Chapter 18
Annie saw the black SUV outside Auggie's window, but it was too late by the time she tried to warn Eyal. The split second it took for the front of the SUV to collide with the passenger side of the Land Rover felt more like years, and Annie watched helplessly, overcome with crippling fear. She braced herself against Auggie, realizing - right before impact - that the screaming voice she heard was hers.
She closed her eyes.
The world exploded.
The Land Rover was thrown sideways through the center of the intersection, and Annie - having not worn her seatbelt - was thrown against the drivers side as they began to roll. Danielle's terror-stricken cry somehow breached the chaotic tumult of crashing metal and the shrieking of rubber, heart stopping and paralyzing, and Annie tried to cling to that sound like a lifeline. The Land Rover skidded on its drivers side only briefly before the momentum of the attacking SUV carried the roll further, crushing the roof in the process. Annie felt her head snap backwards, hitting glass, the wind knocked out of her as she was flung down against the ceiling. There was a loud crack, splitting pain, and her vision blurred as she bit back an agonized cry. The death roll ended with the now decimated Land Rover skidding several hundred feet, on ice and snow, until a cemented light pole brought the careening vehicle to an abrupt and violent halt.
Everything became hauntingly still.
And then there was nothing.
Serenity.
Annie sat on a checkered picnic blanket, with Auggie sprawled out in front of her, his head in her lap, eyes closed. The sun was shining, and she was wearing a sundress. It felt like summer. She absent mindedly ran her hand through his hair.
"This is a dream." She told him sadly.
"How do you know?" His eyes remained closed.
Annie placed both hands against his face, peering down at him thoughtfully. She loved being able to touch him, to know that she was his. They sat on the grass of the National Mall near the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial. Auggie opened his eyes, and stared directly at her.
"My hair is blonde." She pointed out, golden fly-aways brushing her cheeks. "I'd dyed it when…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
"I didn't notice." Auggie grinned.
Annie shook her head ruefully. She traced the edges of his face with her index finger now, memorizing what it felt like. Her eyes became sad, subdued.
"This scares me."
"What?"
"How much I need you."
Auggie sat up, then stood, his tall frame blocking out the sun where from she sat, casting him in a halo of light. He held out a hand, and she took it without hesitating, rising to her feet.
Somewhere music played softly. She glanced down at the heels she was wearing, then kicked them off into the grass beside the blanket just as Auggie's arms encircled her waist. She rested her head against his chest, his heartbeat a steady echo.
"Dance with me, Walker?" He leaned closer, whispering into her ear.
"More than one song?" she inquired, her question child-like, drawing back and adjusting his collar before she splayed her hands against his chest.
He laughed, eyes bright.
"If the music's right."
"Don't you ever get tired of running?"
The sterile-looking, white halls of the naval hospital were abandoned, all except for Annie and Teo. He sat next to her on an empty gurney, his voice the only thing to break the stark silence. It reverberated and rolled down the seemingly endless corridor. A haunting sound.
Running, running, running.
Teo's eyes were a vivid, icy blue, and she could not look away. "Well?" He prompted, Cheshire cat grin in place.
"Did you?" Sadness welled in her chest, constricting her heart. Teo stood, shoving his hands in his jean pockets, white button-down untucked, typical of his rugged and wild appearance. Annie noticed his leg was no longer bleeding.
"Sometimes." Teo conceded. He looked toward the end of the hall, and Annie followed his gaze. Standing in the doorway there was a woman. She waved at him impatiently, dark hair falling softly across her shoulders. She was surrounded by radiant, shimmering light.
"Vamos, mijo!"
"Good bye, Annie." Teo reached out and softly took her hand, kissing the top of it. But when he turned to walk away, Annie refused to let go, her hold tightening on his hand as she pulled herself to her feet. She was so tired of having to let people go.
He shook his head at her perseverance. Sorrowful eyes, sorrowful smile.
"This time I'm going somewhere you can't follow."
Before he could leave her again, Annie threw her arms around his neck. Much to her surprise, he hugged her back.
"I'm so sorry, Teo." She whispered. "Forgive me, please?"
