The Prison Project (by Bethany Donaghy) novel Chapter 77

Margot’s POV

I jolted upright, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs that I thought it might very well crack them.

Sweat coated every inch of my skin, soaking the neckline of my vest, my chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid bursts like I’d been underwater too long and only now broken through to the surface.

My throat burned.

My eyes stung.

And I couldn’t breathe.

Tears were already streaming down my face, hot and panicked, unprovoked, before I could even remember what had woken me in the first place.

A scream?

No.

My own scream.

One I didn’t even realise I had let out…

Or did I imagine it?

It was still pitch black in the room.

Cold.

Unfamiliar.

My hands flung out to my sides instinctively, searching for something, anything to tell me where I was before I heard the fast shuffling of sheets come from beside me…

“What is it?!” came Coban’s rough, panicked voice. “What’s wrong?!”

I couldn’t make out his face at first, before my eyes eventually adjusted in the dark, seeing that Coban was already sitting up, the covers pooling around his lap as his eyes scanned over me like I’d just been attacked,

His hands reached for me, unsure at first, then firm and grounding as they found my shoulders.

I flinched.

Only a little.

But enough for him to notice.

“Hey, hey, it’s only me. You’re safe in here, I can promise you that,” he said, more softly than I ever thought he was capable of. “What happened?”

I turned to him finally, my lungs still fighting for air, my limbs trembling.

“I… it was… I had a bad dream,” I panted, eyes wide, vision still blurry with tears at the memory of my father’s face flashing across my mind.

He sighed, an exhale that was both exhausted and relieved, and without another word, he just pulled me toward him, wrapping an arm around my back and dragging me flush against his side like it was second nature.

I didn’t fight it.

I didn’t even think about it.

I melted into him, the terror still lingering at the base of my skull as we lay back down together… the smell of him seeming to ground me better than oxygen ever could.

“You’re too stressed,” he murmured, his voice coated in sleep but still somehow firm. “Too damn upset all the time. It’s messing with your head now. You need to relax, it’s only the first week, Bella.”

His fingers drifted across my spine, tracing a slow pattern that made my eyes flutter closed even though I wasn’t ready to return to sleep just yet.

Not after that nightmare…

Not after what it was about…

My father’s face was still scorched into my memory like a brand. The look in his eyes. The belt in his hand. The words he used to scream at me that made Coban’s own yells sound like child’s play in here.

It terrified me how closely I’d been able to draw the line between the two men. But Coban wasn’t my father. He was… something else entirely.

Something a whole lot better to add…

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words falling out of me without my permission, but I knew I meant them.

He tensed beneath me.

But it was real.

I felt the tension in my chest loosen just a little. Just enough to make the pain bearable.

“I don’t know what this is,” I whispered into the dark, not even realising I’d said it aloud until his fingers. paused in their path across my back.

“This?” he echoed.

“Us,” I clarified, before I could backtrack. “This… thing that’s growing between us. I don’t know what it is. What it’s meant to be. It scares me!” I admit, despite my better judgment of keeping it to myself.

He didn’t answer that.

Not directly.

But his arm tightened around me a little more. His fingers returned to their slow rhythm, and when I tilted my face up to glance at him, his jaw was set – not in anger, but in thought.

Like he didn’t know the answer to any of it either.

But was he even willing to figure it out?

With me?

“Let’s get back to sleep, you have a report to give in the morning and I have visitations…” he mumbles, his tone not giving me much of what I had hoped for.

“One last thing…” I hummed, topping off the words with an unpredicted yawn.

Feeling his head turn towards me, he waited. “Hm? What’s that?” He presses for me, as I bite back the tiny smirk growing on my face.

“We missed dinner… we skipped another meal again…” I state, before feeling his chest move in a genuine laugh.

“Fuck… that we did!” He muses, shuffling slightly to get comfy, keeping me at his side. “We’ll try again next time.” He states, as I nod and soak up the gentle moment.

We’ll try again…