by Wyatt, Dani
We lay there until the fire is barely warm, then I get up and throw a few more logs on and something comes to me.
I walk over to my duffel, pull a notebook out, then go to the kitchen and rummage the drawer to find two pens. Then I make my way back to where she’s laying on the blanket in front of the fire. Her naked body is open for me, beautiful, and it makes me ache for her even after taking her just moments ago, but I have a compulsive need to see what this thing is between us. To prove to us both that it’s as real as I know it is.
“I want us to both close our eyes. Then, I want you to write down what you see.”
I lay down next to her, setting the paper and pen next to her hand.
“What?”
“These visions we are having. I want to prove it’s real. To you, but also to myself. Close your eyes. Clear your mind. Let it come, then when you see something, I want you to write it down. I’m going to do the same, then we will compare what we see.”
She smiles and I pull her back into my chest, spooning her and running a hand down the curves of the side of her body.
“Okay. I’m ready if you are.”
“Okay, my Little Wolf. Close your eyes.”
We both exhale in unison and I cradle her against me, running my thumb back and forth over the soft flesh of her hip, listening to her even breathing.
In my mind, a swirling image appears. I immediately recognize the place. As though a camera is focusing, the small white structure becomes closer and clearer. Trees are blowing in the breeze around it and the door is open.
The vision zooms in, as if someone is watching now through the door, and what I see has me holding my breath, pulling Teah tighter against me.
Her body stills, her breathing halts for a long moment, then her hand comes up and she reaches back, running her fingers through my hair.
“Do you see something?” I open my eyes, the image in my mind burned into my vision as it continues to play forward, my heart speeding as the tips of my fingers twitch against her body.
“Yes.” Her soft voice is full of something that sounds like mild shock. “Did you?”
“Yep.” I answer, shifting and sitting up, handing her a piece of paper and a pencil. “Write it down. Specifics. Details. Then we will compare. I don’t want to influence what you saw by telling you mine.”
“Okay.” She sits up cross-legged on the blanket and begins scribbling on her paper.
I do the same, then when I’m done, I hold the scrap of paper in my hand and wait for her to finish. When she does, I see her swallow, her teeth nipping into her bottom lip as she holds the sheet of paper up to me.
“Ready?” I ask and she nods. Her sea blue eyes cut right through me as we trade the simple sheets of paper that feel so heavy in this moment.
I look down, my eyes soaking up every word and I feel them begin to burn. I feel like I’m floating, and as I look up I see Teah staring down at the paper in her hand. The fingers of her other hand hold lightly on the tops of her lips and her eyes are welling with tears.
“This is...” She looks up, setting the paper down, her shoulders shaking slightly. “It’s real. Really real...”
“Teah.” I’m up on my knees in front of her, the paper she handed me set aside as my hands cover her cheeks. “I have one question.” Her eyes search mine. “In your backpack, is there a white dress? The one you saw in your vision? The one I saw in mine?”
Her mouth falls open, tears drop from her lower lids and traverse down her cheeks onto my hands as she nods.
“Then we’re getting dressed. We’re getting married today.” I gulp down the knot in my throat. “That’s why we are in Chaplain. That church, or chapel or whatever it is. That’s what we both saw, that’s where we are going. You are going to be my wife.”
THE JUSTICE OF THE Peace at Chaplain Chapel straightens his glasses and looks from Teah to me. He’s got to be a hundred years old and barely looked at either of us as we did the paperwork and showed our identifications.
The entire time, I held my breath in fear that he would recognize me and say something. I want Teah to love me for me, not for the image of what I am. In my gut, I know I’ll have to tell her, but not until she’s mine in every way. I just know this is right and nothing in the world will stop me from making her my wife.
There was a moment, back at the cabin, when we were getting ready to leave. She looked at me with such excitement and anticipation in her eyes and asked simply, “We’re crazy aren’t we?”
“Yes,” I said without hesitation, and smiled at the moment of panic in her eyes. “Everything worth doing is half-crazy I think. It’s our life, Teah. Ours.”
It seemed like that was enough. She smiled and relaxed, and we were soon on our way.
The ceremony is short and sweet. The white cotton dress she wears looks exactly like the one in my vision, her hair falling loose and free around her shoulders. Her feet bare. She’s glowing, sun shining through the windows of the white chapel, and it’s hard to concentrate as I look at her and try to calm the hard on that presses up and out on my jeans as the ancient man finishes up reciting the words he must have said thousands of times.
It’s unseasonably warm today, chasing away the freezing rain and weather in which I found Teah just last night. It seems even mother nature approves of our union.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Our lips meet, and I lift her up and against me, spinning us around and down the aisle, and then out the front door. Teah is kissing and giggling and the vision of her being already ripe with a baby floats through my head.
“This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” She manages in a breathless whisper as I set her down and reach out to take both of her hands in mine.
“Me too. But tell me it doesn’t feel right. Tell me we don’t feel like we fit. Like we’ve been together for a long time.”
