Page 75 of Thorns That Bloom

The voice… Why is it familiar?

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down. I’ve already told you that—”

“No! I’ve finally found him, and you’re going to…” The man’s own gasp cuts short his enraged words. His head jerks to the side, to us, and when he turns his face in our direction, it’s as if time itself completely ceases to exist, trapping me in the still moment.

It can’t be.

“Sam… It’s really you,” he says, wide, bulging eyes fixed on me.

My reality tears at the seams, violently and with the same shudders that rip through me. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the cup in my hand splatter across the floor, but that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the beast staring right at me. Rushing toward me.

A violent tremor passes through me. I step back, nearly falling over.

No…

He keeps coming closer. His face twisting in front of my eyes, distorting, going in and out of focus, but itishim. I know it is him. As long as I live, I’ll never forget it. His fucking face, his smell, his voice, his hands and his grunts and—

“No. No, no, no,” I mutter, teeth chattering against each other. Everything I ate earlier almost comes up. Sharp pain rushes through my insides and all the way into my skull.

It can’t be. This cannot be happening.

“Oh my god, I’ve finally found you. Sam, wait, let me—”

Something gets between me and him, shielding my vision. But I know he’s still there. I can smell him. The scent of pine, wafting powerfully toward me. My body remembers. My knees give out, but someone grabs me by the elbow and helps to hold me up.

He can’t be here. This has to be a nightmare.

Darting my eyes all over, I try to find…something. Some way, an inconsistency, anything to tell me this is just a horrible dream and that will help me snap out of it.

“Hey. I’m trying to talk to him. What’s your fucking problem?” he mutters.

Another voice comes in. Theo’s, I think. I can’t seem to focus on it properly. There’s this loud buzzing inside my head, and all I can hear is the voice of that monster. Of that disgusting, abhorrent fucking monster that…that found me.

A monster that ishere. Right now. With me.

“Oh god,” I blurt out, my chest seizing with hyperventilating breaths as the reality dawns on me with fullforce. My lips become completely unusable, just trembling, formless blobs of flesh.

“Sam, I just want to talk! Please, let me talk to you. Hey, fuck off, man!”

There’s some sort of scuffle. Pushing. People shout over each other around me.

I can’t bring myself to look up. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see him. My stomach threatens to flip again. I can taste vomit and bile on my tongue, acidic and sharp as it burns my throat.

“You have to listen to me, Sam. I know the child is mine. I know it and…I’m sorry, okay? I was wrong. Everything was wrong. I realize that now! I want to be in the child’s life, alright? I can fix this! Fix everything. Make it how it’s supposed to be. Sam. Are you listening to me?”

Black. That’s all I see. There’s nothing.

With a rasping breath, I draw in air, and the world comes back to me when I blink. I’m still here, still in the nightmare. What he just said plays out inside my head on repeat, echoing and overlapping until it turns into a maddening, torturous noise.

His child. He’s talking about… No!

No, no, no…

I grab onto my stomach, head shooting up. He’s there, looking back at me while Theo stands between us, his shoulders arched high and rising with short, sharp movements.

“I know it, Sam. You can’t just—” His hand reaches out, aiming for me. A dizzying wave of brutal images flashes in front of my eyes. Images with sounds and feelings and the most horrendous, rattling sensations still imprinted somewhere deep within my soul.

“If you don’t step away right now and get out, I swear you’ll be leaving in an ambulance,” Theo threatens, his voice so deep and dark and so full of brewing anger it barely even sounds like him.