“Hopefully not longer than she has left.”

“Poor thing, she looks like she’s really been through some shit.”

There was only one dream that I remembered having. My mom was there and so was David and Julian. For a second I realized that I was probably dead. That’s what happens when you die wasn’t it? All of the people that you loved and had died, they would all be there to do some sort of “welcome to the afterlife” type thing. But when I saw Michael, and Adam, and Rob in my dream then I was pretty sure it wasn’t death because they were all still alive. Plus my father wasn’t in my dream, but I supposed he would probably have been in hell anyways so that didn’t really count.

My dream wasn’t as eventful this time as some of them usually are. In this dream we were all just sitting around looking at each other, maybe talking but I couldn’t really hear the voices so none of the words were making sense. I kept wanting to ask everyone what we were doing and why we were all just sitting here waiting for something, but no one seemed to want to answer me. When I felt my eyes start to open, I pressed them closed again. I didn’t want to be awake, I wanted to stay asleep and see them. Then I heard my mother telling me to open my eyes. I argued with her like a stubborn child who didn’t want to go to bed. I told her I wasn’t ready to wake up and that I wanted to stay here, with Michael and Rob and Adam. She looked at me sternly (which my mother never did) and told me that if I wanted to stay here with them that I had to choose. At first, I didn’t want to choose, everyone was staring at me and I felt hot all over and I didn’t want to have to make a choice that might be wrong or that might hurt someone’s feelings. But my mother insisted that I either had to choose or I had to wake up, and I felt my eyelids begin to flutter closer and closer to opening.

“Okay!” I said. “I’ll choose.

I looked at all of the faces looking back at me, even some faces that I didn’t recognize, and then I looked back at my mother as she waited for my answer and looked impatiently at me.

“Michael,” I said. “I choose Michael.”

That was the first time I had ever said the words of my choice…even if it was only inside my head.

As soon as I chose my eyes flashed open and I felt betrayed. My mom had told me in my dream that if I made a choice I could stay. I didn’t want to wake up, I wanted to stay there with them, with him. She tricked me. She made me choose and made me voice my choice and then I didn’t even get to stay. That was the first time I think I ever remembered being mad at my mom.

I tried to look around the room, but the lights were so bright that I could barely see anything at all. The color of the light was weird too, it was like a pea-green florescent that made my brain hurt. I turned my head to both sides to try and see what was around me, but all I saw was some sort of thin, white hanging curtain that made me feel a little bit like I was in a cocoon. There was something sharp poking out of the inside of my arm that pinched when I tried to move it.

And there was a metallic taste in my mouth that tasted like I had just licked a dirty penny.

I think I was laying down on something, might have been a bed but it was so scratchy that it felt more like those puppy training pads that you use to housebreak a dog. For some reason everything hurt, and everything was numb at the same time. There were voices coming from somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t really hear what they were saying over the whirring sound of artificial air moving and some random electronic noises that sounded like I was in a spaceship.

Also, it was really very cold.

One of the voices sounded like it was getting a little bit closer and then it was standing right outside my curtain. It was a woman, and I could sort of see her shadow silhouette against the white cloth.

Why is it so cold in here?

She was telling someone my name, the woman outside the curtain, and then she was telling them what happened to me. Something about falling asleep, running off the road, and then a part about some nice couple that found me and probably saved my life by calling for an ambulance. I couldn’t see who she was talking to because they weren’t up against the curtain as much so there wasn’t a shadow. She told whoever it was to wait for a minute, she had to go respond to some beeping noise and would be right back.

For a minute there was silence and I tried not to focus on the pinching in my arm that was starting to feel cold and numb again.

When she came back, she started talking again, this time about what medications I was being given for pain and what kinds of injuries I had sustained. I kind of faded out at that part, which was probably not good timing since it sounded important. But I was guessing that the pinching was the way I was getting the cold and numbing pain meds, so I was starting to like it more. She asked whoever it was to sign some paperwork and then to stand there and wait again while she photocopied their I.D.

I thought about what a very long process this was and wondered who in the world would care enough about a stranger who crashed their car on the side of the road in whatever godforsaken state I was in, to go through all this trouble.

I started to get sleepy again and me and the stranger on the other side of the curtain waited for the nurse to come back again. I decided that I would close my eyes while I waited since the awful light was burning my retinas anyway. This was what I would have imagined an alien abduction to feel like. I closed my eyes and thought about the only thing that I wanted to think about, the one thing that I thought about before I had fallen asleep in the car too. I thought about Michael’s body and mine, the soft warmth of the furs against us, and the flames reflecting in his blue eyes that stared back at me. I would just lay here and drown myself in these thoughts until I didn’t feel anything else. Then when I woke up to whatever pain awaited me, I would ask someone again how to get to Maine and keep going.

