Chapter 16
While scarfing down the blandest food he’d ever tasted, Bridger watched planes take off… and then asked Vega at least fifty follow-up questions.
But nothing could have prepared Bridger for the feel of the plane shooting into the sky. His ears popped, and the wing visible outside the window shook like it might snap.
Gripping the armrests, Bridger felt the muscles of his throat constrict. The plane bobbed, forcing his eyes closed.
Vega was oddly quiet. The last time Bridger looked over at her, she looked more relaxed than he’d seen her in decades.
How the fuck is she so calm right now?
“Um, Vega.” Bridger peeked over, his hands still gripping the seats as if he’d fall from the sky if he let go.
“Um, Bridger?” Vega mocked, rolling her head on the seat and opening her eyes.
“I think I’m freaking out a little,” he said with another hard swallow of the saliva he was moments from choking on.
Vega’s lips curved in a sleepy smile. She was enjoying watching him freak out. “I see that.”
Bridger squirmed in his seat, ready to crawl out of his skin. “Do you find this funny?”
Vega’s heavy lids told him she had been seconds from falling asleep. “I do, actually. I was laughing all the way to my dreams.”
Bridger gritted his teeth and pushed his back against the seat like he’d melt into the cushion and through it to a puddle on the floor when the plane bobbed again.
“Vega, please. I’ve been in probably 100,000 fights in my life, and I have never been this nervous.
I need…” He took a deep breath, walking himself through all the ways to calm down. “Tell me something real.”
He’d said it twice now. The first time he wasn’t sure what he’d meant by it, just that he wanted to hear Vega talk. This time he needed to hear her talk. If he sat here and thought about what would happen if this plane went down for much longer, Bridger was pretty sure his heart would explode.
Metal clinked together, and he felt the heat of her leg against his. Vega moved into the seat next to him, buckling herself in. “Something real?”
Bridger locked eyes with her, trying to feed off Vega’s calm. He was her anchor earlier, but now Vega was the only thing keeping him from drowning—his life preserver.
He wasn’t sure he could speak, nodding his head instead.
“In my first life on Earth, when Arlet found me, she tackled me to the ground, and I called the cops on her. She was so excited to see me, and at that point we hadn’t realized my memories were gone.”
Bridger homed in on Vega, doing what he could to block out the roaring of the plane’s engine.
“When the cops came, I saw the sheer look of panic as they began to ask her about who she was and why she didn’t have an ID.
It was in that very second I knew I’d messed up.
I don’t know what it was, but that was the first time I felt her.
The tingle in my wrist, the pull in my chest. Even with no memories, I trusted her. ”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, fighting a smile. Bridger’s eyes fixated on the movement.
“Then I went on the first cross-country road trip with her, learned all about Tolevarre and the boy who loved me.” The plane shook again, and Bridger’s fingers started to go numb from his tight grip.
“I didn’t believe her, not just because I couldn’t remember but because I had never felt worthy of love in the life I was living.
My first thought was I didn’t deserve to be loved.
But when I met you, when we came through the portal and you were standing there, blissfully unaware that I had no idea who you were… ”
His heart thudded against his chest, but as she talked about the memory, Bridger could see it.
Coming from her lips, it felt like the first time he’d remembered it in nearly forty years—even though he’d dreamed of it already.
“The look on your face.” Vega paused, and when Bridger looked down to focus on her, she was staring at him. “The relief you wore all over, the sparkle in your tired eyes—that’s when I felt it. The love Arlet told me about.”
“I remember,” he croaked, clearing his throat.
“I rushed to you, and the second before I wrapped you in my arms, I saw your look of apprehension. It was the moment I realized something wasn’t right.
Then I had to see that same look over and over again while watching the person I loved more than anything in the world turn into someone I didn’t know. ”
Vega’s smile was sad, but she still looked at him. She wasn’t sinking into herself. “I never really stopped to consider what you went through, about how it would truly have felt to be in your position. I only thought of my own feelings…”
The plane shuddered, and Bridger whipped his head straight, closing his eyes again. The panic was subsiding, but he still didn’t like it. “I kept losing you.” He paused, the next part coming out as a whisper. “And then I lost them too.”
Them… Khort and Arlet. His friends.
Opening up made him feel sick to his stomach—like somehow, by admitting this to the very girl who’d brought Marlena’s torture upon him, it made him weak.
He’d spent a lot of time with unresolved anger about the whole situation, having demons only he could find a way to cope with.
With his eyes closed, Bridger couldn’t see her movements, but with the next bump in their ride, Vega looped her arm under Bridger’s bicep and between the seat, wrapping it back around.
Her hands rested on his forearm beside each other.
A long moment passed, like she’d been thinking hard about her next move, before she rested her cheek against the outside of his upper arm.
Bridger’s mind, something deep and almost primal inside, hummed at her touch.
