by Bourne, Lena
The impossible will have to become possible once again. We’ll make it happen together.
“The bed was so cold without you,” she whispers once we’re lying down again, her soft, perfect body pressed against me as close as it will go, and her head resting on my chest.
“And the whole world was so cold without you,” I whisper, but she’s already asleep.
It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell her again tomorrow. And all the days until we die.
14
Anne
The sky outside is still very dark when sweet kisses laced with the prickly aftertaste of his morning shadow wake me. At first I think he wants to make love, but he just stares down at me with a smile when I look into his, letting him know I’m ready and willing.
“Good, you’re awake,” he says. “Get dressed, I want to show you something.”
“What?” I ask thickly.
“You’re gonna love it, don’t worry.” He gets up and starts getting dressed in the dark.
I rise slowly, since I’m not sure if this is a dream or what.
“Dress warm,” he adds and leaves the room.
I do as he says, moving quickly, because I’m getting curious now.
He’s waiting for me by the front door when I come down, holding a plastic bag filled with food and coffee, I think. I can still smell the roast on the air.
“What is it you want to show me?” I ask as I follow him outside.
“The sunrise,” he says simply, opens the door and strides to his bike, where he packs away the plastic bag into one of the saddlebags.
The sky above the canopy of trees is velvety black and covered with stars. Sunrise can’t be coming anytime soon.
“Come on,” he says, already straddling his bike.
I do it, walking as though pulled by some invisible force that starts in his eyes and pulls me to him via some hook deep in my heart.
Only as the bike’s engine roars to life, do I truly know I’m awake and not dreaming. His body is warm and solid, but everything else vibrates and shakes as we ride to the main road. The trees around us are in pure darkness, our only guide the headlight of his bike. Only the road ahead is illuminated, the rest dark, inconsequential, not my concern.
The feeling of the two of us together but alone in the world, grows stronger once we reach the pavement of the main road. The rolling of the bike is smoother now, and we’re going faster, the vibrations and noise intensifying, echoing over the dark trees and hills and valleys we’re passing, our light still the only one in the world.
We finally reach a road that goes straight up, winding but leading ever up—up into the sky.
Only a handful of stars are left in the velvet darkness of the sky as we reach the top of the road. Night is fleeing before the band of pure white light on the horizon.
“Come, it’s just a little further,” he says and offers me his hand once we both dismount. I take it and let him lead me towards the edge, towards the dark sky it seems, the plastic bag he’s carrying rustling, and everything inside me still vibrating.
He doesn’t stop until we reach the very edge of the hill we’re on. There’s a sea of trees below us, still black in the darkness, and before us, in the distance, the brilliant white light on the horizon is growing wider.
He packed a blanket in his plastic bag and he lays it on the rocky ground. “Sit.”
“I’d love to,” I whisper, and do as he says, leaning against his side and nestling close, as he drapes his arm around my shoulders.
The band of white is tinged with pink now, the colors blending as the light expands, the edges still soft and tentative, but its heart strong, bright and getting brighter by the moment.
Soon yellow comes into the mix, turning the light golden, no longer tentative as it pushes away the darkness of night. It’s darkness that’s tentative now, breaking apart as light suffuses it. I’ve never watched a sunrise this closely, never paid so much attention to this glorious display of nature, this show that’s free for everyone and more beautiful than anything man can make.
This is the physical manifestation of what loving Matt did for me—it broke apart the darkness I’ve lived in with Benji until none of it remains.
I gasp as the tip of the sun suddenly comes into view.
“I gather you like it,” he says with a soft chuckle.
“Like is not a strong enough word,” I say, my eyes still glued to the spectacle. “Love would be closer.”
He pulls me into an even tighter embrace, just as the light of the sun spills over the horizon like liquid gold for a moment, before solidifying into a shimmering circle that climbs and climbs, chasing away the darkness with force now, with unstoppable power against which nothing can stand.
Just like the light and heat of what Matt and I created. Nothing can stand in the way of that, not anymore, it’s too hot and too solid, no longer just wisps and reflections, but a real, unstoppable thing. The higher the sun climbs in the sky the better I know that.
Only a pocket of darkness remains now, the last of the stars holding on, but not for long, the sun is too bright, too powerful, too intense.
“That was the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” I tell him once the sun is shining brightly in the sky and no darkness remains.
“You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” he says with a soft smile, and kisses me. The darkness-dispelling, fiery light he holds is within me now, tentative wisps of it forming into liquid gold that solidifies into a fire nothing can touch and nothing can stop. The grey dense fog I lived in for years wouldn’t stand a chance now that this light is filling me so perfectly, so completely.
His kisses travel down my neck, breathing more heat into the fire burning inside me. His pulse is racing, or is that my own?
The morning air is cool against my naked skin as he unbuttons my shirt, and removes my bra, my nipples standing to attention in the cold, but his lips and his tongue warm them soon enough, sending surges of heat right through my center as he kisses and nips them.
He lays me down on my back on the blanket, the stones hard but not painful against my back. He pulls down my pants too, the cold air now licking my pulsing clit, which is ready for his lips.
