by Lilly Wilder
Finally, the guys start gathering around me. They’re all ready, I can see it on their faces, even though not much about them has changed. They’re dressed in the same way, only now, every one of them has a red bandana tied around their necks. Their leather jackets look old and worn out. I guess that’s exactly how a leather jacket is supposed to be worn. Their boots are making too much noise as they move, but no one minds. The bikes are still parked in the same spot, waiting. We all turn to the left and see Dex coming, followed by Theron and Zarael.
“We all ready to roll?” he growls and the rest of the squad howls in agreement. “You’ll ride with me,” he tells me, pointing at me with his index finger.
I nod, following him obediently to his bike. It’s a large, black motorbike and to me, it looks high-performance. I know once he steps on it, it’ll be loud and noisy and I wonder how I’m going to listen to that for the next few hours. But then, I remember that my arms will be wrapped around his waist and I’m probably even allowed to press my cheek against his back. He sits on it and turns around to face me. It’s time for me to get on. I take a few steps and I start trembling. I’ve never been afraid of motorbikes before. I’ve never ridden motorbikes, to be honest, but I never thought I’d be afraid of sitting on one. Still, I push myself and I do what I’m expected to do. I swing my leg over the seat and adjust myself on it.
“You comfortable?” Dex asks me.
“Mhm,” I manage to mumble, as my fingers dig into his leather jacket.
I hear the sound of others mounting their bikes, but no one is starting yet. Dex will go first. The moment I hear the sound of the motor engine running, I feel like I’m suffocating. I can’t take a breath. I pant heavily, my fingers digging even deeper into Dex’s sides. I hear his voice, but I don’t know what he’s saying. The world around me starts spinning and a moment later, everything goes dark.
Chapter 18
Theron
As soon as I see that Isabel is swaying, I get off my bike and manage to wrap my arms around her just at the right moment, preventing her from falling off of Dex’s motorbike. Her head flops to the side and she feels like a lifeless puppet. All noise dies out and Dex jumps off. I see disturbance in his eyes and I know he’s as worried as I am, as we all are.
“What happened?” he asks me, all out of breath, as if he’s been running here from far away. “One minute she’s holding onto me and the next, she’s digging into my sides, then suddenly she lets go.”
His eyes inspect the sleeping beauty in my arms, but he doesn’t say anything else. I can feel the others looking in our direction, too, expecting Isabel to open her eyes any moment, but I know this probably isn’t going to happen.
“I think she was having a panic attack,” I tell him, cradling her in my arms, like a little sleeping child. I don’t even feel her being heavy. On the contrary, she seems as light as air.
“A panic attack?” Dex repeats my words.
While I was talking to her before, I tried to see if she was showing any signs of it. I didn’t want to bother the rest of the guys with it. I believed I could do it all on my own. But she didn’t tell me anything worrisome. She seemed fine. That’s why what just happened came as such a shock to us all.
“Yes and it could also be PTSD,” I tell him finally, my mind racing to and fro, trying to come up with all the definitions, sources, manifestations and possible treatments to PTSD.
“What’s that?” he frowns, glancing at me, then at Isabel, then back at me again.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” I explain. “What happened to her could fall under this category.”
“OK, so what does that mean? Why is she falling unconscious now? I mean, we’re taking her home, aren’t we?” Dex doesn’t understand and I can sense confusion in his voice.
“PTSD isn’t that simple,” I try to explain. “Anything can trigger it. My best guess is that she’s feeling safe here, so her brain is connecting these shacks with protection and shelter. Now, she is leaving this place and her brain is worried that she won’t be protected anymore.”
“But we’ll protect her, she has to know that,” Dex frowned.
“Like I said, that’s not how PTSD works. It’s not logical, or reasonable.”
“So, what do we do now?”
For a few moments, there is only silence. All eyes are on her. There is no tensing in her body. Her limbs are useless, instinctively relaxed. There is nothing she is trying to suppress at the moment, as her brain is processing what’s happening. It’s like a medicinal effect, her falling unconscious. Her mind and body need to be soothed and we need to help her remember that she isn’t in any kind of danger now.
“We wake her up,” I nod, my eyes searching for Zarael. When I find him, I give him instructions. “There are a few potted plants behind my shack. Pick a few lavender flowers. You know, the purple ones.”
“Got it!” Zarael nods, then quickly runs off to do as he’s told. He returns quickly with the flowers in his hands. “Rub them over her nose,” I tell him.
The scent of lavender is one of the most powerful scents in the world. She should be gently brought back, without stress. It takes a few seconds, but she finally opens her beautiful eyes. I can see the sky reflecting in them, that spark of consciousness lighting up in them and then she lowers them towards me.
