Page 106 of Once Upon A Time

“It’s sensible. I’ll be between you and the door.”

“Please,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone in here.”

Dieter looked up at her, his dark gray eyes appraising her from her bare feet to her bedraggled hair. “You’re sure?”

“Please.”

He stood. “Let’s find you something to sleep in.”

Insomnia

Dieter Schwarz

I do not know how Wulfram stands

being awake all the time.

Dieter found one of his oversized gym tee shirts for Flicka and dressed in his pajama pants and a tee shirt.

He lay down on the other side of the bed from where she huddled under the covers.

Her red-streaked eyes and blotchy nose from crying werekillinghim. The bruises on her neck and arms drove him insane. His hands itched to punch the walls.

If Dieter ever saw Pierre goddamn Grimaldi again, he would rip his damn arms off and beat him to death with them.

He wasn’t being funny. He wanted to bash that asshole’s head in and see his skull crunch with the bones of his own limbs. Blood and brain matter would fly.

And Dieter’s anger still wouldn’t be quenched.

But he should not think about that right now. He knew what Flicka needed.

He laid his gun on the nightstand, the stock toward him so he could grab it if he needed to. While Flicka had been in the shower, he had pushed the couch in front of the door to the hallway and fully engaged all the locks. If someone tried to kick that door in, they would probably break their leg. Nothing short of a shaped charge was getting through there.

While he was out there, he had gone through Flicka’s purse.

No passport, damn it. That would have made things easier.

When he’d found her phone, he turned it off, dismantled it, and removed the battery to keep anyone from tracing it.

Now, lying on the other side of the bed from her, Dieter rested quietly and controlled his breathing.

In the military, he had learned to force himself to sleep anytime, anywhere, in any position. He had napped hanging from trees in a harness made of two webbed belts, and he had dozed standing up, strapped to the wall of a military cargo jet.

But now, with the soft warmth of Flicka’s body wafting through the sheets and Quentin Sault and his Secret Service jackasses out there, Dieter was wide awake.

He deepened and slowed his breathing, relaxing his limbs, so he appeared to be asleep.

Just after he did that, within a minute, something cool and soft alighted on his bare biceps.

His breathing did not falter. He continued that deep, slow, sleepy inhale, and breathed out just as slowly.

For a moment, nothing moved except his breathing.

Flicka’s fingers slid over his bare arm until her hand rested on his skin.

Dieter didn’t move, didn’t change the pace of his breath.

Within a few moments, the sobbing hitch in Flicka’s respiration smoothed, and she settled down to sleep, her hand clutching his arm.