The Chase

15 Evie

Bright. Everything was much too bright. My hand moved to shield my eyes, bumping against my cheek. My eyes flew open. It didn't hurt. My mind telling me every reason why it should hurt. Something had started to feel so wrong. I remembered my heart rate increased as the sounds of gunfight outside continued. Too many shots coming too close. My head pounding like my brain was trying push out, the nausea getting worse. Hallucinating a monster opening a door, then seeing Luca. Coming to rescue me like a hero in a storybook. Like my stupid heart wanted to believe.

Everything got hazy after that. I think there was another car crash, everything hurt. Then warm darkness. Until now. Tentatively moving to sit up, swinging my legs over the side of the narrow cot I was on. I felt my chest constrict, at the familiar fake leather leggings I was wearing. Too thin and too tight. Knowing already my panties were almost certainly gone.

I also saw someone had painted my finger and toenails the same garish shade of red. This was obscenely creepy. One pillow, sheet and blanket. No bra, and an impossibly small purple crop tshirt and a pair of ridiculous heels by the door was the entire sum total of everything in this room. I apparently hadn't even earned a cup yet and would be drinking straight from the tap for the time being.

All the bitch rooms were the same, it was hard to tell if this was the same tiny cell that had been mine or one of the other dozen identical ones. No window, barely enough room. I could kick the wall opposite me from where I sat. I went to the small sink with a mirror. Finding my hair had been trimmed, and I had the same bangs I had worn when Rocket found me. Long hair with blunt heavy bangs over my forehead.

I checked the door. Knowing it was locked even before I tried. Before returning to the mirror. I kept looking at my reflection in the mirror. I looked healthy and like I had the perfect night of sleep. I poked my face. Exactly where I knew Whip had hit me with the heavy chain. I remembered there had been a second pain on the side of my head, probably from falling to the ground. The only mark I could see was a starburst of puncture marks like a constellation at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I ran a finger over it. Seeing a flash of Luca in my head, in a hospital bed, trying to get out. To come and find me. I could see and feel it so clearly in my head.

I sat back roughly, nearly missing the edge of the cot. I touched the mark again. I could feel him, desperate to find me. A flood of reassurance pushing aside my fear for just a moment. Strength that wasn't my own bolstering me to hold it together. I was in a coma or having some kind of reaction to severe brain trauma. This was a nightmare. It couldn't be real life, because in real life I was nearly dead and probably hooked up to so many IVs and narcotics that this is the resultant brain response.

A nightmare world of my own making, where I wasn't fatally injured. A world where the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life kept coming to find me even after I kept running away. A world with monsters, and of all things a psychic link to that same impossibly attractive man I wanted to have babies with. Shocked at where my mind went, I had always wanted a family. My dreams never had a partner in them before.

I don't know how long I lay back on the bed. Having nothing else to do to pass the time Dreaming of making and having babies with Luca. Being a family and living in a little house, with a yard. Maybe Luca was from a big family. A real one, where people were happy around each other. If I was dying in a smashed vehicle, or in a hospital bed, or already gone then I was going to suck any last bit of joy from whatever consciousness I had left.

Just as I was pondering what we would name our fourth baby, a girl this time, and the new puppy we couldn't say no to. I heard heavy booted steps coming down the line. I rose to stand at the farthest point from the door. Fun time over. Now I was going to see how sharp the teeth in my trauma induced nightmare were.