Phoenix Rising

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Morgan

  When Chance passed out beside me, I knew it was because of his drinking and not because he was finally able to lay down and get a good night’s sleep. Ever since we got back, I had a hard time sleeping, not so much because of my own nightmares, but because of how little Chance slept. I found that when he did, his nightmares woke me up, and when he didn’t, his pacing would keep me awake. I was pretending to sleep a lot more than I actually was.

  Just as I was drifting off to sleep, Chance started tossing and turning. He was in the throws of another nightmare, but this one seemed worse than the others. Usually, by the time I realized he was having a nightmare, he would wake up. He would be sweating when he woke up and his breathing was rapid, but this was a new one. He actually seemed like he was being tortured in this dream, gasping for air and crying out in pain.

  “Chance,” I whispered, not wanting to startle him. He jerked again, so I called louder, but he still didn’t hear me. I reached out to touch his shoulder and he jerked up, latching onto my wrist, and throwing me against the wall. My head bounced painfully off the wall and I crumpled in a daze. What the hell? I started to get up, but realized that I should have stayed down just a moment too late. Panic ripped through me when I saw his fist fly at me. I screamed as loud as I could and when his hard knuckles made contact with my face, I hit the wall again and slid to the ground holding my head. My face throbbed painfully and when someone knelt in front of me, I flinched back against the wall, afraid that Chance was going to hit me again.

  “Morgan.” I slowly raised my eyes, looking into Rocco’s concerned eyes. “Let me see.”

  I slowly lowered my hand and hissed in pain when he lightly touched my cheek. “It’s not that bad.”

  He looked at me disapprovingly. “Don’t lie. I’ve been punched by Chance before. Hell, any of us could break your cheekbone. I need to get an x-ray to see if anything’s broken.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine. He didn’t mean to-”

  “Morgan, just stop. You don’t have to do this.”

  I shut my mouth, because he was right. I didn’t need to make any excuses. We both knew what had happened and there was no point pretending otherwise. He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. I glanced around the room, seeing Chance laying on the bed, his eyes closed.

  “Did you wake him up?”

  “No, I gave him a sedative. I couldn’t get him out of his nightmare.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  “Let’s worry about you right now.”

  He pulled me out of the room and through a maze of hallways until we reached the med center.

  “Give me a few minutes to get the portable x-ray machine set up. Take a seat over there.”

  I did as he said and sat down in a chair across the room. I glanced around, realizing I hadn’t been in here before. Everything was so sterile looking, but there seemed to be spots on the walls. But then as I moved my head further to the left, I realized that there were no spots on the walls. My face was swollen and the spots were from where my eye had started to swell shut.

  Flashes of Chance’s fist came back to me and suddenly I was shaking. I wasn’t afraid of Chance, but now that I had time to really think about it, it was like being back with Wes, feeling that terror of him accusing me of being a traitor. I could feel the rope around my neck as he threatened to strangle the life out of me. Chance’s fist was Wes’s, only Wes was beating me for information while Chance was caught in a dream.

  God, I had been such an idiot. Why had I tried to wake him myself? I should have known that he wouldn’t react well, but I just wanted to stop his pain.

  “You okay?” Rocco asked when he came back in, seeing me shivering in the chair.

  I nodded so I didn’t have to actually try and talk right now. He had me lie on the table and then took x-rays of my face, all the while I tried to tell myself that this really wasn’t that bad.

  “You know, it’s probably not smart for the two of you to sleep in the same room.”

  “What?” I said in surprise. “Isn’t that like telling him that I don’t trust him?”

  “Do you?” he asked bluntly. When I didn’t answer right away, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “Look, I understand that you want to help him and you don’t want to hurt him in any way, but if this happens again, you might not be so lucky.”

  “He doesn’t usually have dreams like that. He usually just wakes up sweating.”

  “And next time, one of us might not hear you scream. Or maybe you won’t even have time to scream. He could snap your neck and you’d be dead before you even realized there was a problem.”

  I thought about what he said as he looked over my x-rays. He had given me an ice pack, but it was really only helping with the swelling. If this was only the start of what I would see, could I deal with that? Maybe he was right. I didn’t really want Payton seeing me all beat up. I didn’t want her thinking badly of Chance. He couldn’t help what was happening to him, but he could talk to someone and get some help.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” I asked as Rocco came over.

  “No broken bones, but you’re gonna have one helluva headache and a lot of bruising. You’re lucky. If the full force of his fist had been behind that, he could have done a lot worse.”

  “Well, let’s just be happy it’s not as bad as that.”

  “I’m gonna give you some pain meds, but tomorrow morning, the three of us are sitting down to have a talk.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “Do you want me to go to Cap first?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to get Chance in trouble.

  “I don’t understand why you keep defending him. He needs help, Morgan. We all know that he’s not beating you because he gets his rocks off from causing you pain. And we know that he’s having nightmares and not sleeping. None of us are going to think worse of you because you admit the truth. You can’t help him any more than he can help himself right now.”

  “I just don’t want to make things worse for him. You know that telling him is going to send him off the rails.”

  “Look, Chance needs to know what happened and the two of you need to be on the same page about this. If he doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s never going to realize how bad it’s getting until it’s too late. This is happening on Reed Security property and Cap’s not gonna be happy with me that I’m talking this out with the two of you first.”

  I had to give in. I knew he was right. Chance was spiraling and every day proved it more and more. “Alright.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning. Get some rest.”