~Kie's pov~
I was used to nightmares.
All of us were.
I started getting them almost every night since our first night on the island. I'd wake up sweaty and breathing heavily almost every night. Sometimes I tried to go back to sleep but most of the time I ended up staying wide awake for the rest of the night.
At first, no one asked questions about why I was always awake before everyone else or why I looked like a walking zombie, as Cleo told her. At least not for the first few days. That changed when JJ woke up one night cause of some damn mosquito that wasn't leaving him alone.
JJ had his own nightmares too but since we got on that slice of paradise, as he called it, he stopped waking up at night even if he didn't sleep too comfortably cause of the sand and mosquitoes but at least he was sleeping for the whole night.
The night he noticed that I wasn't next to the others, I was sitting by some rocks on the beach. I thought that the ocean could relax me but it only reminded me of what happened with JJ on the boat.
When he finally saw me and sit down next to me, we talked about everything that night, we talked about my parents, his injury and even about our surf trip.
After that JJ moved his sleeping spot from next to Cleo to me. We stayed close to each other every night and talked about everything and I finally managed to get more than three hours of sleep without nightmares.
JJ made sure to stay awake and wait until he was sure that I was deep asleep.
Tonight my nightmare was different.
This time I wasn't in the water, holding JJ's lifeless body and screaming for help as loud as I could.
This time I was at my house, cooking with my dad while my mom was watching us like she usually did. We kept laughing about something and talking like nothing ever happened between us.
Like we were a perfect family.
At some point, someone started knocking on the door. I looked behind, trying to see if my parents were gonna get the door but neither of them seemed to hear the knocking apart from me.
I went towards the door but before I could open it, it opened itself, some men in polo shirts, with the Kitty Hawk logo on them, came inside. I looked behind trying to see where my parents are but they weren't anywhere to be seen.
When I turned back at the men they started walking towards me faster than earlier. I tried to run but I couldn't move.
They grabbed my arms, pulling me out of the house and walking towards some van. I kept kicking and yelling but neither of the men let me go, no matter how much I begged them to let me go.
Slowly everything started to become blurry and the man's voice started to sound more and more familiar.
I suddenly snapped out of the dream, waking up and pushing myself off the pillows. I didn't realise where I was or what was going on until instead of someone gripping my arms tightly, I felt a hand on my shoulder, carefully touching me like I was gonna break.
"It's okay" I heard JJ's voice softly. "It was just a bad dream, you're okay"
JJ's voice instantly managed to calm me down a little.
My heart was still racing and I still couldn't steady my breath but I knew I was safe. I still felt like the men were dragging me around and my hands were shaking. It felt like everything just happened again.
I looked around trying to convince myself that I wasn't in another dream.
I saw the white wardrobe that was still empty in the corner of the room, I saw the dark blue curtains, which were pretty much ruined, that were halfway closed so the sun wouldn't wake us up too early in the morning and the clothes I threw earlier on some chair on the other side of the room.
I suddenly felt JJ's hand slowly slipping away from my shoulder so I quickly turned to look at him, making sure this wasn't another dream and that he's not gonna disappear too.
When I turned my head towards him he was still there. He was in the pair of pants he had earlier but without the shirt, normally I knew he'd make a joke about me for looking at him like that but he knew that now it wasn't the time. He was holding a glass of water and slowly gave it to me.
I tried to hold the glass myself but my hands kept shaking so JJ put his hands over mine, helping me hold the glass steady while I drank the water. When I was done, he slowly took the glass away from my hands and put it on the nightstand.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his concern visible in his voice.
I felt bad for worrying him. We had so many important things to worry about and he was still worrying about me. I tried to talk but nothing came out so I just nodded. I didn't need him to worry about this too.
I knew it was an instinct. An instinct I had lately and the dream didn't make it any better but he didn't know that, and that's why I felt like the worst person when he slowly reached towards me, trying to calm me down and I just jolted away as soon as I felt hands on my arms.
But he didn't say anything.
He slowly put his hands back on my arms and carefully pulled me so I was laying in his arms. This time I didn't pull away, I let myself fall between his arms and maybe that was exactly what I needed.
"It was just a bad dream," he said, making small circles with his thumb against her my in an attempt to calm me down.
