knock on wood | howlett

xii. her

a haunted house ; jon bellion

she woke in a pitch blackness, panting and sweating. tears burned on her cheeks and her heart tried to escape her ribs.

she'd woken up screaming and gasping for greedy air. she stopped screaming; she was a flurry of messy hair and sweaty palms. she tried to stand and the sheets entangled her.

she fell to the ground and pulled herself away from her bed, away from the terror. she stood and ran out of the room, down the hall and to a balcony.

she stood on the cool cement, watching the royal blue sky. it was some dark hour in the night, a forgotten and tired hour. everyone was asleep...

well almost everyone.

she tried hard to forget the nightmare. it was then the main lead in her night terror came into reality:

"beck?" it was logan. it was always logan.

words didn't reach her lips. she simple hummed an acknowledgement.

"what's wrong?"

"a nightmare," the two words fell out of her mouth and onto the lawn for him to see. he watched the grounds with her.

"i get them too."

it wasn't an apology nor empty promise for a better future. it was a reminder she wasn't alone in the suffering.

"there were so many tests," her voice crackled. "there are so many scars."

"i know."

"i can't escape it. my body's a roadmap of hell."

"mine too."

"you heal, at least. people can't see it. it's only for you to see and judge."

"do you really think that makes it easier?"

"no," she watched him. he seemed so serene, so at peace with his suffering. "will it get better?"

"no, but it'll get easier." he looked at her. he tried to explain, "you learn to deal. you'll learn how to use it as a guide of what not to do... you'll be able to cope as best you can."

"how do you?"

"when i first came here, i got so many terrors. i wouldn't lie down to sleep because of them. xavier taught me how to work so i could forget. i learned that you can't undo what's been done, so you've got to make the best of it. i see how my life is and i do all i can to protect these kids so they don't have to go through it too."

he draped a robe over her shoulders. she hadn't even realized she was shivering.

"it's a sick world," she admitted, watching the still property. "there's so much hate."

"but there's hope. i see it in the kids here; they're going to make a difference."

"they will," she nodded to reassure herself. a gruesome thought surfaced in her head, and she blurted it out of the blue:

"if i survived, did the others?"

he took a second to react, as if the question was a baseball bat to the stomach and he was trying to recover.

"i don't know."