“What… happened?” she asks.
I slowly put her down and Dean rushes to grab her a chair, so she can sit down. We all circle around her, waiting to see how she is. Her fingers are trembling and I notice that her ring finger and pinkie had their nails bitten all the way to the skin.
“You lost consciousness,” I tell her. “Just when we were about to head out.”
She looks at the bikes, as if she’s trying to remember exactly what’s happened. It takes her just a moment and her face is illuminated with comprehension.
“I don’t know what happened to me,” she speaks slowly, much slower than usual, like she is still half-asleep. “I just felt nauseous suddenly, the world started swaying and I felt like I was losing my balance.”
“See?” I tell Dex.
“What is it?” she asks and I know I can’t keep this from her.
“Well,” I take a deep breath, trying to come up with the best possible way to break the news to her, “you’ve been under a lot of stress. It’s understandable, with everything that’s happened. I think it’s possible that you have post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“What?” her eyes widen with shock and disbelief.
“I know it’s hard to accept, but it’s actually very common when someone experiences a terrifying event, like you did. I don’t know if you’ve had any flashbacks or nightmares about it.”
“No, not that I remember,” she shakes her head, sounding honest. She isn’t lying. She has no reason to.
“Well, maybe I’m wrong,” I give both her and Dex the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I’m really wrong and she just isn’t feeling well. There’s a way to determine this. “Maybe I’m blowing all this out of proportion and I apologize for scaring you.”
“I know you’re not trying to scare me,” she suddenly adds. “But I really don’t know what happened.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” I reply. I pause for a moment, the entire woods around me growing silent with me. “We simply try leaving again.”
I look at Dex, but his eyes aren’t focused on me. They rest on her, waiting for her reaction. She doesn’t say anything for a while, like she’s thinking whether it’s a good idea or not. I’ve never done anything like this and honestly, I’m scared. I think I’m more scared than she is, more scared than any of the others, as they all expect me to know exactly what I’m doing. So, I wait and try to convince myself that we’re doing the right thing here.
“I know you guys have a plan that you need to follow,” she tells us, addressing everyone. “Let’s head out. I’m sure it was nothing. Just stress, probably.”
&n
bsp; “Probably,” Dex is quick to add, placing his hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t move, she just smiles a little sadly and my heart aches.
So, we do the whole thing again. At least, we try to. We all watch as Dex sits on his bike and Isabel slowly walks over to him. But her step becomes slower and I see her fingers are trembling even more noticeably now. Her lips are parted and her breathing is quick, shallow. I sense another attack coming on, but I don’t want to jump to her aid, unless she really needs me. I watch as she pushes herself to keep on going, but she is growing increasingly paler and it looks like she won’t even reach Dex’s bike. He’s turned with his back to her, but his head is looking to his back, at her.
Seconds are long. Too long. It feels like the whole world is in slow-motion, with us in it.
Chapter 19
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I know I’m walking, but it’s like my legs aren’t my own. I want them to stop, but they keep advancing, one step at a time. With each step, my fear increases. I can feel the bottle filling up, slowly but surely, until there is just one single drop left and once it’s in, I don’t know what’s going to happen. My thoughts are like angry bees, buzzing all around, with no intent or purpose, accelerating inside my head. I desperately want them to slow down, but they aren’t listening.
I can’t breathe properly. Gasping for air, I know what will come next. I’m about to black out. That will happen, unless I manage to stop my legs from moving forward and just keep them in one place. I can’t black out. I can’t. This isn’t a panic attack. This isn’t post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m going home. But, despite all these thoughts which I try to repeat over and over again, my heart still hammers away like a madman. I look around and the ground beneath my feet starts to spin. At first, the hurricane was inside of me, but now it looks like it managed to find a way out and it’s all around me, threatening to swallow me whole. My fears are tumbling inside my brain, like in a dryer. Fragmented images of what happened cut through my memory like sharp glass. This resembles some crazy carousel which is going too fast and I want to get off, but it’s broken and there is no getting off until the ride ends on its own. All I can do is squat down, curling my knees upward in a fetal position and closing my eyes.
The world is covered in a lack of light and it manages to soothe me a little. I want to call out to someone, but there is no familiar name inside my head. It’s like I forgot all my friends, all my family. There is no one to call for help, they are all too far away. Would they even help? Doubt creeps inside my mind, like a dirty enemy, with its claws digging into my security, poking holes which I know I won’t be able to fill up with anything.
I feel physically sick, like I’m about to vomit. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My eyes are still closed. I don’t smell the woods any longer. It’s just a stench of dead leaves, a dead wet dog lying in the ground. I can smell it. Rotting away. I try to breathe, it’s hard. That claw’s got my heart in its grip and it’s not letting go. The darkness is creeping up on me, catching up. It’s not my friend any longer. It’s an enemy. It wants to hurt me. It wants to take me away and all I want to do is stay here. It’s safe here. No one will ever hurt me here.
