I'm walking around the forest with sweat running down my body. My clothes are drenched and sticking to me. I raise a hand up and wipe away at my forehead. I feel so overwhelmingly tired and thirsty that I forgot what I'm doing here. I don't know if I'm looking for something or if I should be doing something. I can't even remember when I started wandering around this place or how I got here. I look up at the sun but the trees block my view and it only serves to further disorient me. I was not built for the outdoors. I put my hands over my eyes and take another tired step forward. My feet are like lead and I lose my footing, tripping over myself. I fall face first, pine needles and dirt stick to my skin and some rock is digging into my side. I should just give up. I'm so sleepy that all I can really think about is laying my head down and waking up next week. I don't care if I stay lost in these stupid woods forever. I let my head fall down onto the dirt and close my eyes but the rock is too sharp to let me fall asleep. I grab it and try to toss it away from me, but it's stuck to the ground. I groggily open my eyes as I tug harder at it, trying to dislodge it from the ground. It's suddenly slippery in my fingers and my hand comes up empty. I wipe away at my forehead again and when I look at my hand it's filled with blood. I jump up and look down at the rock. Wondering what the hell is going on.
The rock has blood all around it, fresh blood. It doesn't make any sense. I touch it again and more blood comes off, as if the rock were the one bleeding. I take a tired breath, the air burns my lungs because now I can taste the way everything around me has a coppery taste. That means that whatever made this is either injured or a predator and this is a fresh kill. I wipe the blood off my hands on my pants and as I'm looking at them I hear it, a low growl that tells me that I should have run while I still had the energy. I look up and see a wolf. Its fangs are bared and its head is down. I don't know much about nature but I understand danger. I know the feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you you're fucked. It's watching me, waiting for the right moment to strike. I slide my hand across my torso, trying to keep any sudden movements to a minimum. I grab at empty space where my gun should be. It's stupid but the only thing that comes to my mind isn't that I'm about to die but that the wolf's fur is really shiny, how black it is. I take a tentative step backwards and end up falling on my ass. Fuck. A hand grips my thigh and I look down, what I thought was a rock is someone's hand, trying to pull me under. "Keep her still I need to see if we have to amputate that leg." I hear from above me. I look around and the wolf is closing in as more hands come from the ground to hold me in place. I thrash about, not ready to become easy prey and hear voices above me again. "Can anyone explain why she's not completely under?" More hands grab at my clothes and I punch against empty air, trying to fight them off. "I'm sorry Dr. Johnson but she knocked out Dr. Ortega and he's the only anesthesiologist in the county." The hands keep grabbing onto me and the wolf is getting closer and I don't know how to deal with everything at once.
"Agent McCullers… Paige. Paige!" Emily shakes me awake as she continues to say my name. "Huh? What's wrong?" I ask her automatically. Her presence makes the sleep and confusion leave my body as adrenaline starts pumping. I become more alert as she yawns. "We fell asleep while watching the movie… and although you've very warm and super comfortable you became less comfortable as you began to move around a lot…" I nod and relax. "Thanks for waking me up. I was having a nightmare." I say as I touch my legs. I can't feel the scars beneath the fabric and I frown. It's stupid but this ritual of knowing that they're real, of feeling them against my fingertips after every nightmare helps to ground me and with Emily in the room I'm afraid of touching them because I don't want to draw attention to them. "Ummm…" I say, filling up the silence between us because I don't know what to tell her. I look at my cellphone. 3:45 AM. Same as always. "You should go back to sleep Em, you have your meet tomorrow… today." I tell her as I get up and walk to the bathroom, being careful to close the door as quietly as possible.
I turn the water on and splash my face. Trying to wash away the feeling of hands holding me down, of the voices and the hallucinations… of being trapped in the past again. I sigh as I dry my face and look up at the mirror, bracing myself for what I'm about to look at. I pull my pants down until they're no longer hiding the scars and I look at the reflection as I touch them. It's funny how now that they're a part of me I can't remember what my skin looked like without them. I burned most of the pictures of me in bathing suits and shorts when I was going to pull the trigger because I hated the constant reminder that I wasn't always like this. But now, it's different. The surviving pictures are safely tucked away under my bed show me what I looked like before my recovery, before the weight of the scars became permanent upon my skin. But I haven't been able to look at them since that night because I still can't reconcile that girl with the one that stares back at me every single day. I just can't understand how we're the same person when I feel so far removed from her, as if she were a stranger. I can't even remember what it's like to go to bed without dreading the moment I fall asleep because I'm afraid of what I'll find there. So it's no wonder that I can't remember feeling any different before.
