Little Red

SIXTY FOUR

⚠️TRIGGER WARNING: BODY SHAMING, BODY IMAGE ISSUES⚠️

Dani sat in the bathroom with her knees up to her chest as she stared ahead of herself, wide-eyed and breathing heavily as her mind tried to register what she had just seen.

She knew she had been hearing his voice and had clearly been seeing him outside of her dreams...but that...no...it hadn't been real.

It had to have been a hallucination.

There was just no other explanation for it.

Or was there?

She couldn't explain it, but she'd had a gut feeling that whatever it was that had been happening to her, was something more than just she and her family could figure out. And the more she thought about it, the less confident she became that there was any solution to their ever-growing problem.

"Dans?"

She jumped at the sudden voice and turned her head to meet the frowning face of her boyfriend.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," Mikey said as he walked in to sit beside her. "What are you doing in here, baby? We've all been so worried about you. Are you okay?"

Dani furrowed her brows as she looked at him, and realizing what he'd asked, Mikey shook his head as he then said, "Right...Stupid question...But I still want to know what you're doing in here? I came in thinking you were in your room, only to find the bathroom light on and you nowhere in sight. Did you get sick again?"

"No," Dani finally mumbled as she looked away from him. "I just came in to take some medicine for my side and decided to stay here."

Mikey frowned. "Is it still hurting?" he asked. "Come on. Maybe it'll feel better if you were to lay down-"

"I don't want to lay down," Dani quickly cut him off. "Why can't I just stay here? There's nothing wrong with that. I'm fine."

"Okay," Mikey said with a nod. "Okay, we can stay in here if that's what you want...Can I at least hold you?"

With a ghost of a smile, Dani rolled her eyes playfully and moved herself up so that Mikey could sit behind her and bring her into his lap.

"Is your mind at ease now, Mr.Worrywart?" she asked.

Mikey laughed softly and kissed her head. "A little," he said. "But it'll never fully be until I know your mind is at ease...so tell me what's on it."

Dani sighed and said, "What isn't on it is the real question..."

Mikey raised an eyebrow, which caused Dani to sigh again as she looked down at her hands.

"I just want everything to go back to normal," she said. "Or at least as normal as they can be. I hate feeling like every second of every day is a second closer to my doom or something...or that everyone I know and love is in danger because some stupid wolf just doesn't want to stay dead."

Mikey frowned as he took in her words, and leaned his cheek against her head as he rubbed his thumb on her arm.

"Everyone's always so focused on worrying about me that they forget to worry about themselves," she then said. "But I've always been more worried about you guys than myself because I know that Henry's ultimate goal has always been to make me suffer...and the only way for him to succeed in doing that is for something bad to happen to everyone I care about."

"But he's not here anymore, baby...He can't hurt any of us because he's gone," Mikey said, which caused Dani to scowl.

"So how do I have his claw mark on my stomach, Mikey?" she asked while looking up at him. "Because I didn't have it before he died. And my body temperature wasn't way below normal either."