Hell Without You

by Ranae Rose

  “Donovan. Donovan, wake up!” she called from the archway, lingering on the threshold, wary of being hit or shoved again.

  He moved more quickly than she would’ve thought a sleepwalker could, one muscular arm flexing and bunching as he grabbed something from the counter.

  A knife.

  Her mouth went dry as he gripped it by the handle, holding it like he meant to use it.

  CHAPTER 4

  It wasn’t a kitchen knife, either. It looked more like a Ka-Bar, the blade black and long enough to go more than halfway through a person. Had he brought it downstairs? Maybe he kept it in the military-green canvas sack he’d hauled to the bedroom across from hers.

  “Hollins?” he asked, his voice rough. “That you?”

  “No,” she managed to say. “No, it’s me, Clementine. Put the knife down.”

  “What’d you do with my rifle, Hollins?”

  “Donovan!” He hadn’t moved, but he still held the knife. Mustering as much bravado as she could, she tried for a firm tone. “Wake UP!” She tasted copper, the metallic tang of adrenaline.

  “Fuck you, Hollins. Want some coffee anyway?”

  He laid down the knife and started groping along the countertop.

  “Yes,” she breathed, her heart slowing just a little at the sight of the relinquished weapon. “I want coffee. Make me some.” Inspired by desperation, she crept across the kitchen in her sock feet as he fumbled with the coffee maker.

  Thank God he was at the counter by the stove, not the sink. Reaching for a glass in the cupboard above, she glanced over her shoulder repeatedly as she filled it at the tap.

  He shoveled grounds into the coffee maker with surprising accuracy, spilling only a little. As she watched, her gaze was drawn to the knife lying less than a foot from his hand.

  It was now or never – at least he was no longer holding the weapon.

  Drawing in a deep breath and holding it, she flung the water from the cup, sending it flying across the kitchen.

  It hit him square between the shoulders, colliding with a splash and gushing down his back, glistening wet against his skin as it ran down the crack of his ass and coursed over his thighs in rivulets.

  He dropped the spoon he’d been using to scoop coffee grounds.

  For half a second, that was it – no other reaction.

  Then he turned, slowly, eyes open.

  “Donovan?” Her voice came out too high, strained by fear that she’d done the wrong thing – woken him the wrong way. “Are you awake?”

  “Was I asleep?”

  His eyes focused rapidly, narrowing as they met hers. He seemed more alert than he’d been upon waking the night before – thank God.

  She hurried across the kitchen, still too on edge to care that he was naked and wet. “Yes.” Reaching for the knife, she gripped the handle. His lingering body heat warmed her fingers. “Don’t you remember anything?”

  “No.” His gaze dropped to the weapon she held.

  “You were holding this. Then you put it down – you thought I was someone else. And you started making coffee.”

  “You threw water on me?” He touched one of his arms, holding up wet fingers like he’d never seen water before.

  She nodded. “I was afraid to come near you – afraid you’d pick up the knife again. Last night, you hit me.”

  “I hit you?” His eyes went wide, and he took a step backward, like she’d just swung the knife at him.

  “Well, it was more of a shove,” she amended, her heart skipping a beat at the sight of his horrified expression. “You just sort of threw your arm out and bumped me on the shoulder. I went down on my ass in the mud – for the record, that’s why the pajama bottoms I hung to dry over the bathtub are stained brown across the butt.”

  He didn’t laugh, didn’t even stop gaping at her like she’d just told him he’d grown horns, a pointy tail and stabbed her with a pitchfork.

  “The ground was soft after all the rain. I was completely fine.”

  “Jesus.” He braced himself with a hand against the counter.

  “Watch out,” she said. “You broke a mug. Don’t step on it.”

  He was motionless as she bent to pick up the pieces. The ceramic had fractured into large chunks and was easier to clean up than typical glass. “Do you sleepwalk often?”

  “No.” His voice was hoarse, like he’d been yelling. “Haven’t in a while, anyway.”

