I blinked, looking around the room, though it took me a minute to put together the bright lights, the curtains, and the machines nearby and realize I was in the medical wing of the resort. I had only been here a few times for checkups and once to make sure it was a bad bug rather than anything serious, but it seemed I had made my way back there, though I didn’t remember walking.
No, I-I remembered fire and smoke and the...no, that hadn’t been real. That was...it was?—
“A dream,” I whispered, realizing it had all been a dream.
Well, not all a dream. I had never been in the house with Mikael and Gina, but it wasn’t the first time I had dreamed I was stuck in our home while it burned to the ground. Except Isaac hadn’t been there. I hadn’t even known he’d existed back then. He hadn’t been trapped in the house with them; it had just been...them.
“A dream,” Isaac reaffirmed, backing away slowly, his eyes sweeping my face, searching it desperately.
I frowned, reaching up to the ugly scratch that ran from his cheekbone to his jaw. “What?—”
And then I remembered.
“Aww, fuck,” I said, feeling my chest hitch as I tried to touch the mark but couldn’t bring myself to do it. My voice was a croaking rasp, and I didn’t know why, but damn it, I had done that to him. “Isaac, I?—”
“Stop talking,” he said, his lip trembling as he stroked my face in that gentle way only he could. “Okay? They’re pretty sure I didn’t do any damage, but it’s best not to overdo it.”
“Damage?” I asked. A lot of things were a blur, but I could remember enough.
The argument, the way everything felt like it was crashing down around me, the way everything inside me was collapsing under its weight, and I was stuck trying to keep myself in one piece, but I couldn’t. Everything had unraveled, and I had lost it again, except this time I had hurt Isaac, and in the process, I had done the one thing he had trusted I would never do. It was hazy from that point, but I remembered the desperation, the need to make it end, to stop hurting and?—
“I had to...to restrain you,” he said, his eyes growing watery. “There was nothing else I could think of after I called for help. They were taking too long, and you were going to?—”
I looked at my arm wrapped in a bandage. That’s right, I’d taken the shard of ceramic from the mug and turned it on myself after I’d hurt Isaac. Isaac had been screaming, trying to make me stop, but I had been stronger and threw him off. I remembered the hot line of pain and a weight on my back and pressure on?—
I reached up, wincing when my fingers touched my neck, and pain throbbed. “You choked me.”
“I had to,” he said in a fragile voice that wobbled on the edge of despair and self-loathing that I knew too well. “You were covered in blood, and you wouldn’t stop and y-you...you?—”
“Hey,” Cade whispered, and I realized he’d been standing there the whole time. His arm curled around Isaac’s shoulders, and he squeezed. “You stop. Ya did what you needed to do, alright? He might not think so right now, but I’m grateful. And I know he’s got some people back home who will be happy ya did it too.”
The door to the room banged against the wall, and two large men in scrubs appeared, with Reggie and Luka behind them. I was pretty sure it had been Luka I’d heard when I’d woken up, and apparently, he had gone for help.
“Stop!” Isaac cried out, pushing Cade out of the way, and from the surprised look on Cade’s face, he had done that himself, not been allowed to do it. “He’s fine, alright! He’s fine!”
“This doesn’t look fine,” Reggie said, looking around the room and forcing me to do the same. Apparently, my waking up had involved a lot more than yelling, because there was a machine on its side, a couple of chairs turned over, and someone’s cup on the ground, leaking orange juice from the looks of it.
“Clay?” Luka called cautiously.
“I’m okay,” I said softly. “I mean, as much as I can be, I guess.”
“What do you remember?”
“Too much.”
“I mean about the past twenty-four hours.”
“My answer hasn’t changed.”
Luka sighed. “Alright, c’mon, Reggie. He’s clearly coherent and not emotional. We don’t need to drug him again.”
“Again?” I wondered and then thought about my groggy confusion and the intensity of my dream. “Oh...yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
“I said he should’ve been restrained for everyone’s safety,” one of the men said with a huff. “Even his own.”
“Yeah,” Cade said dryly. “You were pretty sure right up until Isaac threatened you.”
“I didn’t threaten him,” Isaac protested.
