ISFNE Chapter 14
Allison POV
I woke to find myself in the halfway room laid out on one of the sofas, my head cradled in Eric's lap, I let out a startled yelp and clamped my hands over my mouth to suppress it as I saw Eric's frown. It was not a frown of anger, but I still could not pinpoint his emotional state.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, love," he said. I scrambled to get up but felt my vision go fuzzy and Eric quickly caught me and laid me back down, "Woah, no, stay down for now, you already passed out once."
"I did? When?" I questioned closing my eyes and grimacing in pain.
"When you first got here maybe ten minutes ago, you're lucky I was ready to catch you."
"I-I don't even remember dreaming to get here…"
"You didn't, this time I pulled you here."
I peaked at him in confusion and he sighed and quickly summarized, "We've established this connection well enough that you could come here with much less persuasion and prompting. Think of it as muscle memory almost. I had to do much less for it to kick in and you barely even began your nightmare. That's not the point, Faith. The point is that this muscle memory served you a little too well and since getting here your projection has not dropped the entire time."
I dropped my hands completely and reached for a strand of my hair. Sure enough, it was long and honey brown. I looked at the rest of myself laid across the couch; no baby bump, and I was dressed in my baggy t-shirt and soccer shorts. I really had held my projection without knowing it. I would have been proud if I hadn't already sensed something in Eric's tone: frustration.
"I want to stand up," I said quietly.
"You're staying right here," he said sternly.
"Help me stand up, Eric, I will not have this fight, or whatever it's going to be, though I'm sensing it's a fight, at such a direct disadvantage."
"If you let go of your projection you might have the strength to stand by yourself," he retorted calmly.
It was a warning; we both knew it. This was going to get ugly fast if I didn't do something. I let my consciousness edge to the exit only to have it slammed down by Eric's power. I involuntarily let out a gasp. It hadn't hurt, it had just taken me by surprise.
"I had a feeling you might try to do that."
"What do you want, Eric? Why did you pull me here tonight?" I snapped.
"I've tried to pull you here a couple times but you're so damn stubborn even when you're unconscious. It just happened to work tonight. As for what I want," he said as his hand ran through my hair, "what I want is your safety-"
"Cowpies," I said finally sitting up pushing off his half-hearted attempt to push me down again. My head spun slightly but I kneeled on the sofa staring Eric down, my anger mounting.
"Be careful, you're going to pass out again," he said his voice still calm, his face full of what looked like concern as he reached out and grabbed my arm.
"Let me go!" I said wrenching it away as though he'd burned me and trying again to exit and getting the door slammed once more.
"Faith, please stop this. Let me talk," he said his voice pleading. "This is for your own good. You are not leaving until you drop this façade and tell me where I can find you-"
"You can't do this! You said this was neutral ground! YOU ASSURED ME YOU WOULDN'T HURT ME," I screamed.
"I don't want to, Faith, but you're not giving me many options here! You want to know why I can even do this? I'm not using an exorbitant amount of power to keep you here, you should, in your normal state, be able to easily push past me. But you keep draining yourself with this mask and you have nothing to resist with."
Eric POV
"Let me go, Eric!"
"No!" I spat back sharper than I intended. "I've played by your rules for almost four months now, Faith. Four long, torturous months I have let you have your freedom and done nothing but cajole and plead hoping you would change your mind of your own volition. And I would continue to do so if the circumstances were not so desperate. I'm not letting you die."
"LET ME GO, It's my life!" she screamed again as she threw herself mentally again to exit and fell short.
"NO, FAITH, IT'S NOT YOUR LIFE," I finally shouted back pinning her back down on the sofa, sending a jolt of absolute terror through her as she went stiff as a board, a heart-wrenching sob escaping her, but I didn't care at the moment.
"It is the life of my child as well as my bride who I am sworn to protect, even from herself! Don't you dare try to cast me as the villain for not allowing you to follow through with this! It's nothing short of suicide!" I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, "This was supposed to be easy. I'd pull you here before you had time to put up your projection and you'd wake up already revealed but you and your…" I trailed off, my frustration getting the better of me again as I valiantly tried to reign in my temper. I felt her shift slightly and relaxed my grip on her arms seeing her legs posed to lash out at my next wrong move. "I don't want to hurt you, love," I finally pleaded, my voice cracking. Why was this so damn hard? "But I refuse to stand by and let you fade more and more each day and eventually die taking my child with you!" I said, a passion coming into my voice that I could barely restrain. This situation was much too familiar. If the circumstances were different I would have marveled at the ways Faith seemed to take the worst pages from her predecessors. But, for now, I was only consumed with fear; I would not see the same fate as my predecessor.
Tears were freely flowing down her face as she began weakly trying to flail out of my grasp, "STOP. MAKE IT STOP," she screamed, fear coming off of her in waves and a slight flicker in her projection following it.
