by Renea Taylor
Shivering as I ran a towel over my wet hair and drenched clothing, I made my way out of the bathroom and into my bedroom, the battered and bruised feeling of my body from my little sojourn across the floor accompanying me every step of the way.
I tossed aside the now wet towel and wrapped myself within the blanket from the bed, however, found it did little to ease the chill bumps that had sprung up on my body, and absolutely nothing to calm the chattering of my teeth, or the pain and anger I felt towards Dante.
I was a quivering, quaking wreck, having been through a gauntlet of emotions and life changing events that had me uncertain of whether I was coming or going, and quivering so hard beneath the blanket I felt that if one more rattle of my teeth occurred they’d crack in two!
I needed to get warm and the heavy, wet denim of my jeans was rubbing my ass raw, not to mention other, more tender areas!
Jerking to my feet, I stomped from the room. I was in need of dry clothing, and as I began to make my way down the hall, I realized I had no idea of even where to begin looking.
Deciding that the quickest route to fulfilling my needs was through Dante, and figuring the hallway was as good a place as any to start gaining attention, I opened my mouth and began bellowing his name as I tugged on the seat of my jeans.
Pulling at the damp material, as it was already chafing, annoying an extra sensitive spot on my rump, I felt my face flush even further with rage at the realization my ass was becoming more raw with every movement I made, and in all likelihood by now, was probably as red and irritated as that of a baboons!
With little other option than to continue, I stomped down the hall muttering to myself, anger growing stronger within me with every pang of my sore rear-end.
Finally, I made it to the end of the hall, and reaching out to open the door that lead into the gathering room, I found it locked to me this time.
I began pounding on it with both hands, and though I knew the room was occupied, as I'd heard the sound of voices on the other side, they'd silenced as soon as my first blow hit, yet no one came to open the door.
After a few more minutes of useless pounding, and with tears sliding down my cheeks in anger and disillusionment, I found no reason to linger, and as I could go no further in my quest, I turned and begun making my way back to my room, where I stripped off my wet clothing, laying them across the chair before I crawled back onto the bed and beneath the now wet blanket, the thought that I'd fallen into Satan's den floating through my mind.
* * *
Several days passed, and I found myself sitting with my back against a wall for I’d become well acquainted with every crack and crevice within my room, having explored every square inch of its footage over the last few days, and I found, to my chagrin, I was bored and lonely.
Even though there were others in the house, six in fact, I might as well have been alone for all the interaction that had occurred between me and anyone else in the last two days, which brought my thoughts full circle and back around to Dante, as I hadn’t seen anything of him either.
At first being alone had suited me fine. I quite liked my own company, or so I’d thought. However, now the taxation of so much time alone, and nothing to do was getting to me, which was the reasoning behind why I now found myself leaning against the wall of my bedroom, playing pea-knuckle with myself, for though I was no longer lock away from the other rooms, I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to talk to!
Since re-entering my room, I’d tried lying on my bed, as well as sitting in the chair, but had found I was too restless to settle in either, so I’d began to explore my room again, from one end to the other and back, but that hadn't taken up much time either, as nothing had changed from my last exploration.
Uttering a groan of frustration with the lack of anything to do, I pushed myself up off the floor and away from the wall, then made my way over to the bed one more time where I lay staring at the ceiling…again.
An hour later, I was punching at my pillow and jerking the bedclothes back away from my leg again, letting the cool air flow across the exposed flesh.
Christ, if I wasn’t suffocating beneath the covers, I was feeling too chilly to be without them!
Snorting out an angry breath, a cuss word slipping from between my lips, I gave another toss of my body that had me facing the wall. Then, laying my forehead against its coolness, I heaved a sigh, however found no relief, the bed-covers attesting to the fact of my pounding head with their rumpled, twisted sideways stretch across the mattress.
Finally giving up, I climbed from the bed, my eyes hollow and red rimmed, my hair in disarray as it fell in tangled, snarled ropes down my back, my mood black.