“Okay sir, sorry about that wait. I think we’re all set now.”

The nurse’s voice was interrupting my thoughts and I wanted her to be quiet so that I could at least be there at the bonfire one more time in my mind.

“Let me just get you a visitor’s badge, and you said you’re family, right?”

Family?

My God, if Naomi had found me I was dead.

“Tell me your name one more time please, sir?”

And as if the heavens had finally opened up and smiled down upon me, the most miraculous name came tumbling from those lips.

“Michael. The name is Michael.”

Vicious

1

I pressed my eyes closed harder and tried to ignore the pounding of my heart against my ribcage. I must be dreaming or hallucinating from all the pain meds that I’m sure the nurses had pumped into me. There’s no way that Michael could actually be here.

I figured that when I opened my eyes back up, my delusion about hearing Michael’s voice would be gone and I would find myself cold, and in pain, and alone in this hospital bed. I would wait until I was able to get up and unplug myself from all of the wires and tubes that protruded from my skin, and I would leave to continue on my way to Maine. My car probably hadn’t fared so well if the crash I suffered had landed me in here. So, I would need to figure out what to do about that. I wasn’t really sure where I was, but I guessed that Maine was surely too far to walk and, since I didn’t have any money, I couldn’t really take a cab. First things first; get rid of the delusion, then worry about how to get back on track to Maine.

When I heard the door open, I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t care what had happened or what injuries I had sustained. I only cared that I was alive and had a mission to get back to. I would heal and wrecking Rob’s car was probably the least of the things that he would be angry with me about.

Whoever had come into the room, came to sit down beside me. I could hear their breathing and could feel their warmth radiating off their body. It was hard not to open my eyes. The temptation of knowing that I shouldn’t, but yet wanted to see who it was that was sitting there staring at me, was difficult to sustain. It reminded me of when I was a kid and would try to close my eyes during the scary parts of movies. I could always still hear the sound playing, and even though I really didn’t want to look, something always made me peek just a tiny bit between the cracks of my fingers. I always regretted it afterward too because I was usually up with nightmares after seeing a quick flash of whatever it was that I was hiding from behind my hand to begin with.

This time, I wouldn’t peek.

“You know that I can tell you’re awake, right?” Michael’s voice asked. “You keep trying to fool me with things, but at some point, you’re just going to have to realize that you can’t hide from me, Lisette.”

Oh my god, is he really here?

I opened my eyes slowly and the bright fluorescent lights above me in the hospital room were so blinding that as much as I strained my overly-dilated pupils, I still couldn’t get a clear view of who was there.

“It’s okay,” Michael said as he leaned forward and placed his lips against my forehead.

He saw me starting to panic a little when I couldn’t see clearly and how I was struggling to focus my eyes. As soon as he kissed my skin, I knew it was him. I didn’t have to see or hear him in order to feel that he was there with me.

“It’s me,” he murmured. “I swear that I’m here.”

I started to cry. I had a thousand reasons to cry and I didn’t know which particular one was to blame for the sobbing that opened up like a tsunami and made me choke on my parched and scratchy throat. I could tell that the hospital must have put one of those tubes in my throat at some point because it felt like I had swallowed a box of razor blades.

Michael stayed close to me with his mouth pressed against my temple and his arms wrapped around behind my shoulders and back as I turned toward him. He held me closely and I cried as I felt his warm breath against my face. I don’t even know how long I cried for, but when I had finally stopped, he was still holding me in the exact same spot without moving at all.

“How did you find me here?” I asked once I had finally stopped.

I wiped my face with the sleeve of my hospital gown and Michael sat back up in his chair. He kept his hand over mine and wrapped his palm around my fingers. After a few long seconds, my eyes had adjusted to the light and I could see him. He looked tired, and worried, and he looked like the best thing that I had ever seen in my entire life. As much as I hadn’t wanted him to find me and had wanted him to stay in Asheville and stay safe, I would have been lying if I said that I wasn’t glad that he was here. I was so happy to see him that I almost started to cry again.

“Your I.D. was in the car,” he said. “Ever since you left, Rob had been keeping an ear out for you and listening on the police scanners. You made the mistake of taking his car, so as soon as you got into the accident, Rob heard that it was his car, and shortly afterward they said your name over the police radios. I had already left to go looking for you even before the accident happened, so I wasn’t too far from where you were. Rob and Adam are on their way here now.”

I couldn’t believe that he hadn’t listened to me and stayed in Asheville. Actually, yes, I could believe it. I should have known better than to think that Michael would just give up and let me go. Of course he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have done it either, if the situation had been reversed.