Red in the Blue

Chapter 40

CW: anxiety around sexual violence, does not happen. Panic attacks. Body horror.

I came to in the woods, slowly. The cool, cloying scent of earth and leaves and the scent of tree bark sharper over it. The ground was frozen-hard underneath me. Something nudged my foot, and I tried to open my eyes but couldn't. My head was fuzzy and heavy, lolled side to side. Just darkness behind my eyelids, fizzing with static. It was silent. Not as if there was no sound but as if I couldn't hear anything. I tried to open my mouth, but it was glued shut.

Something nudged my hip now, cold and wet, unpleasant; I recoiled. I felt the splotch of dampness on my hipbone like a Rorschach. Like a slug. That's how I realized I was naked. I managed to wrench my eyes open just long enough to glimpse my own pale body in the damp leaves, almost reflective in the dark, like the moon. My feet dark with dirt, stained. On the next effortful opening of my eyes, I saw the great brown wolf standing over me, his head lowered to sniff at my exposed skin. I felt his rush of breath against me and tried to scramble back, the underbrush pressing and sticking and cutting against my flesh, cramming under my fingernails, but there was a rough tree trunk at my back, knocking the breath from me as it grated suddenly against me.

His presence, if not his body, followed me, pinned me back. I couldn't hold my eyes open but felt him blocking my way. I tried to shift, but that tether I needed to pull wasn't there. I was just human, naked and small and wet and cold. I felt his wolfish nose on my thigh again and screamed. It ripped out of me, straining my throat and throbbing in my head, my whole body contorted with the force of it, but it made no sound. I couldn't hold my eyes open. I wondered if Cade would come. I screamed his name next, but I couldn't hear that either. It hurt my throat but I screamed it again.

The scream is what woke me up, gasping, clawing at the sheets, scrambling up in my bed. The wolf was here too, but he was a man, a silhouette in the dark, leaning over me, his hands on either side of me in the bed. I couldn't breathe. I clawed at my chest, the weight that pressed my lungs down and held them shut, wheezing for what little capacity I had. Against my back, the headboard and the wall held me in place against the man's presence. I tried to beg him but I couldn't speak past my own panting. His head titled, shifting into the light from the window, and his face came into view—a stranger's face, his eyes widening and widening, straining, melting now, dripping over the rest of his face which contorted similarly into a voiceless scream that hurled hot breath across my face.

I lunged for the lamp, turning it on and knocking it over in the same motion, light teeming into the room in strange patterns from the way the lamp lay on its side, the shade crunched in from its fall against the bedside table. The man was across the room now, leaking from himself, contorting grotesquely. I feel out of bed, skinning my arm against the bedside table so it didn't bleed but bruised redly, one thin layer of skin all that remained to keep me inside myself. I made a garbled, painfilled sound and grabbed my arm, looking up to put distance between myself and the man, but he was gone. The room was empty. I tried to remember if I'd heard him leave. The door opening and closing maybe. But no. I still fought for breath, gripping my arm, whimpering distantly. Chest rising and falling. Sheets twisted to the floor and lamp on its side. Pillows and stuffed animals either flattened or strewn. It was after four in the morning.

I wanted Cade. As soon as the thought entered my mind, it was all I could do to keep from physically running to his house or calling him over. He would come. If I called him, he would. Whether or not he would stay was something else, but he would come. My hands started twitching. Oh, NOW the wolf shows up. Here she is, after all the action. But it wasn't like other times. I pushed her back down easily and sat on the edge of the bed. My arm stung, but it wasn't bleeding. Already it would be healing, probably gone soon. I tried to control my breathing any way I knew how. In...two...three...four...hold...two...three...four...out...two...three...four...pause...two...three...four...