  “You used to?” It must have started sometime during the past seven years; she didn’t recall him ever doing or mentioning it before then.

  “Started in Afghanistan.”

  She stiffened as she stood, nearly dropping the pieces of the ruined mug.

  “You were in Afghanistan?” She tried to sound casual as she dumped the burden into the trash.

  He nodded. “Seven months, near the end of my enlistment period.”

  “Wasn’t it dangerous to sleepwalk there?” Hell, it was dangerous for him to sleepwalk inside the house. How had he survived doing the same in a war zone?

  “Fuck, yeah. We slept outside the wire a lot. Or tried to sleep, anyway. I never really could – not for long. And even when I did, I’d get up, load my gun, walk around – shit like that. Ended up having to set up trip lines so I’d bust my ass before I made it anywhere.”

  “That sounds terrible.” Her heart contracted, growing small and hard beneath the pressure of trying to imagine what he was describing. Donovan, stumbling around in the desert, throwing himself even farther into harm’s way than war necessitated without realizing it. God, she would’ve crumbled into pieces if she’d known at the time. Even now, her throat felt too tight. “How long has it been since you’ve walked in your sleep – before last night, I mean?”

  He shrugged. “Two years? Did some therapy. Drugs just made it worse, but I learned some … rituals … that help. It’s all about calming down before you go to sleep.”

  “So you haven’t been calm these past two nights?” The words tumbled out before she could stop them, and the obvious hit her like a ton of bricks. “Is it because I’m here?”

  Stupid question. What else would it be? He’d been fine until she’d shown up, apparently. “My being here is stressing you out, isn’t it?”

  “Clementine—”

  “I’ll leave tomorrow. Even if my tires aren’t in yet, you can give me a ride to a motel, right?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want you staying in some sleazy motel. And after your penny-pinching speech, don’t tell me it won’t be sleazy. Your only cheap options are the Willow Heights Rest Inn and that place with the take-out restaurant on the first floor. I’ll be damned before I drop you off at either of those dumps.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll survive a week in a cheap motel. It’s a hell of a lot safer than you wandering around with a knife in your sleep.”

  “Take the knife.” His voice was harder, insistent. “Hide it. For fuck’s sake, I’m not leaving you at a place that should charge by the hour.”

  His chest had expanded, and there was a hint of a flush beneath his suntanned skin. The hand he didn’t have on the counter was clenched in a fist.

  He was awake, but everything wasn’t all right. “Just calm down. We’ll talk about it in the morning. For now, I’m not going anywhere.”

  That seemed to placate him. Breathing a sigh, he closed the coffee maker’s open lid. “Want a cup?”

  “It’s going to be strong.” He’d shoveled half a dozen heaping tablespoons of grounds into the machine before she’d thrown water at him.

  “I’m not going to go back to sleep anyway.”

  Her heart thumped against her ribs. If he was going to stay up… She didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone any more than he liked the idea of abandoning her at the Willow Heights Rest Inn. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to be able to drift off into dreamland with images of him wielding a knife burnt into the backs of her eyelids. “Me neither. Br
ing on the caffeine.”

  Ten minutes later, she was sipping a cup of something so strong it nearly activated her gag reflex. “Have any creamer?” she asked Donovan, who was gulping his coffee like it was water. He might like it black, but they’d always been polar opposites when it came to java. “I don’t think I can handle your special sleepwalking brew without a little something to help it go down.”

  “Half and half.” He shuffled to the fridge. “Bought it earlier today. For you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, stifling a snort as he presented her with a carton, “but you’ve either got to put on a pair of pants or go back to playing the role of a nudist. That looks ridiculous.”

  “What, you don’t like my loincloth?” He glanced down at the checkered kitchen towel he’d slung around his hips. It covered the manliest bits of his anatomy and most of the dark hair at his groin, but flapped pathetically around his muscular butt cheeks. “I thought it was Tarzan-esque.”