I remember a name, but I can’t speak. I feel like there is an invisible hand that is covering my mouth, like there is a rope all around my body and as soon as I try to take a deep breath, my ribs feel the pressure. There is no expansion. I can’t breathe. I can only sip air through a thin straw. There are sounds I hear, but they seem far away, too far away for me to hear them properly. I want to run back to that shack where I woke up the first time here. I’m paralyzed…
At that moment, I feel a touch on my shoulder, a light that shines through a thousand darkness’s. My eyelids are heavy. I’m getting sleepier. But that touch isn’t letting go. Keep touching me. Bring me back…
Chapter 20
Dex
I bury my face into my hands. Fucking fuck. Now what?
“I left her with Zarael in my shack,” I hear Theron’s voice and raise my head to him. “She’s pretty shaken up.”
All around us, our brothers are confused. Are we going or are we staying? They’re all looking at me and I don’t know what to tell them. For the first time ever, I fucking don’t know what to do. I see a pile of dirt close by and I kick it in anger.
“Fucking Hell,” I squeeze through clenched teeth, feeling the need to scream.
“Any ideas?” he asks.
“Do I fucking look like I have any ideas?” I snort. I don’t even look at him.
We have a plan and we need to stick to it. The deliveries need to be made. Our contracts need to be respected and upheld. Otherwise, we’ll lose all our credibility.
“She can’t go,” he tells me again. I know he’s right. I also know it’s not his fault and I shouldn’t be taking it out on him. My anger issues sometimes get the best of me, but my brothers know me well enough not to hold it against me.
“That means we can’t go either,” I add. I look around. The place is peaceful, in contrast to how we’re all feeling. It’s like Nature is giving me one big middle finger, saying deal with it.
“Not necessarily.”
When I hear him say this, I raise my eyebrow at him. Theron isn’t the first one you’d want to have your back in a bar fight, but he’s definitely the first one you’d call when you’ve got a problem that requires thinking. This is exactly what we have at hand. He’s great at coming up with unorthodox solutions. It’s probably all those books he likes to read.
“What do you have in mind?” I ask him.
“We could stay here,” he starts. “You, me and Zarael, we could stay here with Isabel and try again in a while. It’s obviously something in her mind that’s not letting her leave this place.”
“You know how to fix it?” I wonder. It sounded like some serious shit.
“You’re asking me if I know how to fix someone’s brain,” Theron snorts. It’s one of the rare times I hear him make that sound. But it makes me hopeful for some strange reason.
“If anyone can do it, it’s you.” This unintentional compliment just slips out and neither of us makes a big deal out of it.
“I really don’t know,” he tells me honestly. “We need to work with her. Talk with her. Help her change her perception of what happened, of herself even.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“Fixing someone’s brain usually is,” Theron replies quickly.
He’s the only one who can talk to me like this. The others are often too eager to comply with whatever I say. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I can trust their judgment that much. But Theron is something else. He’ll say if he thinks something is off or fishy and he doesn’t care if it’ll get him in trouble with me. His opinion matters to me, even though I’d never say it out loud like that. No way in Hell.
“OK, suppose we do that,” I continue. “What about our contracts?”
“The three of us stay with Isabel, everyone else goes,” Theron explains simply. “Just give them instructions. If I were you, I’d put Dean in charge. Tell them what to do and if by the time they make their rounds we’re still here, just tell them to come back. If we’re on the road, we’ll meet up with them at some point.”
When he says it like that, it seems so easy and logical. Maybe he’s right.
“Will that work?” I wonder.
“I can’t make any guarantees,” Theron replies in his usual matter-of-fact way. He never vouches for anything. “But like I said, I believe Dean will come through and there probably won’t be any problems with any contracts or deliveries.”
I sigh heavily, like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. It honestly feels like it is. I wish I could just split myself in two and be in both places at the same time. I wish I could join my brothers, but at the same time, I want to stay here and make sure the girl is fine. I mean, Isabel. Make sure that Isabel is fine and then take her home. It only takes me
one second to make my decision.
“Alright,” I nod, locking eyes with Theron. “I’ll arrange everything with Dean, so they can head out immediately. The three of us are staying.” I pause. What comes next will be difficult to say, for more than one reason. “When it’s just the four of us, I need you to know that I won’t be the one pulling the strings.”
“What do you mean?” he eyes me strangely and I know he doesn’t understand exactly what I’m referring to. I have to say it loud and clear, I guess.
