Come to me...

Chapter 18 ~ One week... Part III

"Gabriella! No!" He shouted.

***

*Fourth day*

Rayne woke up startled. When did I fall asleep?  He asked himself. What happened?

 He then noticed that his breaths were heavy and his heart was pounding hard. His body felt heavy and he was panting. Confusion was all across his features. His brows furrowed as he tried to recall what happened. Then everything came back to him.

How he found the threatening letters. How he blamed himself for everything going on with his mate. How he went to her and cried...

Then memories of him sitting next to her and tending her again flashed in his mind. He had wiped off her sweat using the same towel and bucket he had been using for the past two days. Then he recalled how his eyelids became heavy. Rayne could still feel how exhausted he was at that moment and how gladly he had welcomed sleep.

However, once darkness took over him, what followed was everything but comforting. Instead of regaining some strength  after a good sleep, Rayne found himself trapped in the world of dreams. The world where everything could happen. Where one could be anything and meet with anyone, no matter how far they were.

By midnight Rayne had drowned deep into that world. There, he could have dreamt of being with Gabriella. He could have dreamt of avenging his brother. Heck he could have dreamt of eating a decent meal, but the only thing he got there was a nightmare.

One where he lost his other half. His mate.

Rayne could still feel how realistic the nightmare was. Time passed and he still couldn't tame his uneven breaths. The only thing he found himself able to do was recalling over and over again the events of that dreadful dream.

Images of Gabriella letting out her last scream overwhelmed him. They filled his thoughts and consumed his body. Rayne lost control of his movements because after a while he noticed that his body started shaking uncontrollably.

The nightmare fitted the reality he was forced to live into like a key fitted its own lock. It could very well be a premonition of what was going to happen in the following days. The events were frighteningly accurate.  In the dream Gabriella and him even had the same clothes on. His mate also had the side braid in which he had spent so much time perfecting.

"No!" Rayne shouted in denial. He looked at Gabriella for the first time after he woke up and found that her condition was rather stable. She frowned once in a while indicating that she felt some pain inside. But it wasn't to the point of  being unbearable, no. If it was the case, she would have started screaming again. Yet, even when he knew that, Rayne couldn't help himself but hating himself for causing her to be like that.

Fire ignited inside him. His veins pumped feverish blood inside his system. His conception of the world changed as he let the anger consume his mind and take reign of his actions. He found himself having a new purpose for living, for inhaling and filling his lungs with air.

He realized how wrong he was when he let everything in Mike's hands. Protecting her? How foolish he was when he thought he could protect her from any harm while his friend looked for the antidote.

The harm was already done.

Rayne started feeling restless. He had to do something. He wasn't going to sit in his house any longer, he just couldn't stay still anymore. He felt alive with these newfound emotions. Waiting was never something he was good at. In order to make everything right, taking action was what he was best at, no matter how small the action was.

And he just realized that...

With all of that in mind, Rayne was now prepared to make changes in his life. He was going to take back what he had been unjustly separated from.