  “I’m serious. Pants or nothing.”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel…” He hooked a thumb beneath one side of the towel. “Look away if you’re shy.”

  She laughed, covering her mouth and then her eyes as the soft fwip of the towel snapping sounded.

  “Guess it’s time for pants, anyway. It’s almost morning.” His footsteps were soft against the kitchen tile as he retreated.

  She glanced across the kitchen, checking out his bare ass surreptitiously before checking the time. 3:45 AM, according to the clock above the stove. Not quite “almost morning” in her book, but if the hour had prompted him to get dressed, she wasn’t about to argue. Now that he’d calmed down – and made her laugh – his nudity was a temptation she didn’t need.

  Damn it, why did a man with the physique of an underwear model think he could walk around naked in front of a woman like it was no big deal? True, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before … but that just made it worse.

  “Jeans,” she said when he returned, sinking back into his chair. “Good choice.”

  He shrugged. “I was partial to the loincloth, myself.”

  He still wasn’t wearing a shirt. And some sort of sexually-charged spidey-sense told her he wasn’t wearing underwear, either. So much for modesty.

  Not that she was the picture of propriety, either. Her flimsy cami was only an obligatory layer between her breasts and his eyes. Beneath the cotton, her shape showed clearly, natural contours straining the fabric. At least it wasn’t like she was especially busty. He, on the other hand, had been packing a lot beneath that kitchen towel.

  “So if I ever catch you sleepwalking again, should I throw water on you?” She thought back to the recent ordeal, infusing her wayward thoughts with the gravity of the situation they’d so narrowly escaped.

  “Again? Thought you were determined to leave?”

  Oh. Right. “It’s not morning yet.” She spoke quickly, trying to cover her mistake. She would be leaving. God, why had she asked?

  He didn’t say anything, but looked satisfied.

  Inside her head, she called herself every name in the book.

  “Water seemed to work,” he said eventually. “Don’t ever come near me – don’t touch me. Not when I’m like that. Fuck, if I ever hurt you…”

  “I learned my lesson,” she hurried to say. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just that waking you up is scary no matter how I do it. I didn’t know what your reaction would be, and you know the old wives’ tales about waking a sleepwalker.”

  “Were you afraid you’d give me a heart attack?”

  “I always heard that if you woke a sleepwalker, their soul would remain trapped outside of their body.” She flashed him a weak smile.

  “My soul has been trapped outside of my body for the past ten years.”

  “Really?” She gripped her coffee mug, letting the ceramic warm her fingers. “Where is it?”

  “Sitting right across from me.” His voice went a little deeper, got a little rougher. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know that.”

  * * * * *

  10 Years Ago

  The late summer breeze tossed up the hem of Clementine’s dress, making it flutter around her knees. Her knees. A fresh wave of fury swept through her as the day’s events played on a loop before her mind’s eye, encouraging her to stomp, her sandals slapping the pavement on the shoulder of the rural road.

  The afternoon’s shopping trip had been the first time she’d had fun with her mom since she’d married Robert nearly a year ago. Of the three new outfits she now owned, the dress was her favorite. Made of yellow eyelet lace, it had drawn a compliment from her mother as soon as she’d stepped out of the dressing room.

  “We have to get you this one,” she’d said. “It’s so cute, and the yellow suits your complexion perfectly. It’ll be too chilly for a short-sleeved dress soon, but you could wear it over the next few weeks and have it for next summer.”

  Perfectly. It did suit her perfectly, damn it. And so had the afternoon with her mom, surprisingly – the shopping, the lunch… They’d even laughed. It had all been like something from their pre-Robert days, until they’d gotten home.

  If only she’d been able to resist trying on the dress again.

  “Robert, doesn’t she look nice?” her mother had asked when Clementine had appeared in the kitchen.

  Robert had given her one look and raised one of his stupid, bushy eyebrows. “I see you’ve really tarted her up. I thought you were buying her new school clothes. Where’s she going to wear that? Not where anyone will see her, I hope.”

