The Toll {Book 2}

15. Terror in the Night- Ferdinand

I shivered in the freezing cold, but nothing could keep me warm. The thin coat I'd been given when they'd forced me to take up guns for them was now nothing but rags and patches. My boots had gaping holes, and soon would have to be ditched when the blisters weren't worth it anymore. Every part of my body ached from the frozen midnight air, and I thought I might die right there. I stared at the sky, my breath curling in white clouds around me. It would be better to die now. If I lived, the fighting would never stop, my stomach would never have food, I'd never get rest... wouldn't death be better?

...But I was not in this world alone. Nadia. I couldn't leave her behind. I needed to see her again. Needed her to wrap her arms around me and remind me that I wasn't one of the dead.

I rolled onto my side, looking at the body of a man that had died in the skirmish that morning. I had no idea if I'd killed the man, or if one of my fellow soldiers had, but it didn't matter. I grabbed the man's collar and yanked his heavy weight until he was draped over me and blocking out the wind. He'd keep me warm, keep me hidden from the soldiers until the Vigilant started another attack the next morning. I huddled under the body, my hands clenched against his chest, my eyes squeezed shut so that I didn't stare into the unseeing gaze of the corpse that would get me alive through the night.

I sobbed in the unfeeling night, but no one in the world could hear me.

-----

I awoke with a jerk, my breath caught in my chest and tears on my cheeks. I shook so much that I had to take a moment to remember that I was in a bedroom at the LeClaire's home. A warm quilt kept me warm, not the blue corpse of a dead man...

I ran a hand over my face and the sweat that beaded across my forehead and upper lip. I took a shaky breath and reached for Nadia... only she wasn't there. Of course not. She had gone home with the Lephards. It still felt like an open wound, that she wasn't by my side, but I knew I couldn't keep her trapped. She wasn't my nurse or redeemer. I knew it was the right thing, to let her live her own life, but my throat burned as I thought of her face, the sweet dimple on her one cheek and the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she'd laugh at me.

I tried to let the panic run its course. I rubbed me eyes. If Nadia had been there, the nightmares would have faded to darkness soon enough. But in the room alone, they ran like demons in my head. I clenched my fists, grit my teeth, and tried to throw them out. But they only grew until I couldn't stand them anymore.

I grabbed a shirt and threw it on.

Shuffling downstairs, I headed for Mr. LeClaire's liquor cabinet. After pouring some whiskey, I drank it in one go while I crossed to the window in the sitting room. I pulled back the curtain, looking out at the road beyond. It was empty and dark. As abandoned as many of the streets in Rumonin. A dread prickled my skin, turning it clammy and cold. In the gloom of night, the bushes across the street morphed into crouched men. The paving stones turned into the bodies of the fallen. The cracks in the cobblestones glinted with rivulets of phantom crimson. My breath hitched and I slammed my eyes shut. It wasn't true. None of what I was seeing was true. I wasn't back there.

When I opened my eyes again, the bushes were back to normal. There was no blood in the street or bodies hiding in the shadows. It was merely a city street, quiet and still for the night. I exhaled and placed the empty whiskey glass on the window sill before my shaking hands accidentally dropped it. I was just about to turn from the window, when the crack of distant gunfire shattered the still night.

I dropped to the floor with such force that my teeth cut into my tongue. The taste of salt and metal burst through my mouth and with it came memories of the mists of red spray as cannonballs hit men just feet away from me.

The gunfire, though I, in some vague way, knew it was coming from somewhere far away, still seemed to be right above me. I heard the phantom whiz of bullets as they flew just inches above my head. Heard the wet slap of bullets entering the bodies of the men I'd led into battle. I felt blood on my hands, in between my fingers, sinking into my skin where it would stain and fester. I yelled, scrubbing at my hands and wincing as each new shot rang out. Panic laced through my veins, binding me until all I could do was drag myself to a nearby table. I hunched underneath it, gripping the leg and sobbing as the gunshots continued. I was covered in blood, surrounded by bodies, freezing cold and starving, forced to kill. Tears spilled down my cheeks and I shook in fear that they'd come for me, come to destroy even more...

"Ferdinand!"

I barely heard my name through the haze of fear. I resisted as someone grabbed my shoulders and shook them. I saw nothing but the body-filled roads of Rumonin around me. But then hands cupped my face, gentle and patient, and the bloom of a fire flickered to life and banished the shadows around me.

I blinked. I was in the sitting room of the LeClaire's townhome, where everything was warm and cozy and still. The sounds of gunshots were far in the distance, nowhere even close to where I was. I stared in disbelief, blinking in the light of the candle that someone held just a little bit in front of my face. The flame danced, drawing me more and more into my real body and not the memory of the frozen and starved one from the battlefields.

"Oh my little Dinny." Mother. She clenched a handkerchief to her chest, dressed in a white nightgown with her hair down. Next to her, kneeling directly in front of me and the one to whom the hands belonged, was Father. Sturdy as always, but now with a sense of worry that I'd never seen before in his face. I could never recall him embracing me before, but now his hands held me gentle and firm, warming my skin through the drench of fear.

I opened his mouth, wanting to let them know I was fine, but nothing came out. Instead I crumpled forward into Father's embrace. He held me tight against the violent shaking of my sobs. I heard mother, her own tears muffled as she watched us. I reached out through Father's arms, taking Mother and pulling her close as well. They buried me with their arms, keeping me safe... safe from memories that would only return some other night when a loud noise or the smell of rot triggered those starving, violent nights once again.