It felt as if his body was trying to tell him something…
The sound of her breathing slowed, her grip loosening as she drifted into a much-needed sleep. Bridger sat rigidly until he realized things weren’t as rough. He focused on the sound of Vega breathing, eventually succumbing to his own exhaustion.
He’d fought it for as long as he could, but it was no use. Bridger fell, tumbling into a sleep he thought he’d never see again.
A sleep with nothing but the blackness of his mind. Quiet. Peaceful. Deep.
For a while, there was nothing… Bridger slept. Dreamlessly.
So when the dream did finally creep its way in, Bridger wasn’t ready for it. He’d let his guard down, and he was once again thrust into the memories he’d fought so hard to forget.
Bridger was getting used to fighting for his life, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t have to for much longer as he was dragged by his hair down the hall of Fortis’s prison.
Marlena’s fist wound tightly at the base of his skull, his hair tangled in her fingers. “I hate to have to do this, Bridger, but you’ve made it clear you’re not going to let me do this the easy way.”
He went kicking and screaming, calling Marlena every name in the book as he tried to dig the heels of his boots into the stones underneath him.
Bridger flew through the air like a weightless sack, ribs shattering when he hit the back wall. He wasn’t even sure he screamed, unable to hear over the ringing in his ears.
Through the spots in his vision, he watched Marlena turn the corner and leave him alone.
“No,” Bridger squeaked, realizing he couldn’t speak without pain.
He crawled across the floor until he reached the bars of the cell. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here, and he was too far into the dungeon to recognize where he’d been taken.
Bridger spent the next few hours losing and regaining consciousness.
One of the times he came to, a hand was around his wrist, and the throbbing in his head seemed to subside the longer the touch was there.
The healer mended his big wounds, leaving the smaller ones to crack and bleed again when he moved. Bridger knew he was being healed only to be broken again. Marlena was going to keep him at the brink of death until she got her way… or got tired of him.
Bridger measured the passing of time by the light shining from a small window at the end of the hall.
He saw no one for what felt like days, and the churning in his stomach was no longer just from the pain but from hunger and guilt.
Arlet and Khort were out there by themselves, fighting a battle he should be beside them for. They’d lost Vega again… and this time so quickly.
It happened so fast.
He could still hear the crack of her neck echoing in his mind.
The click of heels echoed down the hall, amplifying the memory of Vega’s snapping neck. Bridger’s hands shot to cover his ears, but he could still hear the haunting crack. A scream ripped through his chest, drowning out the sound of Marlena’s approach.
He didn’t hear the cell door open.
Didn’t smell the waft of smoke coming off Marlena’s burning hands.
Couldn’t feel her fingers under his chin as she forced Bridger to look up at her. “I will break you down until there’s nothing left of the Bridger she loves.”
Those words would terrorize him for the next two fucking years… and then for the rest of his life.
Light blinded him, air rushing into his lungs from the sharp inhale he gasped. If it weren’t for the restraint over his lap, Bridger would have gone flying out of the seat.
He continued to pant, sucking in deep breaths until he registered the hands on his face.
Vega.
She forced him to look at her. “Relax. You’re on a plane. You can’t freak out right now.”
Bridger’s eyes scanned her face, taking in the look she was giving him. It wasn’t pity. It wasn’t fear. It was understanding.
She knew what it was like to remember the things you didn’t want to.
“It was just a dream,” she said.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t just a dream.
It was his life.
It was the memories he threw away like trash while Vega fought to keep hers.
Her touch was driving him mad, the buzz of their shared bond loud in his head. Bridger pulled his face out of her hands and closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths.
“Bridger—”
A happy-sounding beep played overhead, and a speaker crackled to life.
“Good evening, everyone, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to make this announcement, but unfortunately, due to storms wracking through the central United States, we have been rerouted to Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
We apologize to those whose final destination was LAX, but please know our first priority is always your safety.
Our gate agents will get you rescheduled and home as soon as the weather clears.
I anticipate we’ll have some bumpy air on the way down, so I’ll be turning the Seatbelt sign on for the remainder of the flight and asking your flight attendants to secure the cabin for landing as we make our final descent into Chicago.
Sit tight and feel free to use your small handheld devices to make arrangements using our free in-flight WiFi. ”
Oh, it’s about to get bad again.
“Bridger, these dreams—”
“Are mine to deal with.” He unbuckled himself and stood to shuffle his way into the aisle, beelining straight to what he assumed was the bathroom with the little people on the light above the door.
Bridger fumbled with how to open the door and then with the stupid fucking lock—because what kind of lock is this?—turning to the sink to press every single button around it until he got the water to turn on.
Fuck, this bathroom is small. Bridger had never been claustrophobic until now.
He felt larger than life trying to bend down to splash water on his face, washing the very real feel of the dream from his skin.
Water dripped down Bridger’s, his dark eyes glaring back at him in the mirror. The lies and deceit, the reason he’d come to Earth, stared him right in the face.
He’d told Marlena he was here to make Vega fall in love with him… but what happened if he was the one who fell instead?