PULL ME UNDER - Fear Of The Dark - Twenty-Three

[Table of Contents]

[Previous Chapter] [Next Chapter]

Twenty-Three

Lauren approached her brother, his skin blanched and slick with sweat. His eyes darted frantic under closed lids, muscles twitching here and there, and she knew he was dreaming, wishing to know of what.

“He asked for you more than once,” Ddun told her, now at her side, a gentle hand at the curve of her back.

“I don’t know how he’s doing it. Meired had to show me how. I have to really concentrate on a place, a place I’ve seen or a person, and concentrate hard on where I want the door to be. But he’s never been told how to do it, it just seems to come naturally to him. When I couldn’t do it fast enough she’d hit me. Then she’d get even more pissed that I didn’t give a fuck about a slap in the face.” She knelt with her thigh against Tanner, brushing hair from his brow and drying his mouth. “What’s this yellow?”

“It’s medicine, helps with pain.”

“Oh… Oh.” She felt a cold lump in her guts. “Is it what made him sleep?”

“No. He started looking ill when he opened the lock to Meired’s storage room. Then he killed two men. Then he just… fell asleep in the feast-hall, and we carried him in here.”

She snapped her head to Ddun, alarm shocking her limbs. “Okay, start from the beginning. You went into that room? How?”

Ddun pointed to Tanner’s left hand, and she pulled it across him and flipped it palm-up. The burn looked angry. The blistering formed a nicely geometric shape, flaring with red, as if he had pressed his hand to a branding iron. She licked her lips, mouth dry with fright. The sight of the fluid under Tanner’s raised skin got her nauseated. His fingers twitched as she held the hand in hers, and she flipped it back over to caress the healthy skin. His stomach rose and fell. “He was able to pass through to the room, but I was not. The scrolls we took are still in the hall.”

She was only half-listening, not caring about scrolls or dead men or any of it, eyes on her brother—she wanted to protect him just as she used to, but she didn’t know how. His breathing became rougher, his jaw twitched. She took his good hand in hers and held it tight, watching him struggle to wake. “Tanner, I’m here.”

His eyes were glazed, pupils like pencil points, looking around himself but not seeing anything, he might still be sleeping, so she gave his wrist a gentle squeeze—he wrenched it away. Face contorted in disgust—Lauren was wrong, he could see—and his eyes dug in, blue fire surrounded by too much white. He was breathing hard through clenched teeth, spittle dropping on his chin, and he climbed up onto his elbows, readying himself to crawl away. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, Lauren.” The look he gave her froze her solid for a heartbeat. “It’s me!” She could feel Ddun tense up through the air.

Tanner flung himself back into the wall with a kick of his legs, shaking and eyes darting, he was pale as a ghost and dripping sweat.

He looked at Ddun and his expression shifted, a shadow across his face. “What are you doing here?” She saw his fists clench—was there no pain in his hand? “What are you doing here, you motherfucker?”

Lauren attempted a caress, to calm him. “Tanner—”

He kicked at her hand and pushed himself harder against the wall, as if trying to flee. His eyes were so wide, she had never seen him so terrified before. The sting of his boot to her fingers barely pained her compared to the ache in her heart, her uncertainty for what to do. She turned to Ddun—he was poised as if expecting a fight. Rudda sat crouched against the far wall, eyes locked on the scene from under his brow. The shimmer remained at the door, her little maids sitting there confused and holding each other. They could see all of this, and she was amazed and alarmed that he had kept the portal open for so long. Rudda looked just as upset at Tanner’s disposition as she was.

She swallowed hard, tremors coursing through her arms as she tried again to reach him. She stood, and his face followed her, his dark hair spilled out of his braid and looking wild. She held her hands out in a submissive plea. “Tanner, you need to take a deep breath—”

He pulled a knife from his waistband, blade quavering in his grip. “Come near me you bitch and I’ll fucking kill you. Where’s Lauren?”

Ddun was ready to lunge, she gripped his shoulders to keep him back. “Who do you think you’re seeing right now?” she asked Tanner, trying to sound in control of herself, despite wanting to lay down and bawl.

He couldn’t answer, only shook his head.

Ddun shrugged her hands off. “Don’t be stupid. Give me the knife.”

Tanner bared his teeth and lunged at Ddun, grappling with him and thrashing, Lauren had to jump back to avoid the fray, tripping on a corner of blanket and landing with a tight cramp in her belly at the impact of her rear on the stone floor.

“You won’t hurt me anymore if I kill you, you cocksucker, I’ll kill you!” His hand went to Ddun’s throat, gripping tight. Ddun choked a howl, she could smell hair and flesh burning and scrambled to her feet to reach for Tanner and try to pull him off, but his skin burned her to touch it. He growled. “Hit me again, do it, I fucking dare you!”

