Page 16 of Ex Somnis

He is keeping me still the same way he kept me still before Lennon freed me from my mind. He boxed me in, too occupied with the nightmare to build past it, but I am done with waiting for an opening that isn’t going to come on its own.

I tilt my head back as far as the compression across my spine will allow.

“Come on.” My voice cracks, and I’m blaming it on the mud.

I pull in as much air as I have access to right now, and I aim it at the dark, at the edges of the forest.

“Show yourself, you fucking coward!”

The forest doesn’t respond.

That’s fine.

I have more.

“What, no dramatic entrance? Bit of thunder, maybe? You’ve had three days to workshop it. Are you scared?” I try to shift my weight, and the pain whitens out.

Fuck.

“Can’t manage it?” I grit out. “Where are you? You stole her from me, and you haven’t even had the decency to show your face. Very disappointing. I expected more from the man who keeps me in my nightmares like a pet.”

Breathe in through the nose.

“Come on, you dickhead, I want to…”

He appears in the space between one breath and the next, startling me into silence.

No footsteps, he’s just there, crouched right in front of me, close enough that I get the full effect of that face, the green eyes, the wrongness, and I flinch.

I hate it, but it’s involuntary and therefore not my fault.

“Ridge Wells.” His voice is almost pleasant. “Don’t you get tired of your voice? I certainly do.” He tilts his head. “You’ve been very noisy.”

“And you’ve been keeping her from me. Where is she?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” He huffs, almost amused.

Everyone?

Paul, probably, or Nevan, maybe, who I’m not sure is even aware of what’s going on in his mind at night, but I don’t know what the three days since she left all of us have done to him.

“Where. Is. She?”

“You know,” he starts, and I grind my teeth hard enough to feel it in my jaw. “You guys don’t realize that she is having a good time. The best, really. She’s enjoying herself.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you think she is feeling. Let her go.”

He chuckles. The sound is almost warm, which is the worst thing about him.

Nothing he does sounds like what it is.

“Don’t you get it? I am not holding her hostage. She let go. She let go of you.”

Something happens in my chest that I’m not going to name right now. Later, in the dark, with no one watching, I’ll name it, but right now I keep my face exactly where I need it to be, a skill I am suddenly very grateful for.

“I swear I’m going to kill you for taking her from me.”

I hear myself say it out loud, and I know it’s true.