Every time I thought about Christa and Tanner breaking the rules I felt heat rushing to my face. They couldn’t stop themselves. I didn’t want to be like Christa. Afraid and at risk. But to be wanted, so badly, that you would risk your life and theirs to be together? I did want that.
Cade pauses at the top of the hill and turns to wait for me.
I search his eyes for signs that he’s worried about the same things I am. Signs that he is struggling not to act on the urge to make contact, but if he wants me like that his restraint is too strong to let it show.
Sometimes I wish I knew what it would take to get him to lose control.
I am tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable in my spot on the ground when I feel him lie down behind me. For a moment neither of us move. It’s dark, with just a sliver of moon to make out the shapes of trees around us. I hear his breathing work its way into the sound of leaves rustling, and I ache to turn toward him.
His breathing gets louder and the dirt beneath me grows warmer as his body gets closer. My breath catches in my throat when I feel his hand on the crest of my hip. For a moment neither of us move, and I expect him to pull back, but then his fingers begin to lift the waistband of my jeans and run along my skin. They feel like hot flames, and a warmth spreads in my lower abdomen that makes me want to take his hand and place it down where my body is hungry for his touch. His lips find the base of my neck, and he groans as he presses himself closer to me.
Now I can’t stop myself. I turn into him and press my body to his so tightly that I can feel his hardness throbbing against my core.
“You,” he whispers, tangling his hands in my hair, but he doesn’t finish his thought because his lips are travelling hungrily up my neck while his hand fumbles to drag the strap of my tank top far enough to the side to cup one breast. I moan when his fingers find my erect nipple and his tongue darts into my mouth. This cannot be wrong I think to myself and the warmth between my legs grows more urgent.
He smiles wickedly against my lips as his hand travels from my breast to my ribcage and lower still. I gasp as he slides his hand between my underwear and the part of me that is wet with desire. His stroke is slow and teasing so I grind against his hand, taking his lips between my teeth and tugging hard enough to make him pause his stroking and gasp for air.
“You want me?” he whispers, and I wrap my hand around his manhood to answer. With an urgency that comes from waiting too long for something this good the two of us strip one another’s clothes away. Skin to skin he pulls back just enough to look at me. I expect to find his eyes full of lust and desire, but they are cold and hard. I wince as his grip on my shoulder becomes hard. “You’re hurting me,” I start to say, but no sooner are the words leaving my mouth than his body turns to dust above me. Now my abdomen is round like a basketball, and a thousand sharp pains replace the ache of pleasure.
I know it is a dream, even before the trees begin to whisper, but the pain and the loneliness are real when they begin their chant. There are consequences for breaking the rules. I tilt my head toward the inky black sky and let forth a primal scream.
The ground is shaking and a small dot of light travels across the sky, growing larger and larger until I realize it is a plane it’s nose down, propellers in flames. I want to move, but my stomach weighs me down. I wrap my arms around my abdomen and prepare for everything to end.
“Lena!” says Cade, loud and urgent. I feel his fingers digging into my shoulders for the second time, and I wake with a jolt. It takes me a moment to catch my breath and rectify where we are. Not at camp. Not with the others.
Cade has left his spot under the tree and is sitting on the ground behind me. He threads his arms under my armpits to pull me back against his chest. With his arms locked around my waist and his chin resting on the crown of my head he whispers, “It was a dream. You’re safe.”
But I know otherwise. That was no dream. That was a warning. His touch feels like a brand.
Seven
In the morning we move quickly, packing up our belongings and skipping our bath. We are too far from the creek to make going back a good use of time anyway. I know that I should tell Cade about the dream, but I can’t. I promised him he wouldn’t have to protect me and already he’s had to rock me in his arms to keep me from crying out. Between my nightmares and fear that someone is lurking in the bushes I am not doing a very good job of proving taking me with him was a good plan.
The dream haunts me as we move through the forest. I want to erase it from my mind, but every time I allow my thoughts to drift I’m back on the ground, his hands travelling my body and his voice whispering in my ear, heavy with desire.
I watch as the muscles of Cade’s broad shoulders press back against the material of his shirt as he swings his arms to move up the steep incline.
He is slower today, keeping the same pace as me. I’m fairly certain he does it because he feels bad for me, but I don’t mind. For once it feels like we are on the same path, instead of me following him, a great burden he has to carry along.
When we stop for lunch he takes a seat in the grass, his forearms resting on his bent knees.
“I haven’t heard you scream like that in a long time.”
I’m sitting on a mossy log with my feet digging into the muddy earth in front of me.
“I haven’t had dreams like that since our first year here.” I admit.
“About the crash?” he asks. I had forgotten that Cade knew about my nightmares and the realization that he remembers the things that frighten me squeezes at my chest.
I don’t want to lie to him, but I can’t tell him I dreamt we had sex. Instead I omit that part and focus on the thing that caused me to cry out in the first place. “I dreamt an asteroid was coming toward us in the clearing. Only when it got closer it wasn’t an asteroid it was the plane, with one rudder on fire.”
Cade lets out a slow and ragged breath. Then pulls the stick he began whittling earlier from his bag and continues shaping it. He has always been the inventor in our group, making nothing into tools and then teaching us all how to use them.
“I don’t dream about it like you. But I swear sometimes I feel the bottom of my stomach fall out, like it is happening all over again.”
I nod remembering fullwell the awful feeling he’s talking about. No roller coaster ride prepares you to plummet toward a giant body of water with no promise of survival. I remember squeezing my eyes shut as afraid of seeing the people around me die as I was of dying myself. I close my eyes now just thinking about it.
“That will never leave us.” I say. “Even if we get out of here. There will always be that sickening feeling that something horrible is a moment away.”
Cade draws his knife along the switch in his hand, peeling off a long thin layer of wood so that it curls and drops in ringlets at his feet.
“At least here there are no cars or planes. Hell of a silver lining.” he adds, smiling up at me from behind a curtain of dark hair. Even in the state of unrest caused by last night’s dream a smile from Cade causes my lips to twitch upward in return.
They are so rare these days. It’s like at some point in the last few years he decided to take everything seriously. The boy who used to chase me around camp and hold my hand when no one was looking turned into a man who focused only on the group, only on survival. I missed the fun and argumentative version of him. Maybe away from the group there would be more moments like this.