Bad Company

Love and Loss

A strangled breath caught on my lips as I shot upwards in bed, my fingers ghosting across the sheets before locking down on the fabric. My heart was beating erratically in my chest, and whatever oxygen remaining in my lungs was quickly dispelled into the atmosphere.

I was hot, much too hot.

My feet instinctively kicked at the heavy sheets, and I pushed wildly against the comforter confining my legs. With the layers of heat finally gone, a cold breeze enveloped my freshly exposed skin, sending a shiver down my spine as the cool temperature mixed with the warmth of my nightmare-flushed skin. Beads of sweat had gathered along my hairline, and I wildly swiped at them with my shaking hands.

"Oh God," I gasped. My heart was still slamming against my ribcage, and trickles of tears slid down the slopes of my cheeks. The images I had witnessed were so...vivid. That smile, the one he had reserved only for me, had been twisted into a deep grimace of pain as he choked back piercing screams and coughs of blood bubbling from the deep indentations of broken ribs sunken into his abdomen. His shimmering eyes were swollen closed from blow after devastating blow from crowbars and baseball bats, but the worst thing was how he still managed to whisper my name like a reverent prayer.

Ellie.

It was the cry of a lover tired of fighting.

A devastated sob broke the deafening silence of the night as the images pulverized my aching heart. "Oh God."

Without thought, I slipped out of bed and stumbled towards the hallway under the pall of night. My fingers collided rather harshly with the doorknob, but the ache in my bones was nothing comparable to the pain in my soul as I threw open the door and hurried away from the dark room where sweat and nightmares saturated the atmosphere.

My pace was surprisingly fast as I jogged down the stairs to the main floor, my hair fluttering loosely against my back like a mother trying to soothe a child's worry, but it didn't help. Nothing could help, I realized bitterly, except for space away from the hell that awaited for me upstairs. I needed to be away from the sweaty sheets, the imaginative figures lurking in the shadows, and the general fear that permeated the air. To top it off, the scent of hospital antiseptics singed my nose with every breath, even hours later.

"I can't breathe," I gasped wantonly, grasping the back door in the kitchen and sliding it open. A freezing wind nipped at nose as I stepped into night. The stars shone brightly above me with a ridge of trees scrabbling to touch their silky light.

My lungs swelled gratefully at the presence of the fresh air, and the bitter scent of the hospital faded into the background at the presence of clean pine and rain-dampened earth.

I eased my hands onto the deck railing and clutched onto the wood as if it was the one thing anchoring me to reality. My heart still pounded sharply against my ribs, but the steady presence of light from the stars calmed my racing pulse, allowing me to take in a deep breath at last.

Inhale. The nightmare was over.

Exhale. I was free.

Inhale. Colt was safe.

Fear niggled at my heart, and my breaths suddenly faltered. Colt was safe, wasn't he?

A low drawl suddenly hummed beneath the symphony of crickets and cicadas, and I whipped around to find Colt scrubbing tiredly at his eyes. There was a small frown tugging at his lips before they parted into an exhausted yawn.