AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I could break the door down. Easily.
Then his pale blue eyes bore into mine. In a low voice—in a man’s voice—he says, “I don’t want to see you, asshole. I don’t even know you. You’re just some military robot. You’re not my brother.”
I swallow—try to. “I’m sorry.” I want to tell him what happened that day—about the liver shot. How badly I wanted to be here. But there are no excuses. I inhale and exhale, filled with icy-cold regret.
His face twists. “Lyon wondered why you didn’t come. I didn’t, but he did. Chew on that.”
The door slams in my face, shaking snow loose from the roof.
THIRTEEN
Gwenna
November 6, 2015
“Don’t be a quitter, motherfucker!”
I push my face into my pillow, distantly troubled, eager to sink back into dreamland. Something claws at the door of my mind. I should know…or do something important. Too tired…
Later.
For now, I curl into a ball and pull the blankets up, and as I shut my eyes, I feel the bed shake slightly. Hmm? Somewhere nearby, I hear panting, and that pulls me upward into consciousness. I blink a few times, feeling…off. There’s something cold and heavy in my belly: dread. Alarm nips at its heels.
What’s wrong? I roll from my side onto my back, and as my senses come online, I hear the panting clearly. Male. The sound is low and raspy, unmistakably a man… For half a second, I feel frozen in the center of the sound. Struggling. Winded. Someone running.
…In my room?
I roll onto my side and— Barrett.
I blink, but I don’t see him. The only thing that stands out in the darkness is the gray light seeping around the blockade of the curtains on the other side of his bed.
Then his weight rocks the mattress. I realize the shape blotting the bottom of the curtain is the wide plane of his back; the triangle at the top of the blob: one of his elbows. He’s lying on his side, facing away from me. He’s got his arm over his head.
I hear a moan, the kind that people make when something’s hurting them. Then his breath catches.
“Fuck you, Breck! FUCK YOU!” His voice breaks. Then he’s breathing hard again, like he’s been running for a long time.
I scoot toward him, agonized by empathy. My hand freezes as his back shakes, and I hear a soft sob.
Oh my God.
I can’t move, can’t even seem to breathe as I watch one of his hands clutch the back of his head, and another low, strangled cry breaks from his throat.
His big back jerks once more, and then he’s sobbing: low bellows that punch out of him like drum beats. Then his throat tightens, his body coils, and the dam breaks on his grief. It’s loud and unhinged, frantic in the way that anguish always is. He holds his head and tugs his hair and sobs so hard, the headboard bumps the wall. He sobs like a child, overwhelmed and helpless, desperate in his pain.
Slowly—maybe seconds, though it feels like years—my mind regroups; my pulse steadies; the empathetic horror that’s gripping me lessens just enough to let me feel a heady swell of need—to comfort him.
Cold sweat sweeps me as I reach for him again. My hand touches his shoulder, and his body stills for just a second. Then he’s sobbing brokenly again. He holds his head and shudders—I hear “Breck”—and something changes; he starts shaking harder, less like crying, more like shivering. His sobs soften. And every few seconds, I hear his breath catch on an inhalation, quivering a few times as if he’s almost hyperventilating.
I rub his damp back. “Barrett?”
I think he feels me, and I feel him try to get control—his shoulders clench, his body stills—but I know how it is: he’s on auto-pilot, somewhere else, someplace where a part of him remains. Still wracked with soft, pained sobs, he reaches out and fumbles with a pillow, pulls it to his face, wrapping both arms around it like he’s trying to anchor himself.
“Barrett… Bear.” My voice sounds small and hesitant amidst his solid sounds. I get him by his shoulders, try to turn him on his back so I can wrap myself around him. Fail. His skin is soaked, his body coiled and rigid. Shudders start to wrack him, and every few seconds, I hear a ghost sound seep around the muffler of the pillow.
I crawl over his bent legs and come around in front of him. I look at his long fingers, dug into the pillow, pressing it against his face.
After a breath of hesitation, I reach out and stroke a light hand down his forearm.