He obliges as though he read my mind and kisses me down there too, while sliding two fingers into my pussy, pressing the button inside me where all the searing hot pleasure starts. His lips and his tongue are doing things to my clit I can’t even describe, but which feel better than anything, so good I could just lie here forever.
And it does go on and on, the flames inside me turning white, as this pleasure he’s giving me becomes an inferno, a ball of light as bright as the sun that’s all my own—all our own. But I can only hold onto it for a second, before it soundlessly explodes in a sparkling rain of bliss and light, and love and belonging, washing me in the best orgasm I ever had.
I try to tell him that once I regain my sight and my breath, but evidently speech is still beyond me. So I try to tell him with my eyes, and I think he understands, because he smiles one of his bright, sunny day smiles that light up his whole face as he kneels between my spread legs.
He enters me slowly, half-inch by half-inch, stirring the embers that are still glowing from the rain of pleasure he just gave me. Once he’s deep enough, he retreats, then does it again, and again, until flames start rising from the embers, hot white licking things, forming amazingly beautiful shapes and warming me from the inside, chasing away all hurt as they enter my heart and my mind and heal me. But through it all, I see his smiling eyes, his sunny afternoon eyes, that promise the rest and pleasure, peace, happiness, and belonging I’ve always craved.
Even after I come hard the second time, I still see his eyes, looking down at me, smiling, welcoming me into a new life, the one I always wanted to live.
* * *
The sky above us is blushing lilac, but the shadows of night are already creeping in. All I remember of this day is the sunrise, and the love and belonging I fel
t every minute since.
We’re back at the cabin, sitting on the porch, my bare legs draped across his lap, his fingertips soft and warm as he runs them up and down my skin. The glorious light I witnessed being born this morning is receding back into darkness, but the light of the sun is inside me now and nothing can ever chase it away again.
“I love being here with you,” I say, feeling like there are three too many words in that sentence even as they leave my lips.
“Yeah, me too,” he says, and it feels like he’s replying to the sentence with fewer words that I was meant to speak.
“But it can’t last forever,” I say. His whole body stiffens as he looks at me sharply.
I smile and run my hand down his cheek.
“That’s not what I meant,” I answer the unasked question in his eyes. “I just meant that I’m hiding here, and you’re hiding me, and that can’t last. The problems I’m facing won’t just go away on their own. They’ll have to be dealt with before we can have our peaceful forever.”
He relaxes, but not completely. “Those are some monumental problems.”
Yet the light still shining bright inside me is telling me we can overcome anything, that I can overcome any obstacle.
“I’ll make some calls tomorrow and see about getting you a new identity,” he says.
He’s spoken of this before, but only once, in the beginning of my stay here, so I just assumed he was saying it to calm me down at the time and can’t actually do it. But he sounds so confident that he can. Do I want it though?
“I’d like to keep my name,” I say. “If nothing else, it’s the thing that ties us together through the years.”
He looks at me, his eyes soft, even though the features of his face remain as though carved from stone.
“That won’t be possible. Not if the FBI is looking for you,” he says harshly, but adds in a softer tone, “It doesn’t matter what name’s written on your ID. I’ll always know who you are. Anne Elizabeth Marsh, the sister of my best friend.” He pauses, looking even deeper into my eyes, his just two bubbling pools of bright blue light now. “And the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.”
All that soft liquid light in his eyes is washing over me now, filling me, and tears are trickling down my cheeks. I kiss him, softly, tenderly, lastingly.
“I love you too,” I whisper as I pull away, my lips so close to his I can still feel them pulsing. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone in the world.”
He kisses me this time, harder than I kissed him, with a hunger of a starving man, but it’s my hunger too, and he’s the only remedy for it.
The sky is dark and full of bright white, twinkling stars once we’ve finally sated our hunger.
And we do have more things to discuss, more things to decide, plans to make, but this is not the night for it.
Though I know it will be one of the last ones we can ever spend inside the bubble of blissful forgetting we created up here in the woods, hidden away from the world and all the monsters chasing us.
Those monsters are real and they’ll never abandon the chase. At least not the one chasing me. I know that as well as I know the name I don’t want to lose.
15
Doc
It’s time to go into action, face the fight for Anne head on. That was the first thought that popped into my head when I woke up hours before dawn, and it’s still burning strong as I sit on the porch and wait for a reasonable hour to call Cross and arrange a meeting so I can ask my favor. I forgot to charge my phone, so it must’ve been dead for days, but that’s taken care of now too.
Once eight AM rolls around I grab my phone and head into the trees, since the less Anne knows about what I’m doing, the better for now. Eventually she’ll need to know more, but only after she’s completely out of the reach of her ex. I have to play it safe.
Cross picks up on the first ring, which isn’t unusual for him though I fully expected to wake him with this call. But his voice sounds sharp and alert like he’s been up for hours.
“Where have you been, Doc?” he asks and that suffocating, tightly constricting feeling is back in my chest, the one that was always there through all the wars, and my entire time with the Devils. I didn’t even notice it lifted since I met Anne, but I do now, because it’s more painful than ever.