“It does. It feels right.”
“You know what else feels right?” I pull her into me, the length of my cock throbbing and painful, desperately wanting her.
“Oh yes? What’s that?” The smirk on her lips is playful.
“Getting you back to the cabin and wrapping that soaking mess between your legs around my cock. Because I know you’re wet, aren’t you?” I bend down and kiss her neck and she arches into me.
“I think that sounds like the perfect honeymoon.”
With that, I scoop her up, yelping and laughing, and carry her to the car. There are a few people on the street and they stop to look at our happy scene and for a second, the fear I could be recognized hits me. But I’m focused on getting her back to the cabin where I can show her over and over just how I’m going to love her for the rest of our lives.
10
Lachlan
I never thought I’d think this, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up with her. I’m thinking she may be the death of me.
After we got back from the chapel, Teah was as ravenous for me as I was for her. When I called her my wife it was like the words set something free. She nearly tore my clothes off, dropping to her knees with a fury before sucking me off, all the while looking up at me with those wide eyes. And to my joy and shame it was only a few minutes before I filled her throat, but I wasn’t done. Oh no. I spun her around and fucked her with such wild frenzy I truly felt like the wolf from our visions.
We discovered new positions and I came so many times I lost count. Even after I collapsed, she sucked me again until I was hard, then took over on top, riding me until she came another few times and to my shock I did too.
When her body was too sore to take me anymore and cum was coating her body, she finally gave up, laying down next to me as we fell into a stupor for a good hour before I woke up, parched.
“You stay right here, I’ll get us something to drink.”
“I don’t think I can walk, so that won’t be a problem.”
I head for the refrigerator, grabbing us two waters and twi
sting one open, and hear my phone chiming in my bag. I haven’t looked at it since this morning. It’s late afternoon now and the weight of my life outside this utopia suddenly feels like a weight around my neck.
I reach down into my bag, grabbing the phone but not looking at the screen, unable to bring myself to interrupt the most perfect day of my life. I take the bottles back to the bedroom, setting one on the nightstand along with my phone, then hold the open bottle to Teah’s lips, letting her take a long drink.
Her auburn hair is a sex mess as she sits up and I lay down on my side, propped on my elbow to admire her.
“I love you, Teah. I’m as sure of that as I am of anything in my life. I’m going to take care of you. Take care of us. It’s the only thing in my life that has made sense to me in so long.”
Her smile relaxes me and I take a drink of the cool water, feeling it slide down my throat, the scent of her pussy still on my face.
She opens her mouth to say something, but a horn honking outside breaks the moment.
I shift upward, looking out the window of the small bedroom and see a car kicking up dust. Just one at first.
Then another. And more coming down the small dirt road behind those.
More horns, then voices calling my name.
“Lachlan Marcus!”
Teah’s eyes go wide, looking to me and gathering the sheet up and around her naked body.
“What’s going on?” Her panicked voice cuts me. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know.” I’m up and in my jeans in a heartbeat, ready to go to war with whoever and whatever this is that is infiltrating our world and bringing fear to Teah’s eyes.
There are more voices and I go to the window.
“There! I see him.” A man with an enormous camera sees me in the window and brings it to his eye, snapping pictures. “It’s him. Lachlan! Who’s the girl? Who’s the lucky girl from the chapel?”
My blood runs cold and I hear Teah’s voice behind me, questioning in fear, asking what’s going on.
I back away from the window, grab my phone as it rings again. It’s Beverly.
Teah is staring at me as I answer.
“Hello?”
“Lachlan. It’s all over the news. It’s everywhere. They know about the wedding and they will find you. You have to get out now. I’ve got a security detail heading your way, but they won’t get there soon enough. Go somewhere safe and let me know, I’ll send them to you to get you out. The vultures are coming, Lachlan.”
Her words send knives into my heart as the sounds outside increase.
“Teah, get dressed.” I order, hating the look of fear in her eyes as she scrambles around and does as I say.
More cars, more voices, more cameras flashing and we are trapped. Teah is crying, cowering into the bathroom, questioning me, and all I can do is wrap her in my arms and try to figure a way out of this.
I reply to Beverly as my blood turns cold. “They’re already here.”
11
Teah
“Just stay right here.” Lachlan holds me by the shoulders, his eyes wild as I lean against the bathroom sink, trying to get my bearings. We dressed so fast, I barely even noticed it.
People are outside the cabin, screaming his name. His name.
Not mine, I tell myself. Not mine.
But I can’t hold back the fear, the memories from before. It all comes flooding back. The messiah in the group where my parents lived. That’s what they called him. The man who led us from before I was born until I was ten years old. His visions told us where to go, what to do, what to think. And when I’d shown my ability to have visions as well, I became tangled to him. To the group.
Only, he didn’t have visions. He faked everything. But he validated my visions and I validated his because I didn’t know what else to do. Then, one day, the FBI, the government, came for him and they came for me as well.