Uttering a moan I turned, my head feeling as if I were suffering from having downed a whole bottle of whiskey, my stomach, tossing in its own two cents, churned edgily in its sourness.
God I felt horrible! Wishing my head would just follow through with its threat and explode and my stomach purge itself, thus ending the misery I was enduring, I hurried towards the kitchen. Shading my eyes with one hand, for the light in the kitchen added to the pounding hammers in my brain, I pawed through the contents on the shelves with the other.
Eyes landing on the bottle of pain relievers, a sound somewhere between a joyful exclamation at finding what I sought, and a yelp of distress at having made any sound at all, issued forth from my lips.
Then, with bottle clutched in hand, I rattled out two tablets, wincing at the slight sound, and eyeballing the small round objects within my palm, I shook out several more, positive that what I held wouldn't even begin to touch the dragon that was roaring in my head.
Thirty seconds later, swallowing half a glass of juice and the pills, I could think of nothing more inviting than returning to bed, covering my head and tossing up a prayer that no one would disturb me for the rest of the day.
Ha! As if I need worry about that, I thought grumpily. However, the grueling pain in my head continued to be a cruel master, and I found myself making it no further than the table and chairs that shared a space on the thick carpeting as, with butt planted in one of the hard wooden chairs, forehead pressed against the coolness of the table, and arms wrapped around my head in hopes to keep it connected to my shoulders, I began to plot the arrangements for my funeral in between each excruciating pang.
Slowly, in immeasurable pain filled minutes, the medicine began to take effect, the ache sneaking back out of my head a little at a time as it stealthily crept in reverse along the nerves and tissues of my brain until finally, like the slimy criminal I had come to think of it, it slipped away into obscurity.
In all, no more than twenty minutes had passed however to my exhausted and weary mind, days had.
Gingerly lifting my head from the table, I jumped, giving a startled squawk as I made to vacate my chair, only to do a double take and pause as I gazed at the man in the chair across from mine.
Beautiful was the first thing that popped into my head as I gazed at his startling good looks. At the smooth silky fall of blonde hair that fell the length of his back, the deep brown eyes, and the square, angular jut of his cleanly shaven jaw, a perfect frame for the bottom lip that was slightly fuller than its upper counterpoint.
Suddenly however, a toe-curling scream ripped forth from me as he lunged in my direction.
I jerked backwards, the chair beneath me, upset by my sudden movement, lost the precarious two-legged balance, and toppled over taking me, still screaming, with it.
Then, paying no attention to my bone-wrenching landing, I began scrambling backwards, frantically trying to disentangle myself from the chair.
When I was finally free, I came up off the floor at a run, Holy mother of God, what is wrong with these people, my mind frantically screamed.
Suddenly several people were running through the doorway towards me, their eyes widening as they landed on me, and then the man behind me, and though I gazed in their direction, I only paused on them with a frantic glance, sett
ing my sights on Dante as he came barreling through the small gathering, never once doubting, that if I could just reach his solid strength, I'd find the safety I sought.
I was within several yards of gaining that goal when I felt the grip upon my shoulders, a grip that was a death knoll, bearing down upon my tender flesh.
My eyes filled with tears, and great, gasping sobs escaped from between my lips at the realization that the sanctuary I craved wasn't to be gained. I began to fight, vainly trying to push forward a surge of fire, only to find the weapon I sought lacked any snap and pop. Its voice only a whisper, revealing in its softness the weakness of its strength as things around me grew dim, distorting, causing me to feel as if I were swimming under water, weighted and sluggish, suffocating in my struggle to breath.
Each effort of pulling air within my lungs seemed to take hours instead of seconds as the oxygen depleted, the tightness within my throat ever increasing as the man who held me hostage looked straight at Dante and sneered sarcastically, “all for not, huh Dante?”