“I took some time off.”
“We might need you soon,” Cross says. “The Vegas thing isn’t going smoothly.”
I can’t help but groan as the constriction in my chest grows tighter still. It was supposed to be smooth sailing from here on out. No more death.
“I need a favor, Cross,” I say. “A personal one. Can we meet?”
The silence that follows might be telling, but I hope it doesn’t mean no.
“I’ll be at Sanctuary tonight,” he finally says just as I spot Anne in the bedroom window, her hair dancing in the breeze. She hasn’t seen me yet, but I need to see her, be near her, and that wish is an ache. “You can tell me all about it then.”
I’m already in the house by the time he finishes speaking, and I just thank him fast and hang up even faster.
Anne is coming down the stairs, her soft, milky white legs coming into view first, followed by her perfectly shaped waist and breasts, and then her face—the face that will always fill my chest with calm happiness for as long as I live.
That’s not even a promise, it’s a fact, like saying the sun will always be hot and the earth round. But whether I’ll get to live out my life looking into her face, that part’s not a fact yet.
* * *
Anne
We spent another perfectly calm day at the cabin, just doing odd jobs, smiling at each other in between, kissing sometimes. I cooked lunch, we ate it out on the porch and he helped with the dishes. The afternoon shadows are growing long now, soon we’ll light a fire in the fireplace and retreat into the living room for the night. But there is something I’d love to do first.
“Can we go back to the laundromat in town?” I ask. “I’d like to wash the bedding and blankets.”
I’ve already packed it all up, along with his dirty clothes, and the ones he has in the closet here. While those are clean they smell musty from disuse, and I’d like this whole cabin to smell fresh to match the happiness I’ve found here.
“There has to be more clean stuff in the closet,” he says, some of the world’s shadows now reflected on his face.
I smile in an effort to chase them away. “Sure, but you haven’t used them in so long they don’t smell nice anymore. I want everything to smell nice.”
He chuckles, leans in and gives me a kiss. “You women and nice smelling things.”
“Have there been many women then?” I ask playfully and he just chuckles again.
“Don’t you think the place would smell nicer if there had?” he says, grinning at me.
It’s really the only answer I need. That and his kisses, and I’m all set.
“So?” I ask during a break. “The sooner the laundry’s done, the sooner we can be back here doing this.”
“Not tonight,” he says, and I could mistake that for him wanting to stay in and kiss, if it weren’t for the strain in his voice. I hope I’m wrong about that though.
“Should I start the fire?” I ask. It’s usually his task, but he’s taught me how to do it.
He shakes his head. “I have to go out. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
He’s going to do something that belongs in his real life, the one he won’t tell me anything about. And the one I’m clearly not a part of.
“Can’t say,” he mutters. But I want to know. I want to know everything about him, I need to, because I’ve given him my heart and my soul—or what’s left of them—and I can’t let anything crush them again, they’re both still too fragile.
I know my eyes are shooting daggers and there’s no mistaking my sharp intake of breath for anything other than what it is—annoyed, exasperated anger.
But his eyes, his whole face actually, are soft and inviting, just like they were when he told me he loves me.
“I’m doing this for us,” he says. “For you. But it’s not simple.”
“How is it not simple?” I ask. “I love you. You love me. We’re happy together. What can possibly be simpler than that?”
I’m reacting emotionally and I don’t even know to what. He’s not breaking up with me, he’s just refusing to tell me a secret. So why am I reacting as though he’s sending me away?
He smiles and cups my cheek. “I have to go ask for a favor right now. A favor I shouldn’t be asking for.”
“Then don’t. I’m here with you, no need for any favors, you already got me.” He’s talking about going against Benji, I’m sure of it, and the fear the thought of that causes wipes away all my anger.
He smiles and slides his hand across my cheek. “I wish that was enough. But it’s not.”
“Benji has destroyed my life before,” I whisper. “I won’t let him do it again. Not now that I’ve found you.”
He smiles. “For the last time, Anne. I can handle your ex. Don’t worry so much.”
“Why won’t you just believe me about how dangerous he is?” I ask pleadingly.
He kisses me instead of answering. “I’ll explain everything to you when I can. But I can’t right now.”
He gets up and goes inside. A few moments later he comes out dressed for the road, keys jangling in his hand. Then he smiles at me and leaves without saying anything more. And the only way to stand the fear filling my mind is to let the numbing fog back in. But even that’s not helping.
I’m the only one who can make Benji go away, I know that very well, but I don’t know how.
16
Doc
I love evening and nighttime rides, the way they always cool my body and my thoughts, the way the wind beating against me makes everything else inconsequential. That’s not happening tonight. The fire burning inside me, this mass of apprehension—expecting the worst and raging against it—is too bright and hot to be quenched by wind alone. If anything, the wind is making it burn hotter tonight. I miss Anne’s lithe and soft body pressed against my back, her arms clutching my waist, as she makes soft noises of pleasure and enjoyment I can feel, but not hear. I don’t want to return to solitary rides, but I don’t want to put my brothers in danger either. And I don’t know how to choose between the two. I don’t want to choose at all.