Page 21 of You Saved Me

Over the next few days, Tristan and I fell into an easy rhythm. On the mornings he went for a run, I would drive out to the lake and wait for him, and we’d sit and talk about nothing and everything. He was brilliant. I was shocked to learn that while he was in college, he double majored in English and creative writing. He also graduated in three years. That had to be a lot of work. He told me he wanted to go back to get his master’s in English, so he could possibly start a creative writing class at a community college or do a short summer seminar every year. The way his eyes lit up when he talked about writing drew me to him. I loved being a part of what he was passionate about.

We hadn’t done more sexually—a lot of kissing and him touching me above the waist. I was starting to get frustrated. I wanted to feel his hands on me. I wanted to feel him straddling my waist, grinding on top of me, his dick pressing into my stomach. I wanted to see the blush on his cheeks when he was turned on, to feel his lust-filled gaze on my body. I wanted to watch him come, to see the look of satisfaction in his eyes and how it relaxed his features. I didn’t want to ask him, though. I might be confident, but I didn’t know how to proceed. Anything that had happened between us had just happened. It wasn’t planned. We didn’t ask if we could do anything to or with each other. So asking would seem forced. I didn’t want to disrupt this rhythm we had, so I waited him out.

That night, we were sitting on the couch, watching movies, when I started to doze off. We’d gotten up early to go up to the lake and had sat there for a few hours, longer than we had before. I wanted to see the sunrise on the lake and take Tristan up with our blanket to watch the sun break over the horizon.

Tristan made lasagna for dinner, and it was the best I had ever tasted. I had three helpings, and my full belly was making me drowsy. He was such a good cook. Everything he made so far was perfect. I wanted to ask where he learned to cook like that, but I had a feeling it might have been from his family. And talking about his family didn’t seem to be high on his list of conversation topics. Maybe I would ask one day. But right now, we were having a good time, and I didn’t want to mar it with unwanted memories.

“Okay, you,” Tristan said, snapping me out of a doze. “You’re drifting. Ready for bed?”

I was. I was exhausted. I figured since I was so tired, I would fall asleep with no nightmares. I stood up and stretched, yawning so wide my jaw hurt. I looked over and saw him assessing me. His eyes running over my body made me want to shake myself awake and get some energy so we could mark something,anything, else off our list. I was still in shock that he hadn’t had someone make him come without touching him like I did. I wasn’t sure what it was called, what we did, but I liked it. Dry humping sounded so childish, and I refused to affix that title to what we shared because there was something there. Something that wasn’t just physical.

“See something you like?” I joked. The slow, sexy smile that appeared on his face took my breath away. How did one look turn me on so much?

“You know I do. But you’re tired. We can get into something tomorrow. If you want.”

I prowled over to where he was sitting on the couch and leaned down, getting into his space. My lips a hairsbreadth from his, I said, “I definitely want.” I pressed a light kiss to his lips and stepped away to head to my room. I didn’t want to, but I knew if I had done more than that light kiss, I would have been up late, trying to swallow his moans and make him come in my hand.

I lay on my bed, tossing the blanket over my legs, then put my hands behind my head and watched the fan. The gentle breeze, sway, and repetitive motion had my eyelids drooping in no time. I had a nightmare every night since I had been here, but I was able to wake myself from them before they got too bad. And I wasn’t nearly as tired on the other days as I was now. Maybe that would help. Before I was pulled under, I prayed I didn’t have another nightmare. No such luck.

This one was different.I wasn’t tied to a chair. I was in the same corner, but there was some sort of invisible barrier, like a force field, holding me in place. I put my hands on it, pushing against it, but it didn’t budge. In front of me, Bush had the third victim, Myra, tied to the chair. The mask he wore was specked with blood since he was using a handsaw to cut her fingers off. I banged on the barrier, trying to get through by sheer force. Her screams were like ice picks in my ears, stabbing sharply, reverberating in my skull. His laughter was like nails on a chalkboard, grating and maniacal. He always laughed in his videos. Always had so much glee when he was hurting his victims and taunted them from memories of his past. “Bet you wish you had taken that date now, huh, Jenny?” Jenny was the girl who turned him down, who he blamed for being the cold-blooded murderer he was.

I banged so hard on the barrier that my hands were sore. “Bush!” I yelled. “Bush, stop! Leave her alone!” I yelled other angry, expletive-filled things he couldn’t hear, yelled loud enough to wake the dead if this weren’t a nightmare. He tossed the handsaw on his ‘workstation,’ as he called it, and looked toward the camera he had set up. The one that streamed these sadistic acts to the weirdos who paid to see live snuff films. “Who wants to see me take off the whole hand?” The maniacal laughter was like poison, washing over me and making me ill.

Myra’s eyes met mine, and in them I saw pain, but even more, I saw contempt. Like she was angry because I couldn’t save her. That I wasn’t doing enough to get to her. ThatI was letting her die. “I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry.” I kept repeating the apology, but her eyes never left mine. Not when she was screaming while Bush was sawing off her hand with a large knife. Not when he moved higher and cut her arm off at the shoulder with a machete. And not when he slit her throat, ending her life and suffering. Her eyes remained glued to my face. In pain. In contempt. In anger. Before I could apologize more, I felt it. The hand on my arm.