Even through my blurring vision I could see the dark and deadly look that came upon Dante's face. An expression I had never seen upon his features before as he snarled deep and low, “let her go Jabar” then he leaped forward, a fierce growl erupting from between his lips as his feet left the ground, and he flung himself in our direction.
Dante’s body hit ours, sending all three of us to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs as a blast of oxygen hit my lungs, and suddenly I became aware of an unimaginable pain roaring across my senses, as what felt like the scissor sharp edge of a blade ripped at my shoulder.
Then Dante was jerking me away from the man, and with just the slightest of turns, he bodily tossed me across the room like a sack of flour.
I landed hard on the floor, becoming aware of the warm, sticky liquid that oozed down the side of my arm, and a fresh wave of fear, strong and unabated, shot throughout my system as my mind frantically grappled with the fact that it was blood… my blood!
Clutching at my shoulder, I struggled to find the source of what was causing the free flow. However, my fingers were rapidly desensitizing, numbing to a state of useless.
Panicked now with desperation, I dropped my arm and began pushing myself upright, the task much harder than it should have been as I was growing increasingly weak and dizzy, the pain emitting from my shoulder almost paralyzing.
I felt myself grow nausea's, the foul taste of bile rising and burning the back of my throat at the sight of the layer of red that covered my arm and hand, at the cloying coppery smell that floated up and assaulted my nostrils, at the blood that seeped into the carpeting, filling the narrow caverns between the spread of my fingers.
Blinking, I tried to remove the haze from my vision, my sight growing dimmer with each pump of my heart, an action that was forcing the life giving liquid to spill forth, changing the blue of the carpeting to a deep purple that, even through my decreased sight, I could see was becoming an ever-widening stain.
Helplessly transfixed, I watched the very essence of my life ebb out into the plush fibers.
Whimpering weakly, I felt the last of the strength leave my body. Then, no longer able to hold myself up, I collapsed to the carpeting, unaware of the sudden presence of the man that came rushing up beside me, or of his jerking my body up against his, a feral growl issuing from between his lips as he turned, and with me cradled protectively within his arms, Dante begun to run through and out the other side of the room, for as the blood flowed freely from my wound, so was life seeping from my body.
Chapter 11
Strange, disjointed images played across the internal workings of my mind. Flashes of unknown places, unknown faces, nightmarish visions of pale and bloodied features from a type of death I couldn’t fathom, I wanted to reject the images, however could do nothing to stop them, as next came the figure of a dark haired man, slumped and weeping over a woman, a woman with long flowing strands of caramel colored hair.
Hair that mated with golden sands turned red beneath her, her features pale and still, the man's cry of grief wrenched my heart, his utterance the most anguished cry I’d ever heard.
Yet, more of the gruesome images flashed before me. Images that declared a path of destruction that caused me to struggle within the bondage of the depictions that held me securely within their grasp as, greedy, selfish to the point of madness, they tortured me.
However, with time I climbed above their stagnant depths, depths that had held me captured within their mire, and I continued to climb above their reach, until finally there was nothing for them to torture, as my mind recoiled from all it had been subjected to, slowly forcing itself to heal inwardly as my body healed outwardly.
How long I lay within my restorative cocoon I had no idea, as I was oblivious to all, but at some point, I slowly began to edge toward consciousness, riding just on the hump, awareness just a grasp away, and as I floated, I recalled at some point hearing Dante cry, “there must be something else we can do to help her…”
Time passed, and again I received the nudge to wake, however though I wasn’t quite ready to reach out and grab the offer, I found I had no choice, for I was suddenly and rudely, jerked into wakefulness from the angry lash of raised voices.
Voices pitched in anger, one overriding the other, as if each individual felt what they had to say more important than the others words.
Slipping from the bed, I weakly tested my strength, finding that though my legs were shaky and felt as if they belonged on someone else, I was nonetheless, capable of managing under my own steam.
