Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Sixteen

My body jerked awake.

Eyes open I took in my surroundings. Room. People. Desks.

No guns.

No guns at all.

No cells either.

I wasn't there. It was a dream. It was definitely a dream.

My entire body was sweating and hot and my breath coming in and going out way too fast.

It took me a moment to feel the hand that was gripping my shoulder.

I flipped around in my sleeping bag, suddenly scared to death that I would find the same man with the gun from my nightmare.

But it wasn't him. It was definitely not him. Because instead of seeing his dark brown hair, I saw black hair and a completely different arrangement of facial features.

"Are you okay?" came the voice of the black haired guy who'd been sleeping next to me.

I froze completely, having no way to react.

"You were...talking...," he added softly, not going into further detail into what I must've said while I was sleeping. I could only guess what he'd heard.

I opened my mouth, not really having a plan for what to say. "I-I...sorry," I stuttered, quickly sitting up and pushing away from him only slightly once I realized his hand had still been on my shoulder.

"No, it's fine. I wasn't sleeping anyway." He looked extremely serious and I could tell something else was on his mind besides just waking me up from a nightmare.

After an awkward second of silence where neither of us spoke, he continued.

"In your sleep...," he started, closing his eyes as he did, "you kept whispering one word...a name."

I waited for him to go on.

"Beckam."

My heart skipped a beat at hearing the name said out loud, in reality.

"Beckam," I repeated breathlessly.

"Yea...was it...Beckam Reid?"

Again, I couldn't breathe.

"Yea." I felt like I was choking, and I knew I was seconds away from breaking apart.

"Oh...I knew him. We were actually close friends...before..."

"...oh..."

He stared down for a second, eyes inspecting the carefully sewn together pieces of fabric of the sleeping bag. He then looked back up to me and his face had changed. His eyes looked brighter, concealing the pain.

"I'm Kain," he offered.

"Nova." My hands were beginning to lose feeling as they pressed down against the hard blue tiled floor of the classroom. I sat up, placing my hands instead in my lap.

Kain sighed, not yet moving from his kneeling position next to my sleeping bag.

"I'm glad to meet you Nova," he said after about a minute, then sighed and stood up. He returned to his sleeping bag, and I stared as he carefully put his bare feet into the bag, followed soon after by his body. His head faced in my direction when he laid down on the pillow, and I stared at him, before closing my eyes once more, and hoping for a dreamless sleep.