The Chase

19 Evie

I started to wake up. Feeling safe, and warm. Tucked into a comfortable bed, not a narrow cot in a bitch room. As wakefulness truly started to dawn on me, I could feel someone nearby. I slowly rolled over, opening my eyes to see Luca, his head bobbing as he breathed slowly, an empty coffee mug about to slip from his hand.

His eyes flew open just as the coffee mug fell to the floor, the handle breaking off. He looked bewildered, then terrified. Then his eyes met mine and he smiled. A flood of relief and joy washed over me. Making me confused, I certainly did not feel relief or joy right now. "You're awake. How do you feel Evie?" mm I still liked hearing him say my name though, that was nice. I shook my head, why did I feel drugged near him.

I sat up on the comfortable bed. Thinking hard about how I felt. This close to Luca that weird pull and high feeling was so strong, and I felt a tangle of feelings that weren't connecting with my own heart and mind. I didn't appear to be in a hospital waking up from a medical coma, was this still the nightmare? "I'm, I honestly don't know... is this-" I paused, feeling stupid but I needed to ask. "Is this real life?" looking away from him. He was looking at me so intensely. It was unnerving.

"This is most definitely real life Evie." Would a nightmare tell me the truth. I watched Luca shift from the chair to kneel beside the bed taking my hands in his. A rush of pleasurable flutters moving up my arms from where his skin met mine. "I have so fucking much to tell you," Luca was about to offer to make her breakfast when a folding table appeared beside the bed, followed by a dozen different brunch platters clattering into place. A hand written note fluttering directly into my lap.

Breakfast is my treat this morning. Can't wait to meet you.

Welcome to the misfit club EV Evie. you and Luca botb.

Love Ash.

"Why won't the nightmare end? Why can't I wake up?" looking at the delicious smelling spread of breakfast like it was a wild bear ready to jump in for the kill. Things didn't just appear out of nowhere. Nightmare was not real.  My brain had to be broken, this was it, this was how my life ended, with a broken brain in a nightmare that never ended.

"Shhh Evie, it's OK." Luca's phone buzzed with a message from Delia, warning that there was a sorceress on the pack lands eager to meet Evie. That Ash might send over some food to help this morning. Luca typed a quick reply that breakfast just arrived before turning the phone. His mind link, everything off. No more interruptions. 

It felt like all his attention on was on me. That I was the only thing the center of my nightmare could see, looking and seeming so much like Luca, who was the only person I wanted to see. "You haven't been in a nightmare Evie, absolutely everything since the diner has been real life." I drew in a sharp inhale at his words.

"No." Barely a whisper from my lips. My eyes going wide as I remembered everything that had happened. I looked at Luca. What he said was impossible. I saw him as a monster twice, Rocket was inhuman. None of that could be real. It wasn't. Couldn't. 

"That," Luca pointed to the breakfast that had appeared from nowhere. This was just a nightmare. "Was magic, we are pretty much surrounded by it right now." He paused, and I could almost hear his brain gears turn for the seconds it took him to continue, "A friend wanted to send us some food while we talked." His voice, calm and low and gentle. It was soothing to hear his voice, calming my frayed nerves. He smelled nice, masculine and woodsy, or maybe that was just this cabin. 

No matter how good this nightmare felt, how convincing the Luca nightmare was, it wasn't real. Everything in me screamed to fight against the feelings. I didn't know him. Anyone could be nice for a little while. This wasn't real. Rocket had me fooled into thinking even he was a good man for a little while. That was real. This wasn't real. Couldn't be. 

I didn't trust anything. "This can't be real." Luca assured me it was. So gently he spoke but the words were too much no matter how softly spoken. "No. That's not possible. Rocket, he had red eyes- He was a monster, a worse kind of monster than I imagined you were. Twice." I looked at Luca and this time, he nodded. My blood ran cold like it did when Rocket had entered the room. "No. That was all a nightmare. Where is Sara? She has to be frantic looking for me." I knew she was mad when I went missing. She never stayed mad at me long before. When she couldn't find me she must have panicked. She was all I had, she had to be worried about me.

"Rocket is a vampire now, a real monster. Sara was the one to tell his gang where you were the night you were taken. She is being held by my pack right now until the trial." I heard the words he said. I even knew what they all individually meant. it was english and not english. So much was wrong. It wasn't possible.

"She wouldn't do that to me, she knew, she wouldn't...." I looked at Luca and all I saw was a well of sadness in his eyes that mirrored what my own heart was feeling. "She wouldn't." I repeated. Luca went to say something but closed his mouth. Like he knew I was lying to him just as much as I was to myself. 

"She did." My heart breaking in a way I hadn't known was possible. I had never known another person long enough to feel this kind of betrayal. "She's my family." I said as my one solid place in the world, shattered under my feet. The one person I had counted on the longest had started this nightmare carousel that didn't stop.  I went sprawling into mental a free fall. Luca crawled onto the bed with me, enveloping me in his arms as my entire world broke apart. I felt safe in his arms, I closed my eyes and felt like I was home. I wanted to fight him, to tell him Sara wouldn't have done that to me. She loved me. I didn't say anything else though.