Kriegspiel [Sequel to The Turing Test]

6. Just Breathe

In a flash of white, the world loses its color again. The quiet hum of the house Sven and I share disappears, replaced by that same distorted, echoing voice calling my name.

"Ronnie?"

I freeze. I squint, willing something, anything, to materialize out of the bright light. The only thing I can make out is my own body, standing on something solid but indistinguishable, so that I wonder if I'm even standing at all.

I spin on the spot and shout at the sky, "Why are you still doing this to me?"

The hoarse cry tears my throat on the way out, and I hate the way it ekes desperation. I hate that, even now that Sven has found me, he still feels the need to engage in psychological torture. I hate that it works.

"Ronnie—"

"Go away!" I scream, slapping my once again unblemished hands against my ears.

But the barrier does nothing; when the man's voice speaks next, his words are loud and clear, as if they echo from within my own mind.

"Ronnie, are you okay?"

I freeze, my mouth falling open as I search for words, but only one comes to me. I recognize his voice.

"Carlos?"

* * *

I jolt awake, disoriented. The comforting weight of Davis's arm drapes over my body, but the ground underneath me is too soft.

"Carlos is just fine, Ronnie."

Sven's voice is like a punch in the face, slamming me back to reality with a mean right hook. The arm that encloses me doesn't belong to Davis, and I'm not safe underground anymore. I flail like a fish out of water, kicking against the resistance of the sheets as they tighten their grip around my ankles.

"Ronnie, it's okay!"

His assurance whips my heart into a gallop, and I finally break free. My bare feet hit the floor, sending a cold shock straight to my soul. For a second, I wish it could rouse me out of this waking nightmare.

Sven raises his hands, his eyebrows tilted upward in what I would have once thought an expression of sincere concern. Now, it seems like sacrilege to what we used to be. What I thought we used to be. What we never were.

It's okay. His lips coat irony onto those words until they mean nothing of the sort. Here, with him, is the opposite of safety.

"Get—"

Away is supposed to be the next word out of my mouth, but I fall silent as I remember his ultimatum: Everything goes back to the way it was, or Davis suffers.

I close my eyes and picture Davis, but it's not the ripple of the muscles he once had, nor the perfectly crooked set of his teeth, nor his charisma that come to mind. It's the tenderness of his touch as he dresses my wounds, as if they're real and he can hurt me. It's the wicked flash in his eyes every time I insist that I'm fine. It's the fight in him every time I remind him that I'm not human, and that he shouldn't care. It's the way he goes on caring anyway.

"There. Just breathe."

Not even my deepest wish can morph Sven's voice into Davis's. But I open my eyes and force a smile, hoping he can't see through it to my pounding heart and the tremble that weakens my knees.

The ease of Sven's return grin jars Davis right out of my mind, and I fight the urge to flee. Nothing lies beyond the bedroom except more memories—painful ones, of our past, of when I thought I loved him. When I thought I could ever know love, at all.