Page 80 of To Save Him

“About this morning or—?”

“My dream.”  He was quiet for a few seconds.  “But it didn’t feel like it was a dream.  It felt real.”  One deep breath.  “I’m pretty sure itwasreal.”  I didn’t say anything but I sat back up and scooted on the bed closer to him until I could wrap an arm around his torso and rest my cheek against his back.  He laid his arm on top of mine, holding me close.  “It was…Gabe was there.”  I felt the breath catch in my throat, but I forced myself to keep my mouth shut.  I hadn’t expected him to say anything about my son at this point.  “It was a dark room—but like in a lab or a hospital.  We were…we were strapped to tables or beds or something like that, but we were lying down, and it wasn’t entirely voluntary.”  Part of me wanted to ask what he meant by that, but I didn’t want to stop him.  This was likely the most I’d ever heard from Brandon about his past—something that was concrete and specific—so I wanted him to continue.  I didn’t want to risk sidetracking him with an interruption.  “A hospital.  No.  Definitely not a hospital.  I think I’m confusing it with the hospital I was in before I came here.  This was more like a…”  He paused for breath.  “And we signed up for it. We signed up for it.  We asked for it.  So then when the—”  He gasped then and I wasn’t sure if he was crying again.  “They put something in us, Kimberly.  Something…”

What the hell could that mean?  Was he talking about something literal?  Like some type of chip or nanotechnology?

“It burned.  I could feel it moving through my veins.”  I pulled him close again, wrapping my other arm around his torso from behind, and I concentrated on the feel of his back as his muscles tensed.  “Every step.  There’s like a pause in between heartbeats, you know?  There’s this tiny stop before it pushes ahead another inch.  And every fucking beat brought new pain—in my chest, my arms, my legs.  This burning, burning—and Gabe screamed.  I started to panic and tried to get loose, but I was tied down.  And I kept thinking,I asked for this. Weasked for this shit.  And right after that, I could feel the burning traveling up my neck, followed by this burst of light and…”  He sobbed again and I held him.  What he was telling me?  I wasn’t sure what to think.  Surely, it was a dream, right?

“I passed out after that.”

So many questions I wanted to ask, but I thought in good time he would tell me.  This event was traumatic for Brandon—of that, I had no doubt.  But was it real or was it all in his head?

And would I ever know?

 

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