Then again… I have to wonder if I’ll always be in some sort of prison.

“It’s so messed up,” Cora continues, setting her coffee down on the wooden table beside her. She lifts her teary eyes to me as she twists back around. “That was almost us, Dean. That was…”

I hear the panic in her voice and I see it in her wide, green eyes, so I inch my way closer to her on the couch. “Shh, hey… it wasn’t us. We got the fuck out and we survived.” I reach out to graze my knuckles against her cheek, watching as a tear slides down and collapses on my finger. Cora’s eyelids flutter closed as she sucks in jagged breaths. “We’re alive, we’re breathing, and we’re never going back.”

Cora raises her hand to touch mine, cradling my fingers. The contact makes something inside me spin and buzz and squirm. I grind my teeth together while she brazenly nuzzles her face against my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She kisses the heel of my palm, and I almost fucking lose it.

“I go back there every night.”

Hell. I pull her in, clutching her to me and letting her head fall against my chest like a lost lover. I wrap both arms around her, twining my fingers through her silky strands of hair, inhaling her familiar, calming scent. “Is this okay?”

She nods against my t-shirt, slinking her own arm around my midsection. “It’s okay.” Cora is silent for a long time, her breathing more even and steady. I almost wonder if she’s fallen asleep until she murmurs, “It doesn’t feel like Christmastime.”

I continue to stroke her glossy locks, massaging her scalp with the tips of my fingers as I try to alleviate her pain the best I can. I slide my opposite hand into the pocket of my sweatpants and pull out my phone, scrolling through the stations until I find the one I want. I turn the volume up and lean back, holding Cora in my arms as Christmas music begins to serenade us through my cell phone speaker.

I feel her relax almost instantly, burrowing her tear-stained cheek further into my chest.

Cora falls asleep a few moments later with I’ll Be Home For Christmas echoing in our ears, warming us up, taming our tortured souls… and I know I’ll be perfectly content if this is all I get for Christmas this year.

Chapter Fifteen

O N E Y E A R E A R L I E R

“You’re probably going to think I’m a weirdo, but I sorta got you a Christmas present.”

My brow furrows in confusion, my eyes glazing over with equal parts curiosity and spiked eggnog. Then I feel like a giant dick because I didn’t get her anything. Cora and I have never exchanged gifts before—well, except for that one year I gave her a vibrator shaped like Santa Clause that said, ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ as it vibrated. She, in turn, gifted me with a sharp punch to the shoulder. “Shit, Corabelle. I didn’t get you anything.”