48. Caged
~ brIDGET ~
In the dream, I could feel him watching. Always somewhere behind me. Always just out of sight. And every time I turned my back he got closer. Until I was turning away from him on purpose, because it drew him nearer, faster.
Then he was there, breathing down the back of my neck, panting like he’d been running.
“I made it… I made it on time,” he croaked in my ear, wrapping his arms around me from behind and clinging, leaning over me, covering me.
“On time for what?” I gasped, suddenly near tears, even though I didn’t know why.
“You aren’t dead yet.”
“No,” I said, but that reminded me why I was sad, and I had to swallow the lump in my throat. “Nope. Not dead. Not yet…” I trailed off lamely.
“Bridget—”
“Can we just… can you just… stay here with me for a little while?” I whispered.
He sighed heavily, his breath rushing across my cheek as he curled himself around me until the rest of the world disappeared, and all I could see was the safety in his shadow. And all I could feel was the steel warmth of him.
I clung to his arms that were wrapped around me, and a weird noise came out of my throat.
“Bridget, what—”
“Don’t let go,” I whispered through numb lips. “Please… don’t let go.”
“I won’t, babe. I won’t—I’m here. I promise, I’m here.”
“But you won’t stay.”
“Yes, I will!”
I shook my head and he growled, tightening his grip at first, then whipping me around suddenly and staring into my eyes, his forehead furrowed, more lined than I’d ever seen it before.
I lifted a shaking hand to comb his thick hair back from those lines, and realized that I’d never done that before. Never touched his hair. Never buried my fingers in it. Never clawed at his scalp, or gasped his name.
So I did that—all those things. I grabbed for him with a little, broken whimper, pleading with my eyes that he wouldn’t say anything, because we were almost out of time and I was scared, and he made me feel safe… so why…? Why couldn’t we make this work?
“Bridget—”
Suddenly, something wrapped around my middle, clamping around me so hard I lost my breath, then started pulling me slowly out of his arms.
I gasped and grabbed for him, clawing—and he cursed and tried to grip me too, but I was being dragged backwards, away from him. And it was breaking my heart.
“Bridget! Please! Don’t—”
“It’s not me!” I sobbed. “It’s not me! Hold on, Sam! Please! Don’t let go!”
He opened his mouth, his eyes wide and terrified, hands clawing, every muscle rigid and flexed, like he was fighting something, trying to reach me.
I was the first to lose my grip, his sleeve tearing under my nails, then finally slipping out of my clenched fingers completely. But it was only a second before his man-hands were torn off my arms too.
He screamed my name like he’d been stabbed as I was jerked away and up—like I was being taken into the clouds.
He sucked away from me, his eyes wide, expression tormented, lips twisted into a scream of defiance, hands clawed and reaching.
“NO, brIDGET. COME BACK!”
I woke up with a start, disoriented, crying, and suffocating.
I was sucking at the air, trying to get my lungs to inflate, blinking blinking blinking, until finally I was breathing.
My vision blurred in a new wave of tears, and I reached out to steady myself and realized I was on the couch, with the lights on.
Alone.
No Sam. No Cain. No Ronald. No one. Just me. Alone.
I dropped my face into my hands and sobbed.
Then I lifted my chin and screamed a curse at the ceiling because that looming weight was a symbol of the cage I lived in. And there was no fucking way out.
You couldn’t escape a cage that was inside yourself.
You couldn’t escape a horror that lived in your mind relentlessly.
You couldn’t do anything.
I had tried facing my demons when I was younger. I had tried outrunning them. There were no paths left but to accept that this was the way life would always be.
I blinked away the tears, wiping my nose on my sleeve and let myself fall back, let the couch catch me, let my head sink back on the cushions.
I sighed heavily. I couldn’t stop any of this. I was going to die. Everyone died.
The only thing I could choose was what killed me.
And when.
That was… if I’d been able to convince Cain to actually show up.
God, if only he’d been willing to change the rules. At least then, we could have run away together…
And that was when I saw it. The alternative.
And the black window looking out on my doom cracked open to let in the tiniest sliver of hope.
My heart raced. I licked my lips.
It would never work.
But what if it did?
If it didn’t work, I was dead. Plain and simple. And… acceptable.
I’d always said I wouldn’t ever just roll over and die. I wanted to go down fighting.
Well… maybe I’d lose this time. But I was gonna go out in one helluva bang.
Fireworks.
And I’d take my whole world down with me.
Then, finally, I felt calm.
Clearing my throat and wiping my eyes, I pushed to my feet and trotted into my office, to my computer, and opened my email with a weird sense of anticipation.
I didn’t actually know if this was going to work.
But I was going to try.
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TO: Asshole (Jeremy Haines)
SUBJECT: Change of Plan
J, we need to change the plan—but only a little bit…