Chapter 34
JACE
Lying on my back, I think back to last night and how we just stood around like idiots for longer than I think any of us want to admit after Bonnie’s admission.
Bonnie has always wanted a large family, even as a kid she would boast about how she couldn’t wait to be a mother and would have heaps of babies and sure, there are other ways for that to happen, but that doesn’t change what he did to her body.
After everything that fucking cunt put her through, after all the years of abuse and torture…he had to take that from her too?
None of us knew what to say, so I just held her tighter until eventually, her body weight started to sag, and we were all but holding her up. Still, despite her obvious exhaustion, I didn’t want to leave her.
One look at Charlie and I knew he felt the same.
But eventually we did mention leaving, only for Bonnie to panic and beg us not to go. So, we stayed. Honestly, it was a pretty easy decision to make.
After, Bonnie left to take a shower and Mitchell stormed out of the room without a word, leaving us worried we made the wrong decision, and he was pissed. But after a couple of minutes, he walked passed the open door, dragging a mattress with him.
Charlie and I shared a look before we helped him carry it downstairs along with the mattress from his room into the loungeroom. By the time Bonnie returned, we had a whole fort set up downstairs, minus the blanketed roof.
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I try to work out what woke me as I look around the dark room, momentarily forgetting where I am before last night comes back.
Looking around, I’m just able to make out Charlie sleeping heavily beside me. On my other side, Bonnie is now lying on her back still asleep with Mitchell on her other side.
Not finding whatever it was that woke me, I start to drift off again when I feel a light kick at my side followed by a quiet whimper. My eyes instantly snap back open, looking down at Bonnie but I can’t make out enough detail in the low light, so I slip my hand under my pillow and grab my phone.
Something I’m sure Ethan would have a fit over if he found out about. He’d no doubt lecture me on how they supposedly emit microwaves and the detriment of sleeping with it under my head. However, I don’t plan on him ever finding that out, so…
Unlocking the screen, I quickly dim the light and angle it towards our feet, so I don’t blind myself or wake anyone up by accidentally shining it in their faces.
With the light from my phone, I’m now able to see Bonnie properly. She’s breathing in heavy pants, her face scrunched up and her hair sticking to her forehead from sweat as she starts thrashing.
With my free hand, I reach over and go to shake her awake, but a hand snaps out and grabs my wrist. When I look up, I find Mitchell already wide awake, and he shakes his head at me.
“What? She’s having a nightmare, we should wake her up,” I hiss out right as her fist lashes out and hits my hip. It doesn’t hurt; it’s barely a pressure against my side, but she did hit my hip bone so I worry a little she may end up with a bruise.
“This isn’t a nightmare,” he tells me. “It’s a night terror. She’ll settle down in a minute, just keep talking softly and don’t try to wake or pin her down.”
“How do you know it’s not a nightmare?”
“Well for starters, she’s thrashing around. Nightmares happen during REM sleep; your arms and legs are kind of paralysed that way you don’t act out your dreams. So, the fact she’s thrashing is a pretty good indication this isn’t a nightmare.”
Okay, well that seems like an easy enough distinction. “She won’t always kick around in her sleep though. Sometimes she just lies still with her eyes open, or she will walk around the house, so don’t rely on that.”
“How are you supposed to know she isn’t awake if she’s walking around with her eyes open?”
“Trust me, you can tell. She’ll look right at you, but you can just tell she can't actually see you. She'll also be pretty nonresponsive."
I nod my head, trying to absorb and memorise what he’s telling me. With how deep a sleeper Charlie is, I doubt he will wake when she’s having one of these night terrors, so this is stuff I need to know.
Bonnie’s eyes suddenly open and her mouth drops open in a silent scream.
It takes everything in me not to try and shake her awake.
Every instinct I have wants to end her suffering, to wake her from whatever is plaguing her while she sleeps.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask after several minutes pass and she still hasn't settled down.
“I promise you; she’s okay. She’s not trying to hurt herself or us. She won’t even remember this in the morning. It’s better to let this play out rather than try to force her awake.”
“I just…I hate seeing her so…scared like this.”
“I know, but if you wake her it’ll just prolong the night terror and make it worse.”
“How do you know all this?”
“You don’t do what I do and not learn a thing or two on the many different ways trauma can present itself,” he explains before gesturing to Bonnie. “Look, she’s coming out of it.”