I didn't say anything. I just let him hold me and draw random shapes on my arm or stroke my hair and listened to all the reassuring words he said until my breath became more steady and it was matching his.
I couldn't tell what time it was, we didn't have a phone so we stayed in the room, cuddled up and not knowing what time it was until the sun slowly started peeking through the half closed curtains.
Even then we didn't move. We kept staying there in the same position without talking. After what felt like forever, I slowly moved, getting up in a sitting position but not going too further from JJ.
I turned to look at him and didn't even realise that the reason his movements on my arm stopped a few minutes ago, was because he fell back asleep. He was probably exhausted cause of me.
I slowly left the bed trying my best not to wake him up and walked into a small bathroom that didn't look any better than the rest of the house.
I held the sink with both of my hands, making sure I won't collapse, and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a mess, my face was still dirty and I looked like I haven't slept in months. I really wanted to do a long long shower but not here.
It wasn't only because the conditions weren't the best, conditions JJ had to live in, even if he was mostly at the Chateau which was now gone, but also because I didn't want to ask him for more.
I knew he'd feel bad that this was all he had and he probably didn't even have water right now.
"Kie?" I heard JJ's voice followed by a small knock on the door. "You in there?"
I opened the door and looked at him. He had different clothes on including one of the shirts I loved the most. As soon as I opened the door his whole expression relaxed, letting out a small sigh of relief.
You couldn't even blame him for being worried especially after everything that happened.
"I was thinking that we could go to Sarah and John B, I don't have any food in here" he started, moving one hand through his hair. "But Pope and Cleo were gonna bring them some food from Heyward"
"Yeah, yea we should go" I nodded. "How will we leave the house without anyone seeing us around?"
I didn't think until now about the possibility of running into my parents.
I didn't want to think about that.
I still don't.
"I can look for a sweatshirt and the hoodie will cover you" JJ said picking up a dark blue sweatshirt from the couch and handing it to me.
"That might work," I said putting on the sweatshirt that kinda smelled like weed, I could really use a joint now.
"How do I look?" I asked.
JJ turned around and pretend to stupidly look for me like I suddenly disappeared.
"For a second I thought you disappeared, damn you almost gave me a heart attack Kie" he said.
I rolled my eyes, but didn't bother to hide my laugh.
"What can I say? I could be a great spy" I said walking towards the front door.
"I bet you could" he said, following me outside.
"Or you could be like a wizard or something and you could use the magic to find us a joint"
That was the best moment to pull out the half finished joint I found in the sweatshirt's pockets a few minutes ago.
I turned towards him, walking backwards, and pulled out the joint laughing at JJ's shocked expression.
"See? That's what I'm talking about Kie" he laughed taking his lighter from his pocket and bringing it towards the joint, lighting it up.
I took the joint to my mouth, letting myself finally relax a little after everything that happened.
I turned back around, walking next to JJ and passing him the joint. I watched him taking the joint to his lips, inhaling from it.
I'd have lied if I said that I wasn't mesmerised by the view in front of me.
"We're gonna get on kook's land soon" he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "We gotta make sure we don't see Shoupe either"
We also had to make sure we won't run into my parents. Did they even know I ran away?
Suddenly I felt a small hit in the shoulder coming from JJ's shoulder. I looked up at him and he gave me a small reassuring smile.
"Don't worry no one will notice us, especially not undercover like that" he said, making me laugh.
I took the joint from his hand and brought it to my mouth again.
"Enjoy it, it'll be the last one we'll get for a while" JJ said.
We kept walking around the houses on figure eight, passing the joint between eachother.
I knew most of the people in there, some were my parent's friends while some were kids from the kook academy.
I tried her best not to look at them or acknowledge them.
I couldn't think about them too.
I couldn't think about the kook academy either.
"What's wrong?" JJ asked.
"Nothing" I said.
"You zoned out the whole way to the apartment"
"I'm okay" I said, walking past him and opening the door but he stopped me, taking my hand away from the door's handle.
I tried my best to ignore the shivers that traveled through my body.
"Maybe it'll help you if you talk about what happend" he said.
"I'm okay, I promise" I lied turning around to knock on the door.
Maybe I should've talk.