The Promise (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 2) by Bethany-Kris (fiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

her trembling lips even as she tried to suck in gulpfuls of air to calm the raging currents of her emotions. The only thing she could do was breathe. Though it didn’t help to make her feel like it was enough, she was still able to do it.

So, she did.

Rapidly filling her lungs with air as much as she could, it at least kept the black smog from filling her vision entirely. If only it did something for ... everything else.

The crawling on her skin.

The noise in the room.

Any of it.

All of it.

But it didn’t.

She weaved her fingers through her hair before dragging them down her face.

Karine was sure she’d been standing up, but now it was as though she couldn’t stop from sinking. Her knees bent without permission. It was more than just gravity pulling her down.

Then, there were the voices.

Clearer than ever.

Scared, and vicious.

She didn’t know where they came from except that they were inside ... inside her. They were a fading echo. A younger voice, a girl’s—she was sweet, her words kind, but she sounded desperate all the same.

It’s okay, Karine. We’re okay here. It’s okay.

She could almost imagine the small hands of the girl stroking her arms and back every time she tried to comfort her.

Overlapping that voice was someone else’s. An older voice—still female—that she couldn’t place, and didn’t feel like she knew quite as well. She was snappy. Angry. Get a hold of yourself, Karine. A commanding voice.

One she should listen to.

Except Karine couldn’t do anything.

The voices filled her head, their words too sharp in her ears, and she couldn’t think straight while they battled for attention. Even covering her ears and asking for them to stop didn’t help.

Why was this happening?

On the floor, fists shaking against her head, rocking side to side to soothe how overwhelmed she was, Karine found at least there, it didn’t feel like she was falling. Nothing else helped. The voices just kept getting louder, bouncing off the walls and filling the room.

Who are you ... who are you ... who are you?

Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?

Worse, was that they spoke like she did know them—or that she should. They apparently knew her.

She no longer recognized the elements of the bedroom. Where did all the furniture go? Even the walls disappeared when she tried to look up.

Sometimes, in intervals, searing pain ravaged her feet. Once, when she looked down, the bloody mess smeared across her ankles and legs finally brought the floor into focus. She couldn’t quite comprehend the pain, or why she was feeling it, though. The reason for the blood barely even registered.

None of it settled in her brain long enough to understand—as fast as the thought landed, it would soar away. Her ears, filled with those voices, rang again until she was begging for it to stop.

“No. No. Please ... stop.”

She kept muttering to herself, repeating a mantra that felt safe and loud even if it didn’t help the problem. It was the only thing she could think to do because even the idea of unraveling from the ball she’d tightened herself into on the floor where she sat was too draining. She wished they’d stop—those voices—that they’d go away, but they didn’t.

Or wouldn’t.

She was helpless and trapped in a body and mind that was battling to be occupied by two other voices. They sounded nothing like her.

They weren’t her.

And she didn’t want them out.

“Karine, hey, look at me.” The male voice broke sharply through her thoughts like metal falling through glass. Shattered fragments fell away. It was his hands curving under her tucked chin, tilting her face out of where she’d buried it in the darkness that sucked away everything and brought his face into clear focus. All at once. Roman stared back at Karine through the wetness of her tears, and asked softly, “Can you hear me?”

Yes.

Yes, she could.

The relief was instant, the silence in her mind bewildering, and Karine couldn’t help but launch herself away from the pit she’d fallen in and into the promise of safety Roman offered to her. Springing up from the floor and into his arms, open for her, her cheek hit his chest when she landed against him. His strong arms wrapped tightly around her body, and she heard the whoosh of air leave his lungs the second he held her.

“I know you heard me say to get the first aid kit—what are you standing there for?” asked Roman gruffly.

Karine looked around the room to find it had come back with walls and all. Masha stood only a foot away, deathly pale with worry writing heavy lines in her forehead. Had she been there all along?

“Yes, sorry, I know,” Masha whispered, wringing her hands together, “but I just wanted to calm her down a bit first, but she wouldn’t listen. She refused—it was like she couldn’t even hear me.”

The tearful strain in Masha’s hoarse voice drew Karine’s gaze to hers where she found the woman’s silent pleading staring back. Please be okay, she seemed to say.

Softly, Masha told Roman, “I’ll be right back with the kit.”

He didn’t reply, and Masha was quick to flee the room, closing the door behind her as she left. Karine pulled away from Roman’s arms, and he released her without argument. But only because it allowed him to bend down and survey the damage done to her feet. Cuts that she couldn’t explain marred the soles of her feet that were now throbbing with the same searing pain from earlier.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, sucking air through his teeth before adding, “This looks bad.”

It wasn’t the cuts that bothered her the most, but the blood. She’d forgotten about that. Soaked into the large carpet where the bed sat and smeared across the floor, the stains had been violently dragged around where she’d seemingly walked in circles. Not that she could remember walking anywhere let alone in the same place.

The sight of all the blood made her nauseous, and without warning, Karine started