by Angela Foxxe
“I would feel better, but I’m not going to make you.” He put his hands up, surrendering to me.
“Give me some time,” I told him.
“I just thought that was why you came back down here.” He shrugged. “I was trying to make it easier on you.”
I laughed a little at his offer. It was nice of him to do that. I had almost wanted to ask to stay, but not for the reasons that he was putting forth. I wanted to stay and find myself close to his wonderfully built body. “It wasn’t that.”
“What was it then?”
“I just didn’t have my key.”
We shared a laugh about missed moments and the disconnect that happened between the two of us. I looked at him, there was something hiding behind his eyes too, a need that he wasn’t willing to speak about. I could see it, but maybe I was just projecting my own desires onto him. Frankly, there was only one way to find out and I wasn’t sure that I was willing to take that step quite yet. There were too many possibilities, but I knew that I couldn’t be fired yet. I was still carrying his baby, it was a pretty good indication of job security.
“I think I might take my vacation time.” I had been thinking about it. I knew that I had a thousand little ideas in my brain, a thousand ideas that seemed to be running back and forth and I knew that all of them were wrong. I should not be feeling this way about a man like that, a man who would drag me into a world that I knew nothing about and I knew that I wasn’t ready for that yet. There was no way that I was ready for that.
I groaned and followed him. I would feel safer if I spent the night closer to him. I agreed with that, but still how close could I stand to be before I lost my mind with the special desire that I felt for this man.
I could go on all day with the distraction that he was causing me, but I’m pretty sure I made my problems pretty clear. The truth was that I didn’t have the courage to act on it right then, but the world seemed to swirl around me. There were too many thoughts in my head, ideas that my body didn’t want to control. I groaned and followed him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Is there anything that I can do? I know that this has been hard on you.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.” I scoffed at what he had said. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do because he actually turned away, his face stern. I must have hurt his feelings. Something about the way I was running from myself made me snappy, and I didn’t know how to apologize, how to explain what I had done without giving too much information. I wasn’t ready for him to know the inner workings of my mind.
I sighed and he led the way, showing me a nice bed in one of the rooms. I knew immediately that this was his room. “Where are you going to sleep?” My heart started to pound. I hoped that he was going to say that he would sleep with me.
He started and paused before thinking for a moment. “I don’t know, probably on the couch.”
I cocked my head. I couldn’t resist making a comment. “Where were you thinking about sleeping?” The smirk plastered on my lips must have made my joke clear.
He grinned back, but his eyes were sheepish. He was afraid of going too far, of saying something that he couldn’t take back. I can’t say that I blamed him at all. It must have been a strange situation for him to be in. “I didn’t think I’d be sleeping tonight at all.” He was keeping it vague. I liked that because it allowed me to use my imagination, but hated because it left me not knowing where I stood. That was some pretty unsteady ground. Needless to say, I spent the night alone, tossing and turning, dreaming about his hot hands all over my body.
I moaned in my sleep, calling out his name a few times I’m sure, as I pictured his lips running up and down my body, slowly caressing my skin. My mind ran through the motions, making the special kind of agony unreasonably slow as my body reacted to the imagined touch. I wanted him to touch me at the nexus to my passion. I wanted to feel him inside me bringing me to the brink of excitement over and over, as we whiled the night hours away, languishing in each other’s touch.
I dreamed about the feel of his soft skin against mine, my fingers tracing little circles up and down his body. I wanted him, my body groaned with the excitement of the possibilities. My mind went over his body, I still remembered it in detail that I shouldn’t have. I had only seen it once before, but still my mind grasped his form, making him give me pleasure in my dreams. The fantasy was perfect, a beautiful melding of form and function. He was beautiful, an amazing man with stunning good looks. Even with everything that he had told me I couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t find someone to spend his life with.
I sighed, dreaming about his body rubbing against mine. The naked touch of intimacy. I dreamed that he told me that he loved me and I didn’t know how to respond to it. I wanted to be loved. It was something that I had dreamt about from the time I was a child, but I had faced the fact many years ago that there was too much in my life that I wanted to do. I wasn’t ready to give up my life to be a woman tied to the side of a man. I had never wanted that, but why was I considering pledging myself to this man and this world. I knew almost nothing about it, the world that he lived in. There was so much more to know. One could not cut an entire world down to a few words over the course of a night. I knew that, but still I felt the fur brushing against my skin. I wanted him. There was no denying it. And when I thought about the fact that I was lying in his bed it made the sinful feelings that were rushing through me a thousand times more intense.
*
Looking back now, I’m actually kind of happy that I hadn’t been sleeping well. My life still felt a little strange as I thought about what was going to be expected of me in the future. The kidnappings would continue to be a risk for the rest of my life, because I was one of few people who had the ability to carry on the shifter line.
