"Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah." I look back at the house, where my mother is still standing in the doorway, watching. "Everything's good."
The nightmares come again that night.
Different this time.
Not Cain in the apartment, but Cain in the clubhouse.
Cain walking through the main room, through the halls, up the stairs.
Cain finding me in Levi's bed, wrapping his hands around my throat, whisperingyou thought you could escape meas the life drains out of my body.
I wake up screaming.
Leviathan’s there immediately, pulling me into his arms, murmuring words I can't quite hear over the pounding of my own heart.
I cling to him, gasping, trying to separate the nightmare from reality.
"He was here." My voice comes out ragged. "He was in the clubhouse. He found me?—"
"He's dead." Levi's voice is calm. Certain. "He's dead, Ripley. He can't hurt you anymore."
"I know. I know that. But it felt so real?—"
"I know." He holds me tighter. "I know it did. But it wasn't. You're here, with me, and you're safe."
I bury my face in his chest, letting his heartbeat steady me.
Slow and strong and utterly reliable.
An anchor in the storm.
"I thought they'd stop," I whisper. "The nightmares. I thought once he was gone, they'd stop."
"Trauma doesn't work like that."
"Then how does it work? How do I make them stop?"
He's quiet for a moment. "You don't make them stop. You learn to live with them. To carry them without letting them crush you." His hand strokes through my hair. "And you don't carry them alone."
"I'm so tired. I'm tired of being scared. Tired of jumping at shadows. Tired of waiting for the next bad thing to happen."
"I know."
"I want to be normal again. I want to be the person I was before."
"You can't go back to who you were." His voice is gentle but honest. "That person doesn't exist anymore. But you can become someone new. Someone stronger. Someone who carries her scars instead of being buried by them."
I pull back, looking up at him in the darkness. "How do you know that?"
"Because I did it." He brushes a tear from my cheek. "After the war, after everything I saw and did, I thought I'd never be whole again. I thought the nightmares would eat me alive. But they didn't. I'm still here. Still fighting. Still living."
"Does it ever get easier?"
"Yes." He kisses my forehead. "Slowly, painfully, but yes. It gets easier. You just have to keep going."
I curl into him, letting his warmth seep into my bones.
