Page 29 of Marked By Shadows
The ants beneath my skin, fire, intensified until every nerve in my body seemed to throb, the pain excruciating. I had to bow forward over my knees, gasping for breath, explosions of light in my head telling me I wasn’t getting enough air. For a few seconds I wasn’t sure how I survived, the agony making me wish for an immediate end. Folding in on myself did little to ease the hurt, but chased away some of the chill. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on something else, some thread of hope or anything.
Above the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears, I could hear something moving in the trees, stalking closer, and a looming presence of doom. Having experienced it several times over the years, I knew exactly what that feeling was. Had a vague sense of it before I’d first met Alex, and in those days before my disappearance. It was the weight of anxiety times a thousand, all pressing down on my soul, squeezing out any sense of logic or calm. Did it mean bad things for Byrony and Joe? Or just a warning for me?
I refused to look up, instead burying my face in my lap, curled around myself as though it would somehow put a stop to the terror. It didn’t matter that it was cowardly, irrational, and part of a broken response to past trauma. Survival had narrowed to the noise in my head, and the feel of my limbs turning to ice while terror raced through my veins.
Sound came back in a whoosh of noise, almost too loud to bear. Shouting, cracking of wood, wind, voices, and a quiet mewling that I didn’t realize was me until something touched my back and I screamed, full on murder scream over and over until I was gasping for air.
Strong arms wrapped around me, adding to the panic for a few seconds until the chill began to ease, warmth seeping into my body from the embrace. And the soft brush of textured hair on my neck and cheek helped me catch a breath. Alex.
“Breathe, baby, breathe,” he whispered over and over while he rocked me, holding me in his arms, curled around me like a shield. “Breathe. That’s it. Deep. In. Long out.” He mimicked how I should be breathing, and I tried to follow. Sparkles decorated my vision, so even through the mild light of a nearby flashlight I couldn’t see his face. “That’s it, keep breathing. I’ve got you.”
What if it was a trick? What if it wasn’t really Alex but some monster? When had I started to believe in monsters? Dumb question. Two years ago on the hiking trail as I faced something I couldn’t recall to this day. Was this the same? How long would I be lost this time?
“Breathe,” Alex whispered. I felt his lips on my face. Light kisses that chased away the ice. If I could have crawled further into his embrace in that moment, I would have. And I couldn’t stop trembling if I tried. Again my brain struggled to decipher the voices around me. Odd as it had never been a problem before this week in my entire life.
“You’re freezing.” He rubbed my arms, and wrapped himself tight around me. “Breathe, baby, keep breathing.”
I let him hold me as the world began to refocus. The voices of the others took shape, but Alex showed no sign of letting go. He was still talking, though not to me. At some point my screaming had stopped, though I felt like a gaping fish, gasping for air, clinging to Alex with every fiber of my spirit.
“Call the police,” he instructed someone.
“Because we found their board?” Someone… wait I think it was Jonah said.
“And a broken phone,” Julie said.
“It’s Byrony’s,” Melissa said her voice sounding strained, like she was crying.
“The police will have more people and dogs who specialize in this sort of thing,” Alex pointed out.
“I don’t understand where they would have gone,” Melissa said.
“Maybe Joe did something,” Chad said quietly. There was a pause and then he defended his statement, “it happens all the time. True crime stuff is littered with lovers hurting lovers. Always stupid reasons, but it happens.”
“It’s always someone you know,” MaryAnn added.
“Joe would never hurt her,” Melissa said.
“I’ll go back to the trail and call the police,” Freya said, heading away from the group.
Alex continued to rock me, and I swallowed great gulps of air, feeling it cool, and deep within my lungs. The group was scattered around us, close but not standing over us. I admit to feeling a bit embarrassed by my breakdown, though the terror had been legitimate enough to still have my heart racing. Alex peppered my face with small kisses and ran his hands over my back and arms.
“Keep breathing,” he whispered. “You’re okay. We’re okay. I’m here.”
“What happened?” I asked, not sure he would know.
He rested his forehead against mine, his face and eyes barely visible in the pale lights of the flashlights. “Later. Just sit with me. Breathe. Focus on me.”
“Reverse of what I did for you,” I pointed out, reminding him of the cemetery in which he’d had a PTSD attack over finding a body. Fuck… “Is there a body?”
“No,” Alex said so softly I was sure only I could hear him.
I struggled to get up, pulling away from him now, anxious and scared but needing answers. He let me up, helped steady me as I got to my feet. When I looked around all I found were the obvious remnants of where Byrony and Joe had stopped. There was a backpack, a couple flashlights, a Ouija board, although the planchet seemed to be missing, and a handful of half-melted candles.
There were no signs of blood or even a struggle as the leaves and area surrounding their little camp seemed untouched. Alex reached for my hand, and I let him take it and pull me into a hug. His warmth began to seep through the cold still making me tremble, so I clung to him, breathing in his scent and basking in his heat.
“I don’t know why I’m shaking,” I told him. I was the rational one. Always had been. Anxiety happened, and I’d had a couple panic attacks in my life. Emotionally overwhelmed was how I liked to think of it. Too much to process at once. This was that, and more, like a loss of physical control. Physically overwhelmed perhaps? Too much sensation? I realized then that the bugs were gone. That familiar crawling ooze across my skin had vanished, leaving behind the cold and Alex’s body against mine.
“I felt something,” I whispered to Alex, gripping him in a brutal hug as the realization sank in. Whatever I’d encountered out here hadn’t been a simple shadow cast by light. “I think I saw something?”