Page 71 of Repossess My Heart

It’s hot, so fucking hot.

I’m certain I’m in a considerable amount of pain, but I can’t feel it and even I know that’s not a good sign. The ringing cuts out and all I hear is groaning metal seconds before the unbearable heat is traded for a spine crushing blast of icy water. The sensation of being jerked through a small space across broken glass and metal is almost enough to make my thoughts clear again. When I suck in a pained breath, I’m met with more water than air and soon no air at all and my lungs are already straining. The feeling of weightlessness hits me and, for a second, I’m drifting. A large dark mass of groaning metal and flames is below, and it’s getting smaller. Darkness bleeds into my vision about the same time my mind catches up to my body.

I’m drowning.

In water… the ocean.

I want to look for waves, but I have no idea which way is up. I try to keep my eyes open, but it’s no use. When a mouth clamps over mine forcing air into my lungs, my vision sparks with clarity again. The frigid water numbs my fingers and toes as I’m jerked upwards. Nathan’s hold on me is crushing. If the water doesn’t kill me, I’m sure he will.

We’re back to square one.

My series of thoughts makes little sense to me until I’m hauled up again, and his blue eyes meet mine as he forces more air into my lungs. It feels like we’ve been swimming forever. Like the light I now recognize as the top is so close and impossibly far away. Well, I’m not really swimming more being dragged in the water. My hair casts a net over my face, blocking out my view of him. I curse myself, him, maybe the whole world for not having the strength to clear it from my face. In my last moments, all I want to see is him and instead all I see is murky, bloody water and fucking hair.

Go figure.

My body must know something instinctively that I don’t because the weightlessness is gone, traded by the crushing full force of gravity as I’m pulled above water. Well, not entirely, but my focus is on coughing as my body rebels against the water in my lungs. Nathan’s swimming still… I think but he’s holding me or maybe I’m on his back. My body throbs, my breathing raspy and labored…

No, that’s not mine.

I try to force my eyes open, but my body isn’t taking orders right now.

Please. Please be okay.

Then darkness takes me again.

I can feel my body shaking, but I’m warmer than I’ve ever been. Muffled voices are hovering all around me, some closer than others. I don’t want to open my eyes this time, worried once I do, the warmth will leave. I’ve never felt anything like it.

“Sweetling…”

His voice is warm too, my shaking hands reaching out blindly for him, only to find him at my side.

That’s good.

“Sweetling, open your eyes for me.” He coughs and sputters on his words, despite the warmth a chill sets in deep in my bones but not a physical one, despite there being one of those as well. I try to open my eyes, but I slam them closed immediately, met with a scorching brightness that instantly fills them with tears.

“I need,” he pants, “to see them, baby.”

I turn my head towards him, this time forcing my eyes open little by little. His pale white hair is even lighter, almost silver when it's wet and plastered to his face. It’s so damn bright. His hand finds mine; I glance down at them and the gritty dirt plastering them adds a weird gritty substance between our palms. It’s rough and grating as he runs his fingers across my hand softly.

“It’s sand.” He pants and my eyes slap upwards. Again I’m forced to close them, but not for long. I don’t care how badly it hurts; nothing is going to stop me from seeing this. My eyes dart around me, a bright blue sky is what I get caught on.

I squeeze his hand tightly, as if it’ll cement this moment in reality. “It's beautiful.”

“Yes… it is.” He whispers and I’m instantly proven wrong. I’d trade the blue sky for glacier eyes in a heartbeat. Panic rears its ugly head as he coughs, blood sputtering out as he does. My body screams in protest as I scramble towards him. The large shard of metal sticking out of his gut sends my hands fluttering panicked around him.

“Nathan, where’s your drone?”

His eyes are hidden from me and it feels like my heart has been torn in two. He doesn’t answer, he barely breathes and I’m crying again, “I need help! Someone please!” I scream. Pleading, but everyone around me is nursing their own wounds, many of them dead. There’s a flood of people down the sandy ground… thebeach, their hands loaded with guns as they attempt to heard those fighting. When my eyes turn towards the water, it's cast in patches of black, the garbled screams of people drowning.

I jolt when a drone bursts from the water. I expect it to be a white egg-shaped one, but it’s not. Not even a navy one. This is black and zips straight towards us. “No!” I cry as it draws a gun on us as I crowd over Nathan, sobbing over his lifeless body. The drone halts, the movement barely a flinch as it jerks the gun back in, scanning us. I scramble to my feet, my own badly damaged body throbbing as I attempt to keep it back. It ignores everything but makes no move to hurt me. When it zips to him, the sobs that leave my mouth turn to pleading, then reasoning with a fucking machine.

Something I’ve done many times, to no avail.

It cuts down the middle of his gear its mechanical arms peeling back the layers of his clothes and when they wrap around the shard, I can’t get there fast enough before it jerks it free.

“You’re killing him!”

“My master ordered me to ensure Nine reached the surface alive. Killing him would be counterproductive to that order.” Its monotone voice silences my panic, my legs giving out as I sink into the sand. I watch as it stuffs the wound, spraying it with something. Moving so fast I give up tracking or trying to understand.

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