I'm not sure how to sum up today. I think it is safe to say it was the strangest day of my life. Don't get me wrong. It was terrifying. I'm sure there will be an odd nightmare here and there about women in cages or human trafficking or… being eaten by tigers. I don't know if it is due to exhaustion or the aftereffects of the tranquilizer but I am having trouble sorting things out in my mind.
It's funny, the tricks your mind can play on you. When I woke up in the dark room, I was very confused for a moment. I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to make sense of the sounds and the smells around me. At first it was all so foreign, but then I felt him next to me. I caught his scent in the air, wafting toward me and I got a knot in my stomach. I turned and I saw him lying next to me, his head resting on my arm. I remember feeling very happy for a moment, wanting to creep closer and kiss him… a lot. If I hadn't heard the water dripping and echoing strangely through the room, I might have actually done it, but instead I opened my eyes wider and tried to focus through the pitch blackness.
When I woke Castle, still trying to shake the haze out of my head, it was obvious that he had the same initial thought I had. He begged me to stay in bed and go back to sleep in a voice that made me warm all over. When I tried again to get him up, he looked over at me a smile. If we had been somewhere else, anywhere else, that smile could have convinced me to do just about anything. Instead sensibility won out. Damn It.
I try so hard to be in control of everything… always. Not knowing where we were or how we got there made me completely insane. (I probably shouldn't say that in a journal I am keeping for my psychiatrist.) Not knowing, not remembering… it was like reaching for something and having it yanked away at the last moment. Over and over again. As Castle and I tried to work through the day and figure out what the hell had happened to us, I felt the panic rising.
We worked through the flashes. The hotel. The body. The truck driver. The piece of the envelope. The house. The old woman in the cage. My head was swimming. I couldn't quite grab on to the sequence. My headache was almost blinding. I needed to wrap my head around the events. I needed some piece of reality, some piece of the now to bring it all into focus.
As he so frequently does, Castle made it clear. It wasn't anything he said. It was his hand on my bare skin that did it. I felt the warmth of his palm against my skin and the jolt of electricity was immediate and… I'm not sure how to put it into words.
How do I describe what happens when we touch? It's always overwhelming. There is this exchange of something. Energy? Communication? Emotion. All I know is that when he touches me… everything around me stops. It is just a second, but it is real… and when things restart, I think more clearly. This is the first time I have confessed that anywhere. Funny. Maybe my shrink is on to something with this journal.
I'm not easily scared, but I'm not ashamed that I was shaking in my boots while we were exploring that room. The freezer full of bloody knives and chains and Castle's Saw comment had my wheels spinning in all the wrong directions. It was almost a relief when we heard the voices outside and made the assumption that they were human traffickers. That was something tangible that we could fight.
The fight wasn't what we expected.
We both went into full on rescue mode when we thought there was a girl in the next room. My heels are still throbbing from kicking through that wall, and my heart pounds when I remember that tiger's face staring back at us. We both went into survival mode, frantically trying to figure out a way out of that room before we were eaten. I have to say that when Ryan and Esposito opened that hatch in the ceiling… the sense of relief was indescribable.
I happily took mu gun and my badge, not to mention the cuff keys. I also took my tongue lashing from the captain, understanding her frustration at having to track down Castle and me. In true cop fashion, I thanked Ryan and Esposito with a snide remark which translated to "I owe you my life." They made their own remark with meant, "We know you'd have done the same." And they are right. I would have done anything to find them and bring them home safely.
Back at the station, after statements were signed and bad guys were locked away, I couldn't resist yanking Castle's chain, so to speak. His comment about getting hitched did make me flutter a bit, but I know mine about "next time we're handcuffed…" Let's just say I know he was standing at attention.
I can't remember ever being this tired in my life. I'm going to soak in a tub… for a week.