A knock at the door interrupts my thoughts and I quickly pull my pants up, ashamed of being seen, even when there's a locked door between us. I open the door, and Emily is standing there looking worried, it makes me feel like a fraud. Like I don't belong on her detail because I should be protecting her, not the other way around. I don't know what to say so I just stand close to her, letting her presence calm me down. She bites her lower lip and stares down at our bare feet and I paradoxically feel more and less vulnerable around her at the same time. My body moves closer to hers and I remind myself to breathe because I feel like I always stop breathing when we stand near each other. "Do you need to use the bathroom?" I ask her, trying to stop my brain from being taken over by fantasies of kissing Emily and her kissing me back. Emily shakes her head to indicate that she's not waiting for the bathroom to be free. "I… I just wanted to make sure you were okay." I smile and nod. "Yeah. I'm fine. But I don't think I'll be watching any more scary movies with you before bed." She laughs. "You're such a big baby. The movie wasn't scary at all… plus you fell asleep within the first ten minutes, so you missed all the good parts anyway." She teases me as she yawns into her palm. I laugh and we stand in the dark for a couple of seconds before she turns around and I follow her back to where the beds are. I pull down the covers on my bed and Emily does the same with hers. I'm trying not to look up at her because I can feel her watching me. I want her to just say it, whatever she's thinking, she should just say it. I grab the two pillows I took earlier and place them on top of the sheets. "You need to go back to sleep." I remind her. Emily nods but doesn't move. I rub my face with my hands and get under the covers of my bed. Even though I know I won't be able to fall back asleep, I don't want to disrupt Emily because she needs to rest as much as possible before their meet today. I move to my side and pretend to be relaxing back into sleep.
"Paige?" Emily whispers. "Yeah?" I ask her, staring at the wall, facing away from her. "Do you want to tell me about your nightmare? My mom says if share it with someone, then you won't dream about it again." I chuckle. "Naaa, I'd rather dream about it again than have you make fun of me for having nightmares about cheesy movies." She laughs softly. "Well if you change your mind. I'll be right here." Heat spreads across my face as I blush. "Thanks." I tell her as I stare at the wall in the dark and wait. I don't know how long I stay still; waiting for her breathing to even out; when she falls back asleep I sit up on the bed. I look over at Emily, to make sure she's not awake and I slip out from under the sheets.
I grab the first thing that's on her pile of school books she brought with her and head towards the bathroom. I open the door, turn the light on and sit on the little hallway so that I can read without disturbing Emily. I like that even though I won't be able to sleep I don't have to feel alone tonight because there's someone in the room with me. It makes me feel a little better, even if she's not awake, to just have Emily here.
I'm so engrossed in the book that I forget all about where I am until a sleepy Emily calls out to me. "Paige?" I yawn as I stick my finger in the pages so I won't lose my place and let my head drop against the wall behind me. I need coffee. "Paige?" Emily says just a little bit louder and I get up and walk to the edge of her bed. "What is it Em? Everything okay?" She nods and I smile, the light is peeking through the corners of the blinds and she looks absolutely stunning in this moment, waking up and without make up. "Yeah, sorry… I was just worried when I didn't hear you snoring next to me." I laugh as I put my hand down on her foot, the covers between us. "Whatever. I don't snore…" She scratches her nose and laughs before frowning. "No, you don't." She says, sounding more serious than before. "I just wanted to make sure you were still here… sorry." She says, biting her lip as she pulls herself to a sitting position, making her foot slide out of my grasp. "Don't worry. I… I'm always going to be here… I was just reading." I tell her as I show her the book and she nods. She grabs her cellphone and frowns. They're supposed to sleep in today but she doesn't look like she wants to go back to bed. "Do you want to see if this place has one of those free breakfast bars or judging by the décor in this place, a half-eaten doughnut we can steal from the lobby?" I ask her Emily laughs and shakes her head at me. "You're so terrible without your morning coffee you know that?" I shrug at her because I don't really have an answer to that.
Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait but I was visiting my sister and that meant that I had no time to sit down and write. But I'm back now and I hope you enjoy this chapter and that everyone that's in the states had an amazing thanksgiving break.