A reworking of Mare's PTSD reaction on the jet- just because I loved the idea of it, I thought it was very realistic for her to be triggered by being on a jet again for the first time since her capture, especially since it was probably the same type of jet. But I was disappointed in the realism of the scene itself, it wasn't consistent with a real PTSD flashback, which you can't just shut off like Mare does. I was also frustrated with Cal, I felt that he should have had more patience and tried harder to find what would help her before calling Cameron in. Let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my imagination! Any phrases borrowed from the original scene are in bold and belong to Victoria Aveyard.
Cal keeps one hand protectively on the small of my back even as we walk. His touch is hot and reassuring and I want to close my eyes and bask in it, in this moment. But I keep both eyes firmly open anyway, unwaveringly focused on his face, on his smile and the silver flush that rises in his cheeks when he catches me staring. This could still be a dream.
I'm so overwhelmed by the reality that has existed in my mind as only a hopeless longing for these past six months, that it takes me a moment to realize that Cal has stopped walking. The delicious purr of pulsing electricity surrounds me and I stumble. The strength of the sensation flowing into me, echoed deep within my veins, is overwhelming after living for so long in empty Silence. I reach out with one hand to steady myself, and brace my palm against cool, curved metal. Awareness slowly dawns in me, bringing with it a roiling dread in the pit of my stomach that I try my best to ignore. We're on an air jet. The sheer strength of the electric current I feel rushing under my hand and the dull roar of engines makes it unmistakable. Unwelcome memories come crashing back against the weak mental walls I've done my best to erect, vivid images of the last time I was on a jet like this assaulting my thoughts. That jet crashed, and the battle that followed cost me my brother's life, my freedom, and I worry- my sanity.
The adrenaline from the battle had begun to ebb, though I still wear its wounds and mud, painted in blood of both colors. But as the aircraft's engines shudder under my feet, preparing for take-off, it comes rushing back like a tidal wave, flooding my body with the sudden need to fight, to flee. I whirl around on hasty feet, unable to do anything but stare, trembling and wide eyed as the mechanical door of the jet shuts behind me and Cal, its last passengers. The loud thud as it closes reverberates through the hollow cabin we're standing in with an ominous finality, and I feel trapped, suffocated. Locked into a steel coffin. My heartbeat pounds in my ears like thunder, and my breath has begun to come in shallow, uneven gasps.
You're safe. I remind myself, digging fingernails into one trembling hand hard enough to draw crimson blood. I use the pain as a fragile anchor to keep me from slipping away, pulled under the breakers of waking nightmares that threaten to drown me.
You're safe. But despite the distraction of fresh, sticky blood trickling slowly down my wrist, lightning pools beneath my skin, I can feel it quivering in every nerve. In my peripheral vision I see Cal motion for me to sit down, but I don't move, I can't. I concentrate all of my remaining self-possession on breathing deeply, on slowing my heart rate, on quenching the violet sparks that rush to respond to my fear. I'm unable to do much more than simply not resist when he guides me into a seat. If Cal notices my struggle, he chooses not to comment. His voice is even when he takes the empty seat beside mine and calls, "Healer Reese, her first!"
"Sure thing."
Another male voice replies, and I can hear the easy grin in his answer. It disappears the second his fingers close around my wrists. His grip feels wrong, heavy and restrictive. His hands are cool, like all of House Skonos, but this too feels wrong and panic leaps up into my chest. Cool like stone. Like Silent Stone.
Like Manacles.
The tenuous grip I've managed to keep on reality until now snaps, and with it my self-control. Coherent thought is beyond me, I'm ruled only by adrenaline and cold terror. Reflexively I jump to my feet. Powerful purple electricity ignites beneath my skin, encasing my hands and my wrists in protective sparks. The healer yelps in pain and surprise, flinching back from the shock that sets his hair on end, but I barely notice. Faces flash before my eyes, clouding my vision, transporting me back to Norta, back to the prison of Silent Stone that they forced me to wear. Maven, Samson, my Arven guards with their bruising fingers and cruel eyes. I hiss in pain as the familiar ache seeps through my body like a disease, creeping slowly into my muscles and my bones, weighing me down. My lightning flares along with my fear, no longer confined to my hands. Sparks hiss and crackle all over my body now, burning smoking holes in my already battered dress and I'm dimly aware of people around me shouting and shielding their faces as the lightbulbs overhead shatter, showering us all with stinging shards of still-scalding glass. I feel them land on my skin too, and a sharp pain blooms across my cheekbone as one sliver of glass leaves a shallow cut. But I can't react, I can't think, I can't breathe. I feel the phantom weight of Silence again pressing in on my chest, crushing my windpipe, suffocating me. Spots dance before my vision and the motion of the jet as the pilot fights to keep it under control makes me sway on unsteady legs. Cal moves fluidly, angling himself between me and the rest of the jet. He braces one hand against the wall by my face, both shielding me and blocking me in.
"Mare, he's going to treat your wounds. He's a newblood, with us."
He doesn't flinch away from the sparks he must surely feel, but my face burns with the pulse of heat emanating from his proximity and I do. He means to reassure me, I know, to offer the soothing blanket of warmth that has calmed me before. But that was a lifetime ago, and the Mare he knew then is gone, left behind in the prison of Whitefire. I am an empty shell of a person, a ghost, an echo of that girl. In my confusion and terror, his heat scalds rather than comforts, and I squeeze my eyes shut against it, turning my face into the cool metal wall of the jet for relief.
