Page 68 of Javier

I’m fine.His face twisted in a grimace of pain.Get out of here, now!

The urgency came through in his voice. I inched closer. Beneath his lids, his eyes were moving back and forth.

REM stage?

His chest heaved, his arms stretched rigidly at his sides, and his hands fisted. It was as if he was fighting to inhale, suffocating in his own breath. A catch convulsed his throat. It sounded a lot like a sob.

“No, no, he can’t be dead,”he rasped.“Not him.”

I tiptoed closer to him. He wore his sweats and nothing else. Shame burned my face when I paused. I couldn’t help but admire his muscular chest and the six-pack etched on his flat stomach.

Ogling again, I scolded myself. He was in distress and here I was, feasting my greedy little eyes on him.

I dragged my stare to his knuckles. They paled under the pressure of his grip. His jaw clenched, and I spotted a single tear escaping from the corner of his eye and getting lost in the line of his hair somewhere behind his ear. He rasped a low moan that broke my heart and disturbed the night’s eerie silence. It was as if the jungle understood his sorrows and commiserated with his grief.

“I don’t fucking remember,” he muttered angrily. “I don’t know.”

He was having a nightmare. A bad one. Worse than the one I’d just had.

Nightmares were nasty dreams that spoiled one’s rest and tortured one’s mind. Sometimes they were memories. Other times, they were agony without meaning. Mine had been particularly weird lately and even more scary since some of them had come true. I wished someone had cut them short before I woke up with a scream caught in my throat, my heart racing, and my pulse swishing in my ears.

Waking him up would be a mercy.

“Javier?” I whispered, stepping up to the hammock.

His head thrashed from side to side. Sweat gleamed onhis forehead, and a flash of clenched teeth told me his nightmare was only getting worse.

“Javier,” I said a little louder.

“No, it can’t be,” he murmured between tight lips. “He’s not dead. He’s not!”

How sad. He must’ve lost someone very dear to him. I couldn’t abandon him to suffer his loss again.

“Javi, please, wake up.” I reached out and shook his shoulder.

He moved so fast I didn’t see it coming. With superhuman reflexes, he gripped my wrist, a brutal vice. At the same time, he shot out of the hammock, twisted my arm behind my back, and spun me until I was trapped with my back smashed to his front. I had no time to cry out. He wrenched my face to one side. A knife flashed at my throat.

I almost fainted from the fright, but I braced my knees and kept my wits about me.

“Javi?” I heaved, staying very still in his grip. “It’s me. Missy. Remember me?”

“Missy?” He croaked, his voice nearly unrecognizable and his grip unyielding.

“Let me go.” I evened out my voice. “You were having a nightmare.”

“Nightmare?” he repeated and this time his voice didn’t sound so foreign.

“It’s me, Missy.” I inhaled cautiously, keenly aware of the blade flirting with my skin. “Remember me?”

“Angel?” The blade retreated from my throat and his grip relented.

I staggered forward, tripped over my own feet, and fell on the deck. My knees took the brunt of the tumble, but it was my pride that took the biggest hit. Memories of my father’s rages returned to haunt me.

No, I pushed the memories away.No more Mousy Missy. I wasn’t going to allow Father to define the new me. My pulse banged against my ribs, but anger pushed me out of my state of shock.

“What’s wrong with you?” I turned around and sat on my shins, glaring up at the man. “I was trying to do you a favor.”

He stood there for several seconds staring down at me, his naked chest rising and falling all too quickly, his eyes wide and haunted. “A favor?” he finally mumbled.

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