“No,” she moans, a long, drawn-out sound as if she’s directly arguing with me. “No, don’t!”
“Hey,” I try again, putting a hand on her forehead. “Trina, please wake up.”
She struggles away from my hand, and I realize how deep she really is. She’s lost in her mind somewhere, a vault that she’s locked so tight, she can’t reach it with her waking mind.
Gently, I ease the sheets off her, getting rid of the restricting bands around her body. Even though she moans, she seems to settle, just a little. She’s soaked with sweat, her muscles trembling with exhaustion, and my heart goes out to her all over again.
I put my hand on her forehead, summoning up the feeling I had right after we climaxed together.
I know that was real. She may have run away immediately after, but that moment was pure truth.
As the sense of wholeness envelopes me, I send the feeling towards her, and her breathing begins to slow. Keeping one hand on her forehead, I shake her shoulder gently with my other hand.
“Trina,” I say, loudly now. “Trina, wake up.”
She screams, her eyes opening suddenly as she comes out of the dream. At first, she looks up at me, her eyes wide with fear as if she’s going to run from me.
Then she hurls herself into my arms.
Relieved, I pull her against my chest, holding her tightly and soothing her. She cries against my shoulder, her body shaking in my arms. I rock back and forth a bit, finally relaxing myself now that she’s free of the nightmare.
Suddenly, a horrible sense of fear casts a shadow over me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, even when I was watching my people die. I feel like a rabbit on a wide-open plain, exposed and alone, not the wolf that makes him its prey. A powerfulshudder runs through me, and Trina tightens her grip on me, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Fragments of memories blast through my mind, all of them sensory, even if they’re incomplete. My stomach aches with starvation, and my fingers are torn, nails cracked as I claw desperately at a solid wooden door, desperate to be allowed out. Lines burn around my wrists and ankles—deep, infected rope burns. A sudden crack echoes through my mind, forcing my head back as if someone slapped me across the face.
Finally, a deep, slicing loss rips through my body. Horrific grief, like losing half my heart. Trina starts keening in my arms, and I can feel her helplessness, her utter despair as she watches someone she loves disappear behind the veil forever, with her powerless to stop it.
“Mother,” she whispers, her voice pitifully broken. “Don’t leave me.”
My heart breaks so completely, I don’t know if the wound can ever heal. I know I’m feeling all of Trina’s pain and loss, and that she doesn’t even understand how deeply it has broken her.
I wrap my arms around her even more tightly, vowing that I will never let anyone hurt her, ever again.
Chapter 14 - Trina
This can’t be real…
The darkness around me is so complete that there is no change to it, no definition. The shadows are heavy, pressing against me like walls closing in. I try to struggle free, but I’m bound, tight ropes wrapped all around me.
“Dana, please, no!” I scream.
All I hear in response is cruel laughter as a blow strikes me across the face. My knees ache as I kneel on the concrete floor, along with my hips and back from sleeping on it, too. My wrists and ankles burn from the ropes, and over my cries, I can hear Aunt Dana laughing.
“But how is Mom? She’s okay, isn’t she? You’re helping her?” I beg.
“She’ll get what she deserves,” Aunt Dana says, her voice cruel. “You can come and see her soon, when I let you out to clean the house.”
Tears pour down my cheeks and torrents of words come out of me—apologies and desperate pleas. Aunt Dana scoffs in disgust and leaves, slamming the basement door behind her and leaving me alone in the dark.
“Please take care of Mom!” I scream. “Do whatever else you want, Dana, but please take care of Mom!”
There is no answer, only the grumbling from my stomach as I contemplate another day without food.
I don’t know how much time passes when I’m down here, because Dana makes sure it’s as dark as a grave. Sometimes I’m bound, sometimes I’m not. It depends on what sick and twisted game she wants to play at the time.
A memory flits through my mind of the day we arrived here, my mother looking so thin and frail, her long hair cropped close to her head now that she was too weak to care for it. She leaned heavily on my arm as we walked up the long concrete path to the door of Aunt Dana’s massive mansion.
“She’s not a kind person,” my mother says to me. “But she has always taken care of the family. We have no choice, now that the insurance has run out, and they took our house. Aunt Dana can provide for you and take care of me.”
