Save Me

Waiting For The Day

Chapter Three

I was warm, the warmest I’d been in months, years, days, seconds…

I didn’t care if this was a dream but for the first time I felt like myself instead of someone else. I’d almost succumbed to sleep when the door opened, jarring me back awake. My eyes automatically landed on door number one but it was still closed. It was door number two that had opened, the one that linked the two rooms together.

The orderlies usually waited on the other side when someone was there. But by the smell that drifted in from the other room, I knew it was feeding time.

Morgan and Fred approached carefully, Peter’s arms wrapping instantly tighter around me. I half wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t be afraid of them. It was the ones at night he should be scared of.

“Come on, Cassie. It’s lunch time.”

I was beginning to hate that name. That’s all they called me around here. In the beginning I’d screamed at them, told them no one called me that but my parents. They didn’t listen, they never listened to a thing I said.

Just like now, they’d figure out that the medicine they gave me was the wrong strength. Maybe that’s what they wanted…maybe…

Peter was reluctant to let me go and I could feel…

They’d definitely messed up on the dosage.

“It’s ok, A Ghrá,” I said, looking up at him.

He looked down at me, fear and unease making his eyes swirl. The orderlies very carefully lifted me up from where Peter held onto me and set me on my feet. Peter stood up and took a step forward but Morgan held out a hand.

“If you’re going to stay, you need to remain over there.”

When Peter retracted his step, Fred started undoing the restraints. When my arms were finally free and Morgan took the jacket away, I rubbed my wrists, trying to ignore the bracelet that was permanently fixed there. Since I’d been here, I never saw the colors swirl, not that I looked too often.

I glanced at Morgan as he stood waiting. They wouldn’t forcefully haul me into the other room like the other two.

“Can I…?”

I pointed at Peter. Both men looked hesitant, glancing between us and then at each other.

“Since yesterday was your birthday…why not?”

I grinned, probably the first one since I got there. I bounded over to Peter and wrapped my arms around him. It was just…soothing to be able to hug someone I’d been dreaming about for so long. Someone who actually cared about me and wanted something other than…

He hugged me back, the fierceness of it rivaling my own. There was so much I need to tell him, so many things I’d found out but I knew the orderlies wouldn’t let this last much longer. Nor would they allow a kiss so I couldn’t even do that.

“I love you,” I said instead.

He pulled back just a little, cupping both sides of my face.

“I love you too.”

If it’d really been two months, I thought he might’ve moved on. He had that stellar reputation of loving them and leaving them. But I should’ve known better. Peter would never leave me, not if I was in trouble. The night in the woods proved that. But like with other things, they’d convinced me I was wrong, that he didn’t want to see me and had moved on.

Another vicious lie.

“Come on, Cassie,” Fred said. “Lunch is getting cold.”

I pulled away from Peter so he wouldn’t have to experience them pulling me away.