"You've nothing to be sorry for." He laughed, a glorious sound, and then broke away from her embrace. "Just promise me one thing."
"Anything."
"Don't carry the weight forever."
The bright green door swung open, out into the alley, the tall buildings of the walled in city spiraling endlessly up into the sky above her. A dull wind tousled the lanterns and clotheslines over her head - snaked the strands of her dark hair around her neck. Her fingers were curled around the neck of the gun, poised to pull the trigger. It was simple, involuntary; like breathing.
He was waiting for her, like all the nightmares before.
"Hello, Ms. Walker." Steely eyes bit through the shadows, white teeth like a knife against the gloom, a scorpion in the dark.
Annie had never hated anything in the world so much as she hated Henry Wilcox.
"Why?" She approached him, gun raised, her question accusing, harsh. "Why won't you stop?" Suddenly she was right in front of him, as if her body had shifted from one stand point to another instantly, violently pressing the gun to his forehead, forcing him backward. "Why won't you leave me alone?"
Before he could answer, she pulled the trigger.
The gunshot shattered the silence, and Annie watched with baleful satisfaction; the slow motion spray of red as the bullet passed through his skull, his body falling lifeless, heavy, collapsing on the ground.
Then she screamed.
Bright, blinding light.
Warmth bloomed across the back of her skull, and spread through the rest of her body as she fought to open her eyes. Annie blinked, her focus distorted, the hiss of the wrecked vehicle mutating into what sounded like a hysterical scream.
She realized, groggily, that this time the sound was not coming from her.
It was Danielle.
Adrenaline sent a jolt of electricity through her body and the world rushed into a hazy focus. Everything seemed too bright, too loud, too much. Fighting to regain her bearings, Annie tried to evaluate the wreckage around her.
She saw Auggie, hanging suspended by his seatbelt at an awkward angle, unconscious. A gash across his forehead sent rivulets of crimson blood into his hair, the color turning black against where it had somehow managed to reach the dark leather of his jacket. The only thing that kept her from panicking was the steady, if faint, rise and fall of his chest. Movement from the drivers seat alerted Annie to Eyal, who was semiconscious and struggling to extract himself from the airbag and now warped steering wheel, pinned where he sat. She blinked, dizzy, her right hand touching the back of her head as she lay with her back against the ceiling, staring up at what was once the floor. She couldn't move her left arm. She held her fingers close to her face, the vivid color of red that greeted her causing bile to rise in her throat. Her vision began to black.
The sound of metal being pried apart assaulted her senses, jarring and nauseating.
"Annie?"
Danielle was calling her name now, but she could not force herself to answer, even though the voice inside her head begged her to do something, anything - pleaded for her to move. Move. But she was frozen. The warmth she had felt just moments before became a freezing, paralyzing cold.
"Annie!"
The terror in her sister's voice woke something in her, a last reserve of consciousness that drove her to action. Using her right hand she rolled herself onto her stomach, her eyes instantly level with the shattered glass of Auggie's window, and she could barely make out the SUV that had hit them, still in the road, still running, and the feet of a stranger outside the Land Rover. The metal sound resonated again, ricocheting off the inside of her skull like nails on a chalk board - a door was forced opened. A pry bar fell to the snow-covered sidewalk and landed amongst shattered shards of glass.
Her sister… Where was she?
"Annie!"
Her vision cleared, if but for a moment, and that was when she saw it.
No!
Danielle being pulled from the wreckage, and dragged across the ice covered road toward the black SUV, shrieking and kicking weakly against the masked captor that held a gun to the back her head.
No, no, no!
The world started to spin around her, and Annie struggled to pull herself forward, her brain screaming at her to find her gun - the gun, the gun, the gun!
Oh God, Danielle.
She closed her eyes against the roaring in her head, the world beginning to blur, and she was not sure if the inconsolable wailing she heard was hers or someone else's.
And then she was swallowed by endless, stifling black.
A/N: Call back to the awesome dream sequence from episode 309, Sufferegate City. Am I the only one hoping we'll get some dreams (or nightmares) in season 5? *dreamy sigh*
Thanks for all the support you guys, it always means a lot! And as always thanks to Ashtordiffe, she keeps me going!