I spent many hours thinking about what could have happened to me had I been born into this world. Torrance’s words on the subject sounded like a horror story to me. I didn’t like the thought of being treated like a brood mare for some man that I barely knew and that would treat me like a second-class citizen. I didn’t like the idea of having my fertility tested and then being sold off to the highest bidder by my family. Perhaps that was why my family had left the fold, but I still don’t know which side of the family this special ‘gift’ came from. I was slightly curious, but for some reason my mind focused on my father. Maybe it was because I never knew him and felt the need to romanticize and blame him for my problems and gifts. Maybe it was because I couldn’t imagine my mother keeping a secret that big from me.
So I laid there awake, in that room next to Torrance, my mind rushing over itself. I almost didn’t notice the smoke at first, but when the alarm sounded I knew that we were in trouble. I just had no idea how bad the trouble was. I started to cough the moment that I rose to my feet. The room was starting to fill up quickly and there wasn’t much that I could do about it. I headed for the door, but all I found was a wall. I was confused, disoriented as I struggled to find air.
I forced myself to stop, remembering that panicked people never make it out of emergency situations. I ducked down. That was what the fire fighters told me to do during our fire drills in elementary school. I remembered it as I lowered my body. I was on my hands and knees and I forced myself to take a deep breath of the clearer air down low.
I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore. This wasn’t my apartment. This wasn’t even the apartment that I had lived in for the first part of my pregnancy. No wonder I was confused. I was in Torrance’s second room. He had convinced me to move down here because he felt that I would be in danger if I stayed so far away from him.
It had been a battle of wills that had gotten me here. We had fought and argued. I knew it was the right choice for me, but still didn’t relish the thought of taking his command. It had turned out for the best, however because now I was in a burning house, trying desperately to figure out where the door was because I hadn’t had the time to fully orient mys
elf to the place yet. I groaned, but quickly realized that it was a mistake, as a rush of low hanging smoke rushed into my lungs. I began to hack and cough, struggling to find myself where I needed to go.
“Focus, Amy. Focus,” I whispered, careful to control my breathing. I fought with my panic, forcing down into my control. I had to get moving or I was going to die in here. “You aren’t going to die, just make it through this. Where’s the door?” I was whispering through gritted teeth, but I was the only one around who had to understand it.
I thought hard, making the floorplan align itself in my head. Then I pictured the floorplan to my old room and made myself place the two rooms on top of each other, using the bed to figure out how they would be positioned together. It worked fairly well. A little bit to my left would be the bathroom. I thought about it and nodded a bit; that would be a good first stop. I made it there, crawling until I found the door. “Okay, feel the door.” I was talking myself through all of the steps as I struggled into the room. The room felt cool, or at least as cool as the rest of the house that had suddenly grown unbearably hot. I climbed into the bathroom and reached up onto all of the shelves and the towel rack, pulling down everything that I could reach. I knew that it had to be done. I groaned and didn’t take the time to sort through everything. I shoved everything into the bathtub and turned on the water. I wanted soaked cloth. I pulled the knob to turn on the shower and pulled myself under the water as well. It should be good enough to get me out of the bedroom and possibly down the stairs, but I took careful note of where the bathrooms were on the path I had planned to get myself out of the house.
There had to have been a better plan for getting out of this building, but there was no fire escape or anything like that. I hadn’t worried about it at the time because I didn’t think that anything would happen, but now it had and I was starting to wonder why I hadn’t insisted on asking those questions. It was too late to change that now, I had to focus on getting me out, instead of the flaws in my life. Those things weren’t going to get me to safety. I had to do the right thing. I had to get out, then I could take care of myself first then worry about fixing everything in my life once I was certain that I would have a life to live.
I groaned, my face starting to burn, but I grabbed one of the washcloths from my pile and put it into my pocket. I picked up a towel and draped it over my arm. I thought for a moment and then picked up several more items. I could always drop them if I needed to, but it would be difficult to get back and pick anything else up. I picked up one last towel and held it over my nose and mouth. I could breathe a little easier now. The wet cloth was filtering out a lot of the smoke. I regretted not using some t-shirt fabric, but at least it was better than nothing. I walked out of the bathroom and headed for the door to the apartment, wondering where Torrance was. It seemed odd that he hadn’t rushed to my side almost immediately to see if I was alright and haul me down to safety.
I wondered if I should check on Torrance. It was probably a good idea, if I saved him, he might calm down about trying to order me around. I might actually get some autonomy around here. Still, it was too late to stand around waiting to make a decision. I made one and felt the door of Torrance’s room. It was a little warm to the touch and I realized that most of the smoke was actually coming out of his room. I instantly regretted what I was going to do, but I knew that I was going to do it.. In one quick motion, I picked up the collar of my nightshirt, put it over my nose, and replaced the washcloth that I was using. I was going into the room that I suspected had the source of the fire. Torrance was probably hurt in that room, or he would have been in my room to save me. I had to do something, I had to save him. I’m a human, and that’s what good people do, at least that’s what I was thinking at the time.