"Help me help you, Vi," I was edging dangerously close to previous fight territory having to use my attentions to scare answers out of her, something I was loathe to do. I didn't want her to associate my attentions constantly with punishment, but it was effective and I needed answers now. I shifted myself to straddle her and moved to hold both her arms in one hand as I let the other one tease it's way slowly down her arm making her shudder. I gripped her chin gently and tilted it upward to expose her lovely throat, wishing more than ever that it was possible to complete our bond through this connection. She whimpered as I kissed her softly at the point where her neck met her clavicle and I heard her start to think something to herself addled as her mind was with fear.
I kept up my actions, but focused my attention on her train of thought that she was so intently repeating to herself, trying to make it out. This isn't really happening, it's only in my head. This isn't really happening, it's only in my head. I drew back and caressed her cheek, wiping away the tears clinging to her eyelashes.
"You're wrong you know," I said sitting up. This, of course, grabbed her attention as I had stopped and was also responding to something she wasn't aware she'd shared. "Yes, this may not be happening in reality but it is still going to have consequences."
"You-you said there would be no-no-" she tried to calm her panicked breathing but it was no use.
"No lasting physical consequences, yes," I said, "but short term? Absolutely." I said nipping and sucking at her neck until I knew there would be a visible bruise, earning me a small mewl of pain. "Yes, I can't harm you here. If I were to take you now, assuming you weren't already pregnant, you could never come away from here as such. If you were virginal you would never leave here as anything less, but there would be remnants. Soreness mostly. Some bruising, maybe even a faded scar," I said nipping again at her new love-bite earning another whimper. "So maybe you should keep that in mind if you would like to continue fighting with me. You still might regret it when you wake up." I knew that one would be a good scare for her and hoped it would bring her to the edge. In truth, I wasn't willing to do anything more than nip and kiss. It didn't take much to send her into a panic, it shouldn't take much to get her talking.
I kissed her lips and strained to taste her but there was nothing to taste. She wasn't here with me. This whole thing was empty because it didn't give me the scents, the tastes, the true feeling of my bride. If she was paying attention she would notice too that though my touch was corporeal, it wasn't completely there and she couldn't truly experience much of her other senses except sight and sound. Of course, she was busy having a new nightmare created.
"I don't want to do this, love," I whispered in her ear and followed it with a kiss. "And I will not when I do come to you. I have no wish to force you in any way," I let my free hand trail down her side to the edge of her shirt and began to slowly hike it up leading to an attempt to kick me and then a few bucks of her hips to dislodge me. It did anything but, especially as she all but thrusted against me with her hips.
"I would stop doing that, unless you're craving something more than teasing," I said with false levity that I knew came off as a warning, trying not to let myself become aroused by her actions. She froze immediately at that and then tried to kick again with renewed vigor and failing miserably. I kissed at her throat again, "Give me a location, darling, and I will let you wake up. Let me find you. Let me change," I said slipping my hand under her shirt to stroke her flat belly, longing to see it in it's pregnant glory, "Let me help you, let me cherish you, let me love you," I pleaded.
"Stop, please, please, stop," she cried, flickering as I kissed her stomach before she secured herself again, tears running rivers down her face, her eyes red and puffy. "I'm not yours. Please, stop this."
Allison POV
"You know how this stops," he said but he didn't move to do anything else, which gave me a moment to think.
"You're wrong!" I cried out, "I don't know how it stops, Eric! It's never stopped! Each and every day I live with the nightmare you put me through and all you're doing right now is adding new material! SO LET ME GO."
"That would be a death sentence, Faith! You will DIE if you don't allow me to help you!" he shot back.
"I will find a way! Medicine has come a long way since you were in the world. I will be fine!"
"The only thing it will help will be in prolonging your suffering. You're already suffering, you're already dying."
"BECAUSE OF YOU," I interjected. I tried to catch onto the exit and was blocked again. I wished with everything in me that I could wake up. Wait…wake up. Maybe I could. That was my answer. I had to wake myself up. But how…
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself asleep in bed, imagined the feeling of the sheets, the comforter on top of me. But Eric was quick to catch onto my plan.
"No! Faith, you listen to me, you are not getting out that easily. I will not let you die!" He tried to distract me with renewed vigor. I tried to ignore it and think as hard as I could about my room in the apartment. I was lying down, my pillow was soft and I knew I was hugging it with one arm. Eric tried valiantly to divert my focus but it only made me more determined. And then I felt it. The weight of sheets on my body, the softness of a pillow under my head. Eric's pleas sounded more and more distant. I could barely even hear…
I sat bolt upright in bed with a gasp and strangled sob and looked over myself and around the room earnestly for any signs that Eric was still here and began crying in relief as I realized I'd escaped. After a few minutes of silent, joyful tears I carefully got up and went across the hall to the bathroom to wash my face. I turned on the light and bent down to splash some cold water on my face to get rid of my puffiness and, after wiping my face with a towel, stared at myself in the mirror. A faded bruise that looked as though it were a week old stared back from right above my clavicle.