Page 80 of Purgatory
“Push it! The false wall! Fucking hell, it’s like it’s staring at me! Jeez, such an idiot,” I say to myself, shaking my head and huffing out an exhausted breath.
Remembering what Jax said, I push on the wall to the right of the door and find the false wall. It pops open just like he said it would and I reach inside, retrieve the key, open the door and step inside. Once I close the door behind me, I let myself flop down to the floor, my legs and body finally giving out from under me from the events of the day. Utterly exhausted, I take a second to catch my breath and look around a bit.
The cabin isn’t large at all. It’s just an open concept similar to that of a hunting cabin. I notice to the left there’s a simple wood burning stove with a small pile of wood and kindling next to it. Since the sun will be setting soon and theweather is definitely taking a turn more towards the cooler side at night, plus the guys aren’t here to help keep me warm... yet... it seems appropriate that it’s the first place I move to. Setting the wood and sticks like I’d seen Hawk do, I light the matches that were on top of the stove and with a fist pump of victory, manage to get the fire going.
“Ok, what’s next?”
In the low light, cast from the open door of the wood burning stove, I can see a bed on the opposite side of the space. Nothing nearly as decorated as those in the big house but it still looks comfortable and is furnished with lots of blankets to keep me warm, so I’m not about to complain about the lack of tchotchkes around the place. Priorities people.
Next, I see a small kitchenette dividing the rest of the dwelling and a door that I’m hoping and praying is a bathroom. I open the door and, thank all of my lucky stars, it is, in fact, a bathroom. At least for tonight, I didn’t have to fight the hordes or, God forbid, bears to relieve myself in the middle of the night. Small wins.
I return to the main room after being saved by the porcelain gods and, just by the door, my eyes catch on a rather large armoire. I hobble over to it, the aches in my bones more prominent now that my adrenaline reserves are completely depleted. But I can’t let myself stop now. If I stop, I might think and if I think, my imagination might run wild and that’s not an option right now. Nope, autopilot it is.
The armoire is huge, towering over me and at least four feet wide. I lift my hand to open it but see that it has a lock on the front of it.
Well fiddlesticks...
I look around again, wondering where Jax might have put the key to it when I realize I’m still holding the key to the cabin in my hand.It couldn’t be that simple, could it? I shrug myshoulders. “Worth a shot.”
I push the key into the slot and turn, hearing a distinctiveclickreleasing the doors from the latch and opening wide for me.
“Sweet mother of monkey balls, he wasn’t joking when he said the place was stocked...”
Guns. A whole fuck ton of guns. Long guns, big guns, little itty-bitty guns. There’s even a pink handgun in there for whatever reason.
Maybe he wanted to coordinate with his socks...?
I shake my head, smiling at the thought. “Highly fucking unlikely.”
I could see Hawk doing that though...
Back to the fucking armoire armory!
There has to be a couple dozen guns packed in here. And don’t even get me started on the ammunition. Stacks of it. Like to the tippy top of the doors where my short self can’t even think to reach. I guess this shouldn’t surprise me in the least considering how fast he and the guys retrieved the guns from their bedrooms. And that wasn’t even including the stuff that was in the safe downstairs or in our bug-out bags.
I shake out the awe taking over my brain at the prepper heaven in front of me, take out the pink gun and the matching magazine - thank fuck it was already loaded- and shut the doors. Just then, my stomach lets out the most obnoxious growl ever.
“Ok. Ok. You hangry bitch.”
I stalk over to the kitchen thinking if he was so thoughtful in how stocked he was with his weapons, how amazing his kitchen cupboards must be. I open the first one and holy shit, he does not disappoint. Canned ravioli, ramen,spam, all different kinds of canned veggies and ... “Oh, sweet mama...” Looking back at me, in all its glory, as if he knew I'd see this place eventually or he just fucking missed me like the big cuddly grizzly bear he is and didn’t want to admit it at the time, is a mother fucking smore’s kit. Chocolate, graham crackers and, say it with me now, marshmallows.
I pull the kit out of the cupboard and run my fingertips over the front of the box. My happy mood suddenly diminishes to sorrow as I feel tears welling up in the backs of my eyes. There was once a time, not long ago, when things like this made the best part of my day. Now? They only remind me of what’s missing.
My head slowly turns to look at the front door as I try to manifest my thoughts into truths. Maybe if I think about it hard enough, I’ll see my guys fling the door open and take me into their arms as if we never had to separate. A few seconds of wishful thinking turn into a couple of minutes. At the lack of doors flying open, I sigh and set the package back in its place, opting for the ravioli instead.
I decide to take a seat on the floor, in front of the fire, bundling myself in one of the blankets that still, somehow, smells of Jax. While eating my cold ravioli, my mind strays to what they must have been going through. Did they cause that explosion? Was it the other guys that set a trap? Did they make it out? Did they not? I can feel the mist start to build in the back of my eyes at that thought.
Not knowing was the worst. I had no way to contact them. Practically marooned on a desert island out here with the lack of connection and it was like back before I met them. The guys that gave me a chance to live again, rather than simply survive. The chance to love and be loved regardless of the circumstances.
I refused to believe that after everything we’ve been through, both separately and together, that our lives togetherwere meant to be so brief. In a world where despair and sorrow reigned, was there really no hope to be had? Were we not supposed to be happy anymore?
For a while I compared my life and the world I was living in as a sort of purgatory. Empty, hollow, lifeless. Trudging along the day to day with no real purpose. I was practically a zombie. My body carried me to nourishment, just as they do. Maybe with a little more pep in my step but can I really say that I was living any more than the zombies were until the guys saved me?
I realize, now, that it may actually be the opposite. My place with my guys was absolute heaven. Without them, I think it will, undeniably, be Hell. There are no positive feelings there. No happy days or laughter filled nights. No soft touches or the complete submission to lust filled, adoring eyes that scream ‘I love you’ if you stare at them long enough. No. To me, Heaven isn’t a place. It’s them. And without them, like an angel fallen from grace, my only choice is to submit to the Hell surrounding me. Let it swallow me up until I’m nothing but dust and a memory in the wind.
Night eventually falls and my thoughts continue leaping over one another. Turning over scenarios of what might have happened to them, then switching over to what we would do now when they finally get here and then back to thewhat ifs.
The warm, dancing fire lulls me into a sense of calm, overtaking my will to stay awake, forcing me to lie down right where I am on the floor and drift off into a sleep I don’t want to take but that my body desperately needs. I succumb to it, clinging to the hope that when I wake, they’ll be the ones waking me.
