She tried not to think of all the dirt and snow piled on top of her. Because now when she screamed with her broken voice it was just silent, which was somehow worse.
She had lived silent and alone and broken for so many years and now she was going to die silent and alone and broken.
She faded in and out; the moments of nothing were pure bliss that ended too soon. When she would come to, she would have a moment of trying to fight the panic before it would overwhelm her. She ripped at everything. Her clothes. Her hair. The skin of her neck. She knew when her fingers came away wet she had drawn her own blood.
She wished so badly she had kept the tracker on her own body rather than put it on Damien. She didn’t care how selfish it was. Then Ren would’ve found her. Would’ve gotten her out of here.
Finally, everything began to fade to a distance. She felt like she was floating. Almost swaying. Maybe she was running out of oxygen. How long could one survive buried underground?
Through the fog she swore she could almost hear somebody calling her name, but knew that couldn’t be right. Her brain hadfinally broken completely and was playing tricks on her. The movement she felt had to be her own shudders. Surely this had to be near the end.
“Natalie, can you hear me?”
Yes, Ren, I can hear you.She didn’t try to say the words since her voice was so wrecked. Plus, he wasn’t really here, anyway.
“Hang on, Peaches, I’m coming.”
The noises got louder. The jolting more pronounced. And then Natalie saw something she thought she was never going to see again.
Sunshine. She had to blink against the brightness of it.
“Oh, my God.” Ren’s hands were in her hair, over her heart, running up and down her arms. His lips were all over her face, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. When he drew back his hands he stared at her blood.
He sat back up and yelled over his shoulder. “She’s here. She’s hurt. Get an ambulance.”
His deep, strong voice broke on the last word. She wanted to tell him that she was okay. That she’d done that to herself in her panic.
“Ren...” Her voice came out in a whisper. She couldn’t say anything else even if she wanted to. She slipped her arms around his neck as he lifted her out of the place she’d known she would die.
He stayed next to her as the paramedics placed her in the ambulance, answering questions she wasn’t able to answer. Stayed with her as the doctors checked her at the hospital, explained about the damage to her vocal cords that would eventually heal and bandaged the superficial damage she’d done to her neck with her own fingernails.
Ren explained that Damien was dead. And the next day, as morbid as it sounded, he’d wheeled her down to the morgueso she could see the body for herself. And know there was no chance Damien was ever coming back.
Ren stayed by her side the first night in the hospital, holding her hand as he slept in a reclining chair beside her.
And through it all she hadn’t said a word to him.
She couldn’t talk to Ren. And not just because of the damage to her voice.
She couldn’t talk to him because she needed space. Needed to find herself. Needed to know what her life was on her own without the constant companionship of fear and panic.
It had nothing to do with not trusting Ren and everything to do with figuring out a way to trust herself.
When Ren went out to talk to Steve and some of the other Omega people the second day, Andrea slipped in to say hello.
“How are you?” she asked. “I know you can’t really talk. But I just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re okay. I don’t know how much anyone told you, but basically Omega has been under siege by Freihof for months. In my case, longer. So we’re all glad he’s gone and we’re truly thankful for the role you played in taking him down. Putting that tracker on him under those circumstances was an exceptionally brave thing to do.”
Natalie just shrugged, given how she’d cursed herself for that decision.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Andrea asked. She stepped in closer. “Natalie, I’m not just talking get-you-a-soda type stuff, although I’ll certainly do that. I know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing. To need a chance to find yourself before you can do anything else.”
Natalie took the pad of paper next to her bed that she’d been using to communicate.
I’m not trying to hurt Ren. I’m not angry. But I just can’t be with him right now.
Andrea smiled, understanding and sadness tinting her eyes. “You need to heal. Nobody would begrudge you that. Least of all Ren.”
Andrea sat down next to her, and together they worked out a plan.