I jolted awake and looked around wildly, my eyes bouncing around on everything and landing on nothing until Tristan put his face in my field of vision. He must have clicked the light on at some point after he entered my room, and he came into sharp focus. The worry and concern in his eyes were too much. I broke down, wailing almost as loudly as I was shouting in my dream, body curled in on itself. I couldn’t keep the tears in if I had tried. I was so fucking overwhelmed. I was so tired. I was so defeated.

He crawled into bed behind me and turned me over, putting my head in his lap. He rubbed circles on my back and murmured to me, letting me know everything would be okay. Letting me know I was safe, it was only a dream, and he was here for me. The tears just kept coming, and I didn’t hold them back. I cried for each of the victims. Because Bush chose them to be murdered through no fault of their own. Because they deserved better. Because they deserved for me to help them. And I failed.

After I felt like I had cried myself dry, I moved away from Tristan. I missed the warm feeling of his hand rubbing my back, but I wanted to look at him. I had to know if he thought I was weak because of the nightmares and how I just broke down into a blubbering mess. “I got snot on your pants,” I said lamely, using my shirt to wipe my face.

He reached out and rubbed under my eyes, wiping away some of the tears that still streaked down my face. “I can wash them,” he said in an off-handed way. “You wanna talk? Tell me what’s going on? I won’t crowd you. But these nightmares seem pretty bad. I can listen if you need to get it out.”

“It’s a lot, Tris.”

“Tris? That’s kinda cute. I like it.”

Despite how I felt, that made me chuckle a bit. I hadn’t meant to give him a nickname, especially not under these circumstances. But if he liked it, I would keep calling him that. I turned to lean against the headboard of the bed, and he mirrored my pose. “I’ll tell you, but you have to swear not to tell Momma, Pop, or Cassie.” I glanced over at him, hoping to impress upon him how important that was.

His eyebrows shot up. “Okay, that sounds ominous, but I promise. You can trust me.”

I knew I could trust him. “I’m not a cop. I’m an FBI agent. I never worked a beat. I went to Quantico right after I got out of the Army. When I was in our transition briefs after my enlistment contract was up, we had a field agent come and talk to us about our options, and I was hooked. I was a medic in the Army, and I saw a lot of fucked-up shit.” I stopped for a second. “Sorry, I’ll tell you about the nightmare.”

“No, tell your story how you want. I’m listening. I’ll save my questions for the end, though.” I don’t know why, but that was funny. Maybe because my nerves were fried or because he was teasing me. But laughing made me feel lighter. And I needed light right now.

“It all leads up to the nightmare, I promise.” He waved a hand, urging me to continue. “Like I said, I saw a lot of fucked-up shit. I was what they called a fobbit for the last six months of my twelve-month deployment, which means I stayed inside the wire. The first six months, I worked with an EOD team, the Explosive Ordinance Disposal guys. The ones who dismantle bombs. Thankfully, there were only minor injuries. The most intense while I was out there was a small firefight, and one of the soldiers got shot in the arm. I considered that lucky because it could have been a lot worse.

“Anyway, after that team redeployed, I was sent to work in a field hospital. It was mostly sitting on our hands, seeing sick call patients a lot of the time. But when we did have emergencies, they were crucial. That’s where I saw most of the shit that happened. Had a Marine walk in, without assistance from anyone, after being shot in the back of his head. The bullet hit at such an angle that it was only a soft tissue wound. That was more interesting than fucked up, not because he was shot, but because he didn’t have any lasting injuries. I felt like we helped him. But all the cases didn’t end like that.” I took a shuddering breath. Tristan put his hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. He went to move his hand, but I captured it in mine and kissed his knuckles. I didn’t let his hand go.

“There were a lot of soldiers and Marines who came in we couldn’t save. One soldier… he couldn’t have been older than twenty, same age I was at the time… was brought in, both legs blown off. They had applied tourniquets to both, but the blood was coming fast. By the time we got him, there wasn’t much we could do. The docs were surprised he was still conscious. He kept saying, ‘Tell Momma I love her. Tell Momma I love her.’ I had to make a promise to a dying boy I didn’t know that I would tell his mom she was the last thing on his mind. That was tough. I was able to get her the message, but it fucked me up.

“After that, I decided I wanted to be a part of something that helped save people in the moment. Yeah, the soldiers, Marines, airmen, and sailors would take down the insurgents, but I wasn’t a part of it.Iwanted to do something. That’s why I resolved to be a cop when I got out. To stop the bad guys in real time. But when I was in the transition brief, the agent came, and my career path changed. It’s been a rewarding experience, to say the least. Some cases have been harder than others, but they didn’t really fuck with my head. Not until this last case.” I took another shuddering breath. “Did you hear about the Darkstream Killer?” I asked, then looked over at him.

“Of course. It was all over the news and…” he trailed off, then looked at me. His eyes got wide, absorbing why I asked.

“Yeah, that was my case. My team’s case. We were the ones who brought him down.”

“Holy fuck. That’s crazy. You guys are basically heroes. Me and Cass discussed the case often, and we felt relieved when he was finally apprehended. Those poor girls didn’t deserve that.” A note of sadness crept into his voice.

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