More twists and holds, arms in tangles and fists flying. Ddun had a red mark on his neck where Tanner’s hand had been, his beard singed as if he had held his face to a flame.

Who was Tanner seeing? It wasn’t Ddun and Lauren in Tanner’s eyes, that was clear. Was he still dreaming? She couldn’t hold back her tears anymore, sobbing and begging, screaming for them to stop, wet impacts of fists against each other as she clenched her eyes shut. The baby fluttered and she sobbed harder, begging uselessly.

The sound of choking. She opened her eyes then, screaming at the sight. Ddun was held up, feet off the floor, and even Rudda could only sit horrified and watched as Tanner held the larger man with such intensity his whole body shook. Ddun kicked at him in an attempt to free himself, clawing at Tanner’s hand, face turning an obscene shade of red, the smell of burning hair again wafting to Lauren and making her breath hitch.

Desperate, she grabbed the nearest object, a box, it didn’t matter, she swung it at Tanner, splintering it over him without so much as a flinch in response to the whack. Rudda, inspired, ran up and put his arm around Tanner’s neck to pull him away. Ddun was finally dropped to the floor with dry, painful gasps. He writhed as he tried to draw breaths, coughing and wheezing, and Lauren fell to her knees beside him, horrified at the burn on his neck. As she knelt over Ddun, Tanner freed himself from Rudda’s grasp with a sharp elbow to Rudda’s already suffering guts and ran, bolting through the portal before it disappeared with a flash of light. He was gone, in more ways than one, and the three of them, once Ddun could breathe again, ran from the room to the stables, shouting orders to keep anyone in the castle in their rooms, including the elders, the gatemen were not to let anyone else in or out. Ddun kept his mask on to cover what had happened, and they sped to his tent, her belly cramping from the stress of it.

Her maids were sobbing, both at once trying to tell her what happened. She pieced it together one stuttering word at a time, that he had yelled, shook his fists at them, but they didn’t understand, and then he ran from Ddun’s tent and they didn’t know to where. As they told their story, Ddun was donning armour, Rudda assisting him.

Lauren screamed, “What are you getting that shit on for, are you going to kill him?”

“I’ll try my best not to, but he might try to kill me.” His voice was strained and cracked. “You stay here.”

Her little maids held her as she knelt and cried.

***

Men who had innocently enough been going about their own business looked on in shock to see their commander storm past in half-assembled armour, tearing up the earth with his horse. Should they dress themselves, should they follow? One man clued in and pointed, shouting, “He went southward! There, there!” Ddun didn’t know the man’s face, and had no time to note it as he twisted the horse and stormed past, the wind of his wake had the man holding his cap to his head.

On the outskirts he could see a dark spot running, moonlight reflecting off the snow the only brightness. Tanner had torn some of his clothes off as he fled, his coat was strewn on the frozen sand, his mask and shirt followed.

The cold numbed the pain at Ddun’s neck. He hoped Tanner wouldn’t run much farther with nothing on his skin. Then he saw boots, felt lining, a belt, a string of coins. Ddun’s guts twisted up into his chest to think Tanner had gone completely insane, and if Ddun hadn’t decided to give chase, if Tanner might run until he froze to death… Ddun urged the horse faster, his lungs and the back of his throat stinging from the intense breaths of frozen air hitting them.

The dark spot came nearer, and he could see that Tanner had stripped down to nothing, and steam rose off his flesh as if he were made of boiling water. He looked back at Ddun with such terror in his eyes as if he looked upon a demon, the whites of his eyes threaded with red and he shouted at Ddun to leave him alone. Instead, Ddun rode next to him, threatening, “If you don’t stop running, I’ll club you over your God’s-damned head!”

A snarl curled Tanner’s lip and he slapped the horse under Ddun, the impact stopped the horse perfectly still and sent Ddun sprawled out through the air, landing with a crack of pain in his wrist as the earth tumbled around him. Winded, and glad for his armour, Tanner caught him and pummelled him swiftly, shouting things that made no sense. He really didn’t recognize Ddun at all, thought he was someone completely different, and someone Tanner hated with a fury that Ddun had never seen in anyone. Tanner tore free Ddun’s mask and his fists met hard into the bones, and Ddun took one too many, the lights went out.

In that brief second, Tanner was off again, running barefoot in the frozen sand. Ddun climbed back up onto his horse, woozy from the hits to his head and the pain shooting up his left arm—he decided to skip the threats, holding his sabre out with the hilt ready for blunt impact, and as he caught up with Tanner a flash of lightening blinded him and Tanner was gone. Ddun could swear, in his exhaustion, there was a woman’s voice on the wind, taunting him at his confusion with a wisp of laughter as he walked the horse in a circle over the spot where Tanner’s footprints ended and a dark ash was left behind. In the chill, all Ddun could do was grip the bridle, if he might slip off the saddle and collapse.