants to disentangle her from my body.

Still, I know I have to.

I whisper in her ear, “I’m going to tuck you into bed, and you’re going back to sleep.”

“What?” she breathes. She glances up at me with wide eyes, and she shakes her head. “No, Ryke. I can’t go back…”

“You’ll be fine,” I tell her, prying her arms from mine and setting her back against the mattress.

“No,” she cries. She springs up immediately. “No, please don’t do this…I need you—”

“Daisy,” I say her name forcefully. My lips find her ear. “You have to fucking try to sleep again.” I rise off the bed, and she hugs her legs and rests her forehead on her knees, sobbing.

I turn to my brother, my heart clenching, and I throw my hands up like, What do you want me to fucking do now?

His brows are furrowed in concern. “Daisy? What can we do? I can get Lily on the phone.”

She shakes her head and wipes her tears. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

While my brother keeps conversing with her, Connor suddenly rests a firm hand on my shoulder. “I need to talk to you,” he says quietly.

He looks angry. His deep blue eyes pierce me in accusation, and his fingers are digging into my skin. He rarely shows this kind of emotion—and he’s letting me see it on purpose.

He knows.

He knows I’ve been keeping her problems a secret, and he probably gathered that they stemmed from a traumatic event.

I don’t want to talk about her issues with him. “Maybe later,” I say, stepping out of his hold.

“Ryke, this is serious.”

“You don’t think I fucking know that?” I growl under my breath. I glance back at Lo who’s looking between us, but he doesn’t say anything and Connor and I shut down the conversation.

Lo hands Daisy a water bottle. She takes small sips, leaning against the headboard. “How many times has this happened?” my brother asks her.

“Not that much.” She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. “It was just a nightmare.”

“Not according to the smartest guy in the goddamn room.”

“The world,” Connor corrects him, hiding his anger from my brother. “Being smarter than the three of you really isn’t that big of an achievement.” He pauses. “No offense.”

“I’m fucking offended,” I retort.

“Oh, sorry,” he says flatly. “I don’t really care about your feelings.”

Lo shoots us a look. “Now’s not the time for you both to go at it.” He takes the water from Daisy when she finishes with it. “Are you going to do something about your night terrors or whatever they’re called—or are you hoping it’ll magically go away?”

She smiles weakly. “Magic,” she says. “I’ve consulted with three blue fairies and Tinkerbell. I think they’ve got me covered.”

Lo glares.

“Joking,” she tells him. “I’ve been to a doctor. It hasn’t been as bad as tonight. I think with what happened at the runway the other day, my head as been all screwy.” She downplays the degree of her illness. I would believe her in this moment.

I know Lo does.

I know Connor can’t.

The facts that he just acquired disprove her words, and he can easily look past Daisy’s sweet-natured voice and bright smile. He’s talked to me a few times about Daisy being depressed—and if she needed to go see a therapist. He diagnoses people from afar and only fucking brings it up when he wants to.

Daisy rests her head on the wooden headboard, her shirt stained with sweat, her limbs sagging like she just ran a marathon. I watch her foot cramp and her calf muscle spasm, and she brings her leg to her chest and massages it herself with a wince.

Normally that’d be me.

But I stand at the edge of the bed, close to coming clean about everything right here. I just want to hold her. Even if I told my brother the truth, I can see Lo kicking me out of the room, tossing my bag in my face, telling me to get on a plane.

Like he said before, he let me into his life, and it seems like I went after his girlfriend’s little sister like a predator.

That was never my fucking intention.

Sure, I want to fuck her. But it’s more than that. It’s always been more than that.

I stay quiet and rub my jaw, so much taken out of me tonight. If I do right by her, I do wrong by him. I wonder if the only way to move forward is to unearth my past with my brother.

I don’t know if I’m ready for that shit storm.

I just want to forget with him—but I wonder who’s been the stronger brother all this time.

Lo has confronted our father. He’s worked out his feelings. He’s rebuilt a relationship with him while trying to stay sober.

I’m the one who can’t deal.

Maybe that has to fucking change.