And so did the TV cameras. I remember people screaming my name. I remember being pulled away from my parents.
In the frenzy, my parents and some of the members of the group were able to grab me. We fled and went into hiding, and my life from then on was more normal than I’d ever known, but the memories never left me.
But this is different, I have to believe that. Lock proved it to me. These visions are real, not fake, and these people are calling his name, not mine.
But why? Who are they? What do they want with him? Who really is Lachlan Marcus?
First it was just a couple of them, but now the entire small structure is surrounded and out the window, which Lock has now draped with a sheet, all I could see were people running up and taking pictures, calling his name and asking who I was.
“What’s going on? How do they all know you?”
“Baby.” He squeezes me as terror fills my chest. “Just trust me, okay? I won’t let anyone hurt you. I won’t let them hurt us, but you have to give me some time to fix this, you have to trust me. And we need to get away from here.”
He goes to the bathroom window and looks outside. I can still hear the voices, but they’re distant, and when he turns back to me there’s something like relief in his face.
“There’s nobody on this side of the cabin right now,” he says. “It’s not perfect, but we can squeeze through this window.”
“I don’t know...” Fear grips my throat and I shake my head. The idea that someone might recognize me makes my heart thunder. I was ten years old, I’m sure no one would know it’s me, but the terror from those memories squeezes my chest and makes it hard to breathe. “I need to tell you—”
“Do you trust me?”
I nod. “Yes, but—”
“Nothing else matters, Teah. Nothing. I’m going to keep you safe.” He peers through the window again. “I’m going to climb through first, then I’ll help you through behind me. We can head straight from here into the woods. Look, Teah, there are things about me you don’t know, but I can’t explain right now. There’s a security team heading our way and they’ll get us away, but we can’t stay here.”
Security team?
In a daze, I stand there as he quietly eases the window open, then squeezes through, athletically dropping down on the other side. I take his hand when he offers it, and start to climb up, looking out the window, then I freeze.
Someone is there. And they’ve seen us.
“Hey! He’s here! Lachlan’s right here!”
Lock turns at the sound of his name, and I pull from his hand.
They’re calling for him, shouting his name, more voices joining in all the time and I can’t fight off the desperate terror that is growing in my belly.
Whatever is happening, it puts into sharp focus just how little I know about the man I married today. The words of the Justice of the Peace echo in my head that we had until tomorrow morning to annul the marriage.
Tomorrow.
I can still get out of this.
Sobs grip my body as the thought that I could already be carrying Lachlan’s baby engulfs me. The world is just like my parents said. I made a mistake thinking I wanted to be part of it.
It feels like a hand is gripping my throat, cutting off my air, and I sink to the floor and crawl out of the bathroom, grabbing my backpack as I head into the living room. I sit down and take a long deep breath, gathering my courage, ignoring the shouts of Lachlan Marcus all around the cabin and the sound of his voice calling for me.
I don’t know how to drive, but I do know how to run. And it sure seems like all these people are really just interested in Lock, so I gather up all of my things, shoving them into my backpack.
Peeking out of the front door, I see cars but no people. They must have all run to the back of the cabin when they found out he was there. It’s clear. It’s my only chance.
I hitch my pack up onto my shoulder, and I’m off at a dead run toward the path that leads to the other cluster of cabins. I hear yelps and screams from behind me, but all I can think to do is run.
All the y
ears of lessons and teaching from my parents flood through me. The survival skills, the lack of trust in the outside world.
I run past the cluster of cabins until my lungs burn and the path begins to disappear. I look left and right, trying to decide what’s next. Where to go. It’s warmer that the other night, but I still need to find or make some kind of shelter to get me through the night.
Then, I don’t know. I’m married to a man I don’t know who clearly has a life into which I can never fit.
I walk through the woods and find a hollow under a large tree. I just need to sit for a minute, to think and try to figure my way through everything that’s happening.
I’ve barely slept and the adrenaline is wearing off. My lids are heavy and I take off my pack and lean into it against the base of the tree. Reaching inside, I pull out a heavy sweatshirt and cover myself with it, fighting off the visions of Lachlan holding a baby, sitting on a porch somewhere, smiling back at me.
I shake my head, trying to clear the vision.
As I drift off to sleep, I hear my father’s voice telling me when I left to go find my way in the world that I’d be sorry. That I’d see why they kept me from the world the way they did.
A hard slumber takes me and I’m relieved. I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know where to go. Tomorrow morning, I will find a phone. I will call the shared phone in the compound where I last saw my parents and beg for them to come and save me.
They were right. I was wrong.
My chest is tight. I can’t do this. I can’t live like this.
Tears stream down my cheeks as I fall asleep. My heart shatters in my chest and each piece has a part of Lachlan reflecting back.
I’M DREAMING.
It’s Lachlan’s voice.
“Teah.” His hands run behind my neck, warm and safe. “Baby, don’t ever run from me. I said I would fix this and I will.”