Sure enough, her thrashing and breathing start to slow and her face relaxes again. She rolls over, draping an arm and leg over my body and lets out a soft sigh as though nothing happened, and it doesn’t take long for sleep to pull me under with her wrapped around me.
The next time I wake, it’s because I’m sweating my arse off from the puppy pile we ended up in last night.
Especially when Charlotte crawled in at some point, acting as a weighted blanket as she used mine and Jace's stomachs as a mattress, whilst Bonnie’s stomach is her pillow and she's got her blanket thrown over little body.
How she fell asleep like that, I’ll never know. There’s no way that could have been comfortable for her.
An alarm sounding has Bonnie, Mitchell and I groaning while Charlie and Charlotte remain blissfully unaware, still deep asleep. Figures a kid named after him would also sleep like the dead.
“What time is it?” I groan out, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, as I stretch out a little trying not to jostle the sleeping child.
“Five,” Mitchell answers and I lift my head, peering my head over Bonnie to look at him.
“You guys wake up at five o’clock to get ready for school which starts at nine? What the hell, man?”
Mitchell chuckles, climbing off the mattress and shakes his head. “No, we’re waking at five to go for a run.” We?
“Right,” I mumble, recalling him saying he runs every morning at this time and that we’d start going together tomorrow.
Well, today. “I have no idea how I’m getting out of this,” I mutter gesturing to Charlotte, but tacking on the other two when Charlie rolls over and wraps an arm around me while Bonnie shuffles closer.
On second thought, staying doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
As if hearing my thoughts, Mitchell tilts his head and says, “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to. I just…need a little help getting up.” It takes some finagling, but between the two of us, we’re able to move the three sleeping bodies enough so I can wiggle my way out of the puppy pile and get up.
Dusting myself off, I thank Mitchell before heading to the bathroom to take a piss and wash my mouth out with the mouthwash on the counter. When I’m done, I head back downstairs and grab my clothes from yesterday with a frown.
Scratching the back of my neck, I make my way upstairs to the room I think Mitchell disappeared into. Standing in the open doorway, I confirm it is in fact his room and he’s inside before I knock on the door frame to get his attention.
He lifts his head, not seeming surprised to find me standing there. “Uh, so I’ve only got jeans,” I say sheepishly, holding yesterday’s clothes up. There’s no way I can run in these.
Looking me up and down, he frowns. “My clothes won’t fit you.”
“Yeah, no shit.” The guy is twice my size, on both the x- and y-axis.
“Hang on,” he mutters, walking passed me into another bedroom before reappearing a minute later and tossing me a pair of trackies that I hold up with a sceptical look. “I might not be your size, but I’m definitely not her size.”
“They have enough stretch in them and are baggy so they should be okay. Might be a little short in the legs though.” Shrugging, he opens a drawer, and pulls out two shirts, tossing one my way and putting the other on.
Needing this run, I resign myself to trying the pants on, fully expecting them not to fit. I toss my jeans on the floor and pull the trackies over my boxers, surprised when they not only fit, but they’re actually really comfortable.
“Don’t tell Charlie.” Or Eric, I add on internally.
Once dressed, we head downstairs and I put my jeans with Charlie’s clothes while Mitchell grabs us two water bottles, and we head outside to stretch. I follow his lead, stretching out my hamstrings first. “How far we going?”
Instead of answering straight away, he tilts his head and studies me. “What’s your endurance like?”
“Um, I dunno. Decent?” I shrug; it’s not something I’ve ever really considered before. I just run until I drop, or Charlie pretends to.
“Think you can make it back to the RV? Then we can drive it back here?”
“Don’t see why not.”
Running with Mitchell is an entirely different experience to running with Charlie.
For starters, he’s not all that chatty, though he does make a point to ask me a question or say something I have to respond to every now and again.
Then there’s the fact that despite Charlie having gotten used to our runs over the years and improved significantly, he has nothing on Mitchell when it comes to speed or stamina.
He also hasn't taken it easy on me. Unlike Charlie, who typically lets me set the pace or he will run at his own pace so that I will unconsciously slow down to match his. Mitchell on the other hand, has continuously taunted me, goading me to keep up with him until we’re both pushing each other faster and harder.