Arooo….3

Chapter 3

I’m looking at that first text message and I can’t breathe…I can’t think…I can’t breathe…

“Kelly!!!” It comes out a scream, a shriek of pure denial and fear and desperation and I blank out.

Everything I’ve help sacred to my heart for over half my life is gone. The void is huge and it swallows me without so much as a fight.

I wake up and I hurt.
My heart…
Oh god my heart…

Nothing is supposed to hurt like this is it?

Its grey here, England…of course it’s grey, goddamned fog.

I was in a house; I am in a house, Justin’s family home. But it’s full of fog…and there’s no color, it’s all washed out, all black and white.

I’m not alone. Thom is there and Justin but they’re grey too, not fixed, not moving but there’s too others there. An ash blonde girl in a white dress or what’s left of one the lower part of what might be called the hem stained with blood…she’s barefoot with eyes like the moon shining blue-silver bright. Almost like little red riding hood she’s got a cloak on, white like her dress with a large hood trimmed in what somehow I just know is wolf fur.

She says nothing but gestures through the mist for the person with her to step out of the gloom.

I know her shape before I can even see her clearly.

“Kelly!” I get up and run to her and hug her and hold on tight. I smell blood and I’m crying and sobbing my eyes out and she pushes me back after a bit, still the top in our new relationship.

That’s when I see the wounds on her, shrapnel wounds from something that went frag on them from a close range…I’ve seen enough IED’s that I recognize a bomb’s work went I see it.

“Oh shit….shit…shit…shit…Kelly…”

“One of them had some of the virus, he charged us as we were taking the place but he also had a couple of pounds of plastic explosives strapped to him with a bunch of nasty sharp things too.”

“Oh shit, Kelly…please…no…”

“Shussssh baby its okay.” She smiles at me that same sweet I love you smile she had on her face when we said our wedding vows.”

“No…” I whine. “No…it’s not alright, it isn’t this wasn’t supposed to happen, not to you…I was supposed to be the one right? I’m the idiot with all the guns and the explosives…”

“Baby….Erica…Stevie was right, she was right and because we joined up and we took action we stopped something really horrible… I’m good with it; we saved thousands, tens of thousands of people maybe even more.”

“But you weren’t supposed to die.”

“Baby we all die, it’s okay…I went out clean, on my feet just like I wanted to, I did something, really, really did something honey to make the world a better place than I left it.”

“But you already did that…you…you were good enough to love me…really love me.”

“Okay…two something’s but Loving you shouldn’t count.”

“Whaaaa….”

“I said I did something good back there. I’ll never stop loving you with everything I have Erica…never.”

“Kelly….” I’m whining again but it turns into a great big series of sobs.

She holds me and she kisses me.

Oh god…

That kiss was real majik, really like nothing I’d ever felt but it was everything I’d ever felt.

It was every kiss that we had ever shared together played back just as long and as loving and as passionate and as just simple and good and Kelly kept kissing me and pouring them into my heart filling my soul and…

And then she was gone.
***

I wake up for real with the mist and the fog and everything gone including Kelly and the girl in the cloak.

I’m on the sofa and Thom is gone but Justin is there with my head on a blanket on his lap and another one covering me up.

It’s dark and my eyes hurt from the crying and the dry crusty bits and stuff. I look around and let my eyes adjust to the dim light. I can smell blood too, coming off of Justin.

“Oh Crap…” I lick my lips and teeth trying to see if I can taste blood but nothing. The place, is pretty trashed, a lot of that classy old furniture isn’t here anymore. Tens of thousands of dollars likely worth of stuff.

There’s only like five bottles on the back of the bar where there was a lot before, the big mirror behind the bar is also gone.

I freaked out, I must have, I trashed the place. I can see claw marks over the floor. There’s an empty bottle of Jameson’s on the floor beside the couch since there’s no coffee table or whatever the British call it.

I get up and look at Justin, he’s got clean but loose clothes on and he’s passed out. He’s got lots and lots of bandages on and I know those are from me. I mauled him…I must have….

~Erica?~

~Your Majesty?~

~Yes, I’m using the link…you’re on a ley line crossing it’s powerful there.~

~Oh.~

~Reach into yourself…feel me…feel that energy that like lightning that ran through you with the bite.~

I close my eyes and its like second nature…I feel it.

~Good, good now place your hands on him and picture the way that wounds heal in downtime, put that lightning in contact with the wounds as you do.~

I close my eyes and breathe and start to softly say. “By my claw I made this be, by my hand I take it back. By my claw I made this be, by my hand I take it back…”

I can feel it working, feel it closing his wounds, making things better. I keep chanting it over and over until I’m dizzy, and my arm is too heavy to keep pressed to his chest.

I look at him and Justin’s staring at me and there’s this little dam that breaks and he pulls me from where I was sitting into his lap where I cry all over again but like I’ve never cried before…

As the exhaustion washes over me dragging me down. I hear him say. “It’s okay, It’s okay…I’m here Erica…I’ll make sure you’re not alone.”