Looking back now, I don’t really regret my decision. I knew how stupid it was to do what I was doing the instant I opened the door. Smoke poured out and my makeshift gas mask didn’t do much to protect me. I began to hack and cough. My eyes burned and I couldn’t see anything around me. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my body to go against its natural inclinations. It felt wrong to walk into that room, but I started to feel around. I found nothing, and could only spend a few short minutes searching before I couldn’t take any more of the smoke.
There was no fire in the room, but the smoke was heavy there. I didn’t know what had caused it, maybe some sort of smoke bomb. I didn’t know, and frankly I didn’t care to investigate at the time. I knew that something had to be done, still I felt the bed and called out a couple of times, as loudly as the rolling smoke would let me. It was too much. I couldn’t stay and search. It felt like I was dying with every moment that I spent in the smoke.
I had to get out, but had lost my way to the door. I reached out with my hand and found a wall. I was able to follow it around to find the door, but it was not without a few challenges. The smoke was just getting thicker and thicker as I fought my way out of the bedroom and into the darkness of the apartment. The lights were off and the darkness, smoke, and chaos seemed to reign over me. I just hoped that I was choosing the right turns as I started to make my way out of the smoke.
At least I hoped that I was choosing the right directions to go. It felt like I had entered into some eternal labyrinth. There was terror around me, it smelt like burning everything, but I could see no light from the fire. I must have been in a different part of the house than the fire was in. Still I had to get out of there. I had to escape from the darkness.
I just didn’t know how I was going to do it yet. Somehow, I had to figure out how to get out of this place, and my mind reeled at the thought that I might have taken a wrong turn.
I froze for a second. Fear started to rise up inside of me as I forced myself to take control of my body. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to let my mind be ruled by fear. The house was on fire. I knew that. There was smoke everywhere. I got that. I had two choices. I could move on and do what I had to do to save myself or I could stand there on the landing with no idea of where I was going.
I’ve never been the type to hide from the world. I don’t freeze in emergencies, I don’t know what had come over me, but I managed to push it to the side and remember what type of person that I really am. I remembered this much. I wasn’t going to give up now. I kept breathing through my makeshift mask and started to move. I wasn’t going to give up. “Keep going,” I mumbled to myself before coughing a bit into my shirt. I needed to stop talking to myself. That never ended well. Too much fire and not enough air for me to breathe. My stomach growled. I was hungry for some reason. I couldn’t place it, not quite. Something made me want to scream, but I fought against the urge. It wasn’t the right thing to do in that situation. I had to keep moving and try to keep my mouth as shut as possible.
I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, but it was. I could hear noises. People were starting to move around. I made my way to the window, knowing that I had to do something to keep myself going. I stopped at the window and managed to blink through the burning pain enough to see that there was a fight going on outside. Terrible blood roiled through the grounds and I stared for a long minute, confused by the sights that I was seeing. I struggled with my own heart as I saw the veritable zoo of animals and they were jumping around, getting in a terrible scuffle.
I can’t be sure if it was just in my head or not, but I could almost hear the screams that were going on. I can’t tell you if they were screams in rage or pain and frankly I had no idea which of those two options scared me more. I shuddered. “Keep moving.” I coughed my way through the words and forced myself to pay attention to what was going on around me. I had to do something as I watched the shadows play tricks on my mind. I was seeing things in the shadows and I couldn’t do anything about it. I did my best to keep my mind from getting too far out of control, but I didn’t know how to do it. I had to focus. I tried to breathe deeply, but it didn’t work very well.
CHAPTER TEN
I think that I migh
t have blacked out at some point when I was heading down the steps. I don’t know how else to explain how I managed to stumble my way down to the ground floor and out the door. The battle raged around me and there wasn’t much that I could do about it. I was just gasping for breath, happy for the fresh air that existed out of the mansion.
“The whole damn place is on fire.” I was speaking to no one in particular, instead focusing on exactly what was going wrong with my personal life. I knew that I had to figure it out. I only had so many chances to save myself from the world that was crashing down around me. I had a lot of worry and I could hear the dangerous and deadly world of the shifters moving closer and closer as I thought about it.
I knew that the world wasn’t my biggest fan at the moment, but that didn’t mean that I was going to give up, lie down and quit. The world was starting to feel strange, but I was comfortable here. It was like I had been born to be here, at this moment, surrounded by the battle that just wouldn’t end. I had to think about it, slowly turning it over in my head as the fur and blood arced over my head, it all felt like I was trapped in a movie.
The world stopped and started to move in slow motion. I stared at a particularly bloody clump of flesh and fur that flew over my head. I stared at it at the peak of its slow arc. It was a long moment before the realization finally came over me. I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout, but all I could do is stare at the dark blonde fur. It was the same color as his fur and I knew it. There was nothing that I could do about it. I wanted to scream aloud as I realized. I wanted to cry. It was in that instance that I knew. This was going to be my world. I needed to live in this world. I needed to be near him.
My heart ached. I worried that he was dead, the dark and the smoke and the chaos made it impossible to see anything. “Torrance.” I screamed the words, begging for some kind of answer to my prayer. I needed to know that he was alive, that he would be there.