I made my way over to the door, where partially opening it, I peered out, gaping disbelievingly at the sight before me as Dante squared off against a mass of people, people that eyed him as though vultures hunting their prey as he stared back.
I could see the unrest written clearly on the faces of the others as Dante’s own features became harsher, his eyes turning nearly obsidian, barely resembling those of the man I knew as he snarled, “don’t you get it…it has never been about us…!”
* * *
I sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, my upper body rocking in a soothing rhythm, swaying forward, then back, forward, then back again, obsessively repeating the action.
I didn’t understand, didn’t understand any of what was going on! All I knew was that my world was becoming something that made little sense, a living nightmare in fact, one that had nothing what so ever to do with sleep, but one I wished to God I would awake from.
Chaos reined on the other side of the door I had quietly pushed to behind me before stumbling my way back towards the bed, where, even with my hands over my ears, I could still hear muffled shouting through its wooden bulk, and Dante’s was the most frightening of all as it carried such a strong flavor of leashed anger.
Suddenly, everything grew eerily and intensely quiet before the door of the room flew open and a large, male body stomped its way through the opening, slamming the wooden structure shut with such angry force I flew off the bed in alarm, as my eyes searching for a weapon, I finally settled on a shiny metal object that was lying nearby.
Picking it up I brandished it at the intruders back as I yelled, “Stay. The. Fuck. Back!”
Slowly the figure before me turned to where he faced me. Recognizing the features of Dante as he advanced in my direction, I watched his steps slow, then falter, before halting all together as his face transformed, becoming comical in its expression of stunned incredulity as he murmured, “what the hell are you going to do with that?”
Glancing at what I held in my hands, I suddenly realized how pathetic my weapon of choice was. Had I really expected to inflict damage with a bedpan?
With a smooth even stride he walked over, and easily took the pan from me, staring at it for a second before shaking his head as he sat it back on the table, then snarled, “Kira, I really need you to listen to me!”
An hour later found me with eyes slit in suspicion, wondering just what
the hell Dante was about, for he’d launched into what was boiling down to be a science lecture, when suddenly his words trailed to an abrupt halt as a powerful gust of wind from outside caused the windows to rattle, and the walls to shake in a creaking, groaning fashion.
My eyes shot open wide, and I watched in alarm as cracks formed across the ceiling. Dust and plaster slithered out of the gaps and sensuously fluttered and turned in an erotic dance, mating with the disturbed flow of air that assaulted the room.
Suddenly Dante erupted with a snarl and leaped, his frame impacting that of another whom I’d been unaware of having even entered the room with us.
Then both bodies tumbled to the floor as I uttered a scream of sheer terror at the clash that ensued before me, a confrontation of force and will in an explosion of deadly intent.
Both were exhibiting abnormal strength as each took turns tossing the other about like a rag doll, their bodies impacting with such force that it should have caused massive bruising and shattered bones, but instead only seemed to fuel the rage that tempered the battle between them as both went after the other with an undeniable blood-lust.
Then in a flash of movement it was silent, and Dante stood quivering over the now still frame of the other as I felt my stomach revolt and then heave, forcing me to my knees as I emptied its contents where I knelt.
I could hear Dante moving, but didn’t lift my head, not wanting to see the figure sprawled upon the floor. However, the odor that was coming from the puddle before me had me shifting, and on hands and knees, I began to crawl.
I only wanted to hide, to disappear if possible somewhere within the room.
Yet, I found the task to be nearly impossible as the room began to sway. Tiny black spots floated before my eyes, as microscopic shards of gray and white light danced around the spots, then in an instant everything came into sharp focus as oxygen blasted through my lungs.
The draw of air reemerged in a frantic scream, that dwindled into tiny mewling sounds. Sounds that issued from between pale lips as my face turned beyond white to ashen, any drop of color within my features wiped clean, the rich green of my eyes standing out in deep contrast to the pallor of my skin as terror dilated my pupils to an enormous size.