You're safe. You're safe. You're with Cal, the Guard. You're safe.I repeat the words manically in my mind like a desperate refrain, faster and faster until they lose all meaning, willing myself to calm down, to believe them. I can feel jet angle sharply beneath my feet, the pilot getting us close to the ground should the worst happen. Cal takes my face, ignoring the hissing purple shocks that race up his arms at the contact, caressing, pleading. "Mare. Mare, open your eyes, please. Just look at me, focus on me." I hear the pain and desperation in his voice. He knows as well as I do what will happen to this jet if I lose control completely.
"Mare, no one is going to hurt you here. I swear it. I'm here now. It's all over, you're safe. Look at me!"
I grit my teeth in resolve and pry my eyes open, forcing myself to meet Cal's gaze. But I see Maven in his face, hear Maven in the timbre of his voice. Familiar features shift before my eyes, becoming finer, sharper. Warm amber eyes filled with concern and pain become searing blue flame, burning, scarring me deep within my soul.
Look at me. Maven said those words to me once, in Harbor Bay, when the agony of the sounder nearly ripped me apart. When he left his brand burned eternally into my chest.
M for Monster. M for Maven. M for Mare.
The scarred skin burns again under the memory of his agonizing touch. The pain makes me gag, stinging bile rises in my throat and my knees finally make good on their threat to buckle, sending me crashing down against the sharp metal grating beneath my feet. The jet's engines whine and falter.
"Calore."
Her voice cuts through the roaring in my ears, stern and resolute and startlingly familiar.
Cameron.
Even in the haze of my panic and terror, I realize why she's here. What she's offering. I want to rage, to beg and scream and cry for mercy. I spare no thought for the shame of such weakness; I have no pride left to offend. But the words won't come. All that escapes my throat is a strangled, pathetic whimper.
I know with a cold certainty that strikes bone deep that I will not survive again under the smother, the slow death of her Silence. A single gasp of freedom between two prisons is just another torture, and no matter how much control she's gained while I was gone, no matter how gentle she tries to be, I have no reserves left to endure anymore. When Cal's voice cracks like a whip in response, I nearly melt in relief and some of the strength of my electric shield fizzles and weakens with the force of the emotion.
"Wait." He growls in her direction. "Give her the respect of another moment."
I feel a wave of warmth as he approaches me again, dropping to his knees beside my trembling body, but it's somehow softer this time, gentler than Maven ever was. One calloused hand reaches out to brush my cheek, tentatively at first, but growing bolder when I don't recoil or electrocute him. My vision still swims and my pulse thunders too fast, leaving me breathless and trembling, but Cal's gentle whisper,
"Control. Control, Mare", reminds me of our training sessions and I draw a shuddering breath through clenched teeth, feeling my lightning recede and the engines of the jet stabilizing. Encouraged, his hands move to ghost over my arms, my back; they tangle in my hair and tenderly trace the jagged scars that race up the back of my neck. Gentle, soothing warmth blooms beneath my skin everywhere his fingers touch, giving me something tangible to focus on, calling me back to him. The dark haze of the past clouding my vision gradually clears, and my surroundings begin to filter back into focus. I shudder in respite, leaning into his once again familiar warmth and letting Maven's face and Maven's touch and Maven's eyes fade into my nightmares again. A ghost to haunt me another time.
Cal continues murmuring at me, soft comforting things, and I allow myself to focus on the gentle cadence of his voice for a few more minutes while the last of the adrenaline seeps from my muscles, leaving me trembling and spent. And embarrassed. Ashamed, I push myself slowly back up onto my feet. Avoiding eye contact with the people who watched the lightning girl fall apart, I wearily accept the steadying hand Cal is quick to offer. I sink into an empty seat, putting my palms on my knees. Then I lace my fingers together. Then I sit on my hands, not sure which makes me appear the least threatening. Suddenly I'm acutely aware of my ruined dress,ripped at nearly every seam and scorched by my lightning. Cal takes the seat next to me again, draping a scratchy but clean blanket around my shoulders when he notices my shiver. I can't bring myself to meet his eyes, though I'm grateful for his steady heat; or the healer's when he moves warily to my side again, palms held carefully upward, like he's approaching a wounded animal.
"It happens all the time". He mutters kindly, low enough so only I can hear. I appreciate the absence of judgement in his voice, but it does nothing to alleviate the burning shame that colors my cheeks in a hot red flush. All I can manage in reply is a dark chuckle, a hollow burst of harsh sound.I turn hesitantly to show him the deep gash along my ribcage and sigh despite myself at the blissful sensation of fluid relief that his wary touch sends trickling through my many aches. As the healer does his work, my eyes slip closed, surrendering to relentless exhaustion, and they stay that way for hours.I hover somewhere between waking and sleeping, focusing only on matching my breathing to the measured rhythm of Cal's chest rising and falling. I feel unstable and unpredictable, like a bomb that could go off again at any moment. And so I sit perfectly still, no sudden movements, chilled by the fear that next time I explode I might not be lucky enough to piece myself back together again.
Cal stays close by my side, his leg pressed up against mine, his fingers running discreetly over my tangled curls, smoothing, petting, fingering the spreading grey ends. I feel him shift occasionally, but he doesn't speak with the others and I don't hear Cameron either. Their attention is reserved only for me. I know when the healer has finished even before his hands lift from my arms. The trembling weakness left from my panicked eruption is gone, just a memory, and my body feels whole and well again. But there are mental wounds still bleeding beyond the reach of his ability; deeper and far more dangerous than any physical injuries I sustained today. My body slumps quietly against Cal's solid shoulder, but my thoughts rage, wild and frantic behind my eyes. They spiral and fracture, an endless wild darkness populated with familiar monsters, lit by violent streaks of purple lightning and eerie blue flame; dripping with blood of both colors and soaked in the shame and guilt that I will never escape.
They trap me. They horrify me.
Because there is no healer I know who can repair a fractured mind.