Page 21

“Dog? Gator?” she calls out, happy and upbeat. “Come on. Come inside. Come.”

Wade pats his leg. “Come on, now.”

They make a variety of ridiculous noises and gestures, but the dog is far too busy chewing on a branch to pay them any attention. In the end, they lure him in with a hunk of bread, and that only reminds her they’ll be running out of food a lot faster with three mouths to feed.

“He didn’t jump the fence again,” she whispers in bed, after the dog is curled up in the corner of the room.

“We still can’t keep him,” Wade replies.

It’s a token protest, and she knows it. “Of course not.”

* * *

Wade’s having another nightmare. Just like before, Kara sits uselessly halfway across the room. Can’t help or soothe. That would only make it worse.

The dog is worried, too, approaching the bed while Wade tosses and turns, tilting his head at how desperately he thrashes.

Wade’s hand falls over the edge of the mattress, and Gator licks his fingers before she can stop him. Panic hits her at first, assuming the worst, but Wade only settles instead of lashing out.

She’s not prepared for the mixture of emotions that hit her.

Relief that he’s allowing himself some amount of comfort, and pain heavy in her heart that it’s not her who can offer it.

He never wakes up this time, only slips back into a quiet, restful sleep.

It’s her who lies awake for an hour, waiting for any further hints of another nightmare and wrestling with her longing to soothe him.

The second nightmare wakes her much later with a strangled gasp as he kicks at the wall beside the bed.

She waits, hoping he’ll come out of it on his own, but this one lasts longer and she begins to worry he won’t.

He could give himself a heart attack like this.

More than once she watches as he stops breathing altogether, holding it tight in his lungs before being forced to suck in air.

His head comes dangerously close to the side table, and she almost lunges to shove her hand in between so he doesn’t get a concussion. Thankfully, it never connects.

The dog wanders into a corner again, this time unable to handle the drastic change in intensity.

“Wade?” she calls out.

No response.

Kara tries again and again, getting a little closer until she’s just out of reach. It tears her apart to see him like this and be unable to do anything about it. He’s sweat-slicked and miserable with tears streaming down his face and her name on his tongue begging for help she can’t give.

She considers shaking his ankle, then darting out of the way. Maybe pelting him with a pillow from a distance or grabbing a pot from the kitchen and banging it against the wall. Anything to help him escape a nightmare he doesn’t deserve to be trapped in.

Silas is going to suffer for what he’s done, she thinks, anger bubbling like lava in her gut. He’s taken something from Wade that she isn’t sure he’ll ever get back, and that’s earned him a death worthy of the crime.

“Wade, wake up, you’re dreaming,” she tries again, louder and with more force.

She doesn’t touch him. Made that mistake twice and won’t repeat it, but she still triggers a reaction she should have seen coming.

His eyes fly open and the moment he sees her, she knows she’s made a grave mistake.

She’s too close.

All he has to do is reach out and suddenly she’s being dragged onto the bed, her hands pinned above her head, and his body pushing her down into the mattress.

“I said don’t fucking touch me!” he yells, to whatever face he’s manifested over hers. “Get your hands off me! Off! I’ll fucking kill you….I said….don’t….”

She’s only afraid because she’s human. She can’t control how her body shakes or how wide her eyes have gotten.

“Wake up, wake up, please wake up,” she nearly sobs. “Wade, it’s me. Wake up. Look at me.”

Kara doesn’t struggle. She lies there while his hands bruise her wrists and he stares a thousand yards into the ground below her.

Her voice remains calm even as the tremors escape.

She didn’t know she had it in her to be this stoic and tranquil amid such aggression.

Turns out, for Wade, she can do anything.

“You’re in the blue house with me and the dog. Remember? You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. Just a dream.”

He would never forgive himself if he hurt her. It would shove everything back so far they may never be able to reset it again. She can’t allow that to happen.

“Look at me, look at my face. I’m right here with you. I’m real, I promise I’m real,” she says softly.

If she was in her right mind, she might attempt to tell him a random fact to prove it, but there’s not a chance in hell that she can think clearly enough right now. Odds are, he’s too far gone to hear it, anyway.

The moment he truly sees her again, his horror and confusion are instant.

The grip on her wrists loosens, and the defensive anger on his face breaks with a quiver of his lower lip.

He’s not dangerous anymore, but so broken that she’s amazed he’s been able to recover as much as he has already.

What she sees now has been there this whole time, yanking him down while she’s been trying to lift him up.

In a moment of desperation, he sways in her direction, looking for all the world like he might move in against her before thinking better of it and shifting in reverse.

What she does next may be stupid, but it happens anyway. They are so close, and she can’t let him pull away again. Can’t allow this moment to pass without helping him embrace it.

One arm slips free of his hold to reach up and cup his cheek, catching him before he can run. “It’s okay. You’re already here with me. You’re already here.”

The sound that escapes him reaches into her chest and squeezes as she fights to remain calm. When he collapses, it’s a slow fold, reluctant and ashamed, but a welcome relief as he tucks his face into her neck with a shuddering inhale.

His arms curl under her back and over her shoulders, pulling her to him like he can’t get close enough.

It’s a culmination of everything she hadn’t dared to hope for since the first day he disappeared.

Every moment she spent alone, wondering where he was, every tear shed and enemy killed.

Every piece of her soul she stained with blood in her quest to find him…

it was all worth it a hundred times over to be here now, holding the man she loves.

Kara wraps him up tight, her arms a steady pressure around his back and legs parting to hug his hips and keep him here. Every heartbreaking sob that wrecks him shakes her own body, too, wrenching out her tears to drop against his temple.

His pain flows like a salty river against her skin while her fingers stroke the back of his neck, the heel of her foot rubbing absently along his leg every few minutes.

Their position is undeniably intimate, yet despite all her persistent arousal earlier, there isn’t a trace of that in her body now.

She longs only to comfort him in a way that she’s craved since he was ripped away from her.

He’s heavy on top of her like this, but she welcomes it because she’s ached for it.

Has to be heavy to mend even the smallest of all their cracked pieces.

Suffering like his is so much lighter when it’s shared.

She could never let him shoulder any of her burdens before the turn, or let herself feel it in a way that allowed him to carry it, too.

Now, at least she can bear some of this weight for him.

If it were up to her, they wouldn’t move all night, but eventually he rolls to the side, clinging to her as tightly as before and falling into an exhausted sleep.

She’s not sure if this is only a temporary reprieve from their limitations, but for the first time, everything feels right again, and the possibility of a brighter future together is more than just a fantasy.