Nika Dixon

.:

Seconds bled into minutes, slipping slowly into hours, dragging out into days.

In the darkness there was nothing but the ragged sound of her own breathing as her body struggled to keep itself alive.

She was stronger than this.

Stronger than them.

But even she couldn’t control the effects of blood loss and starvation on the human body.

Days without light. Without brightness. Without air and wind and sky and softness.
Her eyes ached to see color… Silver towers. Green grass. Blue sky. Complex shadows and light. Reflections of the sunset playing across the city at dusk. White caps on the ocean. Stars. Moon. His eyes. His face. His shape and body and strength of presence. His smile.

Her prison was so dark she worried she’d gone blind. She had to rely on her hands to confirm that her eyes were still open by the feel of her eyelashes blinking against her dirty and blood coated fingertips. Yet she saw no light.

Only endless darkness.

She’d never seen her attackers. Never felt them until it was too late. They gave no warning, and no confirmation. She was left with nothing to understand why she was there. Ransom? Trade? Torture? They’d taken her, bound her, confined her, and abandoned her to the fates in the damp blackness of her tomb.

She would leave this existence without a chance of ever seeing him again. Never again to be graced with his warmth and strength upon her face… her skin… her body.

She’d never see the sun.

She’d never see her home.

Never see him.

It hurt.

It hurt with such pain she willed her dry eyes to cry tears she could not cry. She had nothing left. Her heart and soul ached with a pain so sharp it overrode all else.

She would be the one he lost.

The one he couldn’t save.

The one thing she would give all else not to be. She would cause him pain she could not heal; could not help; could not stop.

For she was dying. Alone. She knew it. Felt it. Smelled it.

God she was cold.

But the sharpness of the icy air across her bare limbs meant she was still alive. Still breathing. Still hanging on to whatever strength she could find. Hold on until they came. Until they found her.

They were looking. He was looking.

Faith. Faith she still held. Faith in him above all else. She’d prayed to them all, yet above the Fates of her past, present and future, she held only to the knowledge he would never give up. Never stop looking. Never let go.

She crumpled inside to know what he’d discover. How it would destroy him to find her so. Alive… or dead. For she knew how she would look.

Broken.

In laughter, they’d taken her jacket first. Then her shoes. Blindfolded, she saw nothing. But she heard. She smelled. She felt their hands and fingers as they took her socks, then her pants. Heard their amusement as she struggled, fear of what they would do ripping through her mind and soul.

They groped. They squeezed. They implied.

Then they left her.

Blindfolded and half-naked.

Alone to gag against the rotting smell of death in the darkness and the dirt.

Time passed, blurring between dreams and hallucinations. He was there. Sometimes so clear she thought she was rescued. Other times he was hazy and faded. Close enough to touch yet her fingers met nothing when she’d still been strong enough to reach for him. He would smile and beckon…but she was too weak to move. Too weak to cry out. Unable to do more than whisper his name into the darkness.

She knew he wasn’t really there.

But she no longer cared.

 .:

Warmth brushed her face and she tried to open her eyes. Light and brilliance surrounded her. Surrounded him. She’d recognize his silhouette anywhere. He was beside her. In front of her. Illuminating her with a brightness that could only come from Heaven. Calling her. Calling her home. He was there. He’d come. Touching her face.

But it was time to go. She closed her eyes and willed the angels to take her quickly. To save him the pain. To give him someone else to love. Someone more deserving. To give him a future as it should be, with love, life and happiness.

She whispered his name, and in that single word she said hello…and she said goodbye.

He reached for her. Afraid to move. Afraid to blink. Afraid of touching her out of fear she was only a figment of his lost soul. Nothing in the world existed save for the woman whose deathly still body he knelt beside.

For she was his life.

His love.

His past, present and future entwined.

She brought him hope and without her…he had nothing.

He’d experienced a thousand deaths in the days she’d been missing, unable to think anything but torturous thoughts of where she was and what was happening to her. In the hollow silence of the nights he plotted exactly what he’d do to those who’d dared to touch her; hurt her. And now he faced an eternity of remembering.

They’d smelled death when they’d entered the bunker. They’d winced at the decay of rotting flesh and had all known, all decided, all thought without speaking.

They were too late.

They’d taken too long.

They hadn’t pushed hard enough, worked fast enough, searched far enough.

When he’d opened the door his heart shattered without warning. Exploding every thought, breath, and feeling within his body. Under pressure of the single sight of the bloody and bruised body that lay so lifelessly in the dirt at his feet, he fought. He battled—with every memory of her that lived in his heart—to believe what his eyes were telling him.

She breathed.

She lived.

He dropped so hard to his knees, the jarring sensation rocketed through to the base of his skull. He reached. Hesitated. Terrified to touch.

His fingers brushed skin so cold… so cold…yet not the skin of a corpse.

Then she whispered his name with such softness he ached for her to repeat it so he could believe he’d truly heard it.

She should be heavier. There should be more substance. She should have weight and solidity, and yet she was nothing. He lifted her effortlessly. Carried her without thought to the repercussions of not being able to reach his own weapons. He cared not of his own life. He would use his body to shield and protect her. He would give everything—anything—if only to see her smile. Hear his name on her lips. Feel the taste of her sweet kiss. Look upon those beautiful eyes.

Once more.

He saw the look on their faces as he turned. The horror at seeing one so beautiful, so full of life, now so lifeless. It was the same stunned expression he knew he mirrored right before it was blanketed into anger, fury and a need for justice.

No one would stop him from taking her home.

No one.

Blanketed in a protective ring he carried her out, surrounded with familiarity and encircled with Tac-vests and weapons

Heat slammed across his shoulders, the sharp power of the sun contrasting the icy chill of her skin where it touched his bare forearms.

Sharp echoes of gunfire surrounded them. He heard, but did not listen. Did not jump. Did not flinch. Nothing would sway him from reaching his destination.

When he turned his shadow receded, revealing her body to the telling rays of the sun. Light accented the bruises. The dried blood. The implications of a half clothed body.

He ignored the open discussion through his com that she’d been found. With each face he passed, with each glance chanced their way, he saw the reflected decision of her rescuers.

He knew their thoughts without needing to hear the orders. Knew it as surely as he knew he would never again take for granted her smile, her laugh, her touch, her warmth.

They would pay. And they would pay dearly.

No one would be left alive.

Fires burned as they rose into the blue—a beacon and warning to those who followed.

She was his, she was theirs, and all would die who forgot that.

.:

She pushed away the curtains clouding her mind and tried to move through the sluggish sense that she was somewhere concrete. A place with soft voices and a sharp scent of antiseptic.

Muted whirring sounds permeated the fog as she fought to open her eyes.

Home.

The tears fell freely, following each other across her skin to her ears, getting lost in the softness of the pillow.

Heat seared her cheeks, brushing softly at the moisture, accompanied by whispered words of comfort. Promises of safety and forever. Pleas for her to live…to survive…to come back to him.

Her heart sang to hear his voice, to feel his touch.

Their eyes met as his face hovered above hers, his hand cradling her cheek. She watched the pain, the worry, the fear he carried fall from his eyes.

Her fingers lifted with effort; slowly, purposefully, touching the tears which soaked his cheeks.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“I knew,” she said softly. “You came.”

“Always.”

“Always?” she smiled.

“Forever,” he pledged.

“Forever,” she committed.