Re: The woods
It was soothing. The repetition, that smile. It almost chased away the nightmares, the terrible things from the room. She could almost forget that cane, and the animalistic pacing, and the fear in the older Luke's eyes. She could almost forget, but almost wasn't the same as forgetting entirely, and she twisted the fabric of his shirt between her fingers, not wanting to let go. "It's not over," she said, even as she noticed their new surrounding, but she wasn't actually talking about another round of this. She was talking about him, about what had happened to him, and what could happen to him. A cautionary tale, maybe, but it had felt so real, and she didn't know how to keep some other thing from sending him over that edge. She drove him so crazy sometimes, and what if she did something that made it all even worse?
But she was nodding when he said they should go. Okay, yes. Home. Gus was probably still in bed, and all she wanted was to hold him in her arms while he opened his gifts. He would squirm and try to get away, but he was really good about letting her be affectionate, even though she knew it was a new thing for him. All she wanted was to hold him, and remind herself that he existed, and that Luke was different. Maybe not good, and maybe not okay. Maybe there were doubts right then, and a chill along her spine. But it would fade with tinsel and bows and wrapping paper.
Right. Okay. Yes.
So she went when he tugged, and it was an impulsive thing, holding onto his hand and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. She refused to think about it, about more of what they'd just seen. She imagined her life without him to be all drugs and johns and terrible nightmares, and she wouldn't let him see that. She wouldn't. She would drag him away. He'd had a hard enough time after the memories, after seeing what she'd done while they'd been apart. No, if the hotel was playing with them, she'd just pull him away. That was that. Unlike him, she didn't want to see how broken she could be without him there.
But then the dog was barking, and she was trying to grab his arm back. "No," she managed, a whisper, because the dog sent chills down her spine. It was a tiny thing, no bigger than her foot, and yet it brought her to a complete standstill feet and feet away from the intersection.
A car rounded the corner and swerved, and her heart caught in her chest, and she screamed, and she ran, but the driver - who exited the car looking terrified - didn't even notice her yelling. She fell to her knees in the grass at the edge of the intersection and, God help her, she couldn't even bring herself to stand up. Her face was in her hands, and her blonde hair was a tangled mess that clung to her cheeks.
"Sorry. Shit, are you okay?" The man in the car asked, and he glanced down at the puppy that Luke had tackled. "Don't know him. Must be a Christmas gift," he said, with an air that said everyone here knew everyone else. "Let me give you my number, man," he offered, already pulling out a designer wallet from the pocket of his jeans.
Just then, tiny feet came clomping down the street, accompanied by a little girl calling out for Sparrow. She saw Luke, and she broke into a wide grin and ran right into the same intersection without looking anywhere for cars, obviously oblivious to anything bad that could happen to her or the dog.
She was a tiny thing, Gus' age by the looks of her, if a little smaller. She had long, strawberry blonde hair that was held in pigtails by little red bows. Her cap-sleeved dress was bright yellow, and her stockings were bright orange, and she had bright purple boots on her feet. There was a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and she reaching both arms out for the puppy, without any fear of getting close to the stranger in the middle of the street. "She's mine," she said, biting her lip as she looked up and up at Luke. "I picked my clothes. Do you like them?" she asked, her lisp similar to Gus,' even with her exceptionally differing confidence.