  Just like that, he’d thrown shit all over the afternoon, staining the memory. Typical Robert behavior.

  “God, what a dick!” Clementine said through clenched teeth, reveling in the freedom to say what she wanted. No one else was around – there was a trailer park just ahead, but no one seemed to be outside and there was no way they’d hear her indoors.

  “A total ass!” she said even more loudly, approaching the ramshackle rows of dingy mobile homes. She’d walked a mile, and the Shady Side Mobile Home Court was a far cry from where she’d started out at her grandmother’s huge old Victorian house. Eventually she’d have to turn around, but she wasn’t ready yet – she didn’t want to visit with her grandmother when she was in such a crappy mood. Better to walk off her anger before returning. Her mom had dropped her off in her grandmother’s driveway and had no idea that she’d started her walk as soon as her car had disappeared from sight.

  “Who’s an ass?” A voice came out of nowhere, making her jump.

  Her skirt flapped around her knees as she whirled around, casting a suspicious glance at a large maple tree at the edge of the trailer park.

  When her gaze settled on the person who stood in the shade beneath the leafy branches, her heart leapt into her throat.

  Donovan Kemp. He stood beneath the tree by some sort of old dirt bike. She knew him by sight, by name. Most students at Willow Heights High did – the school was small, and he stood out. He’d never spoken to her before, and now that he had, she felt strangely lightheaded.

  “My step-dad,” she replied. Taking a step away from the road and toward Donovan felt natural, even if her heart rate did go up a little.

  “My dad’s an ass.” Donovan gestured with the wrench he held in one hand. “Welcome to the club.”

  She took another step, slipping into the shade cast by the maple, liking the idea of being in a club of two with Donovan Kemp. Mostly because misery loved company, but also because he was as hot up close as she’d always suspected when she’d seen him in the hallways at school.

  Tall – way taller than most of the juniors or even seniors, for that matter, he wore jeans and a t-shirt smudged here and there with grease. His hands were grease-stained too, and the black marks darkening his deeply tanned skin were familiar. She’d glimpsed them a few times at school in the afternoons – he attended the vocational center for auto repair and sometimes bore the marks of his chosen studies when he retur
ned to the high school for regular classes.

  Not that she shared any of those with him. She was just a sophomore. He was a junior, at least sixteen.

  “Nice dress,” he said, slipping his wrench into a pocket.

  There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Thanks,” she said eventually, feeling the joy Robert had crushed flutter tentatively back to life.

  “Would you be mad if it got a little dirty?” He wiped his hands on his jeans, his eyes locking with hers.

  Grey – true grey. She’d never been close enough to notice the color of his eyes before. The storm cloud shade was mesmerizing.

  “It’s washable. Why?” Had she kicked dirt up onto the skirt during her walk? Instantly self-conscious, she looked down.

  “Just finished fixing this bike,” he said. “It’s mine. Wanna take it on a test ride with me?”

  She looked away from Donovan just long enough to glance at the bike. Still brimming with energy her walk hadn’t expended, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Sure.”

  He straddled the bike in one smooth motion, and his long jean-clad legs looked natural on either side of the thing. “Come on then.” Holding out one hand, he never broke eye contact with her.

  More afraid of looking stupid as she climbed onto a bike for the first time than of grease stains, she took his hand and swung one leg over the seat.

  “Your name’s Clementine, right?” he asked when she’d settled behind him.

  Her heart beat so loudly she feared he’d hear it as she carefully tucked her skirt beneath her butt so it wouldn’t billow in the wind.

  “Yeah.” A second wave of self-consciousness washed over her as she owned up to her name. It was so old-fashioned; she couldn’t even count the number of times she’d wished her mother had chosen something else. Anything else.

  “Hold onto me, Clementine.”

  The bike roared to life and she slipped her arms around his waist, spurred by the noise and promise of power to hold on tighter than she would’ve dared otherwise. With her body pressed against his back, she forgot all about her dress. She forgot about everything, except for him.