Make It out Alive

My throat was dry and I was screaming, screaming wildly in my sleep until I woke myself up. I fell off the couch in my fear, Spencer clearly startled, moved to pick me up. I was crying uncontrollably. My body shook with sobs that I couldn't repress, memories flooding my tired head.

Spencer made an awkward cradle out of his arms and held me until I could breath normally. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. "I'll never be okay," I whimpered into his shoulder. We situated so he was sitting up, my head on his lap while I starred at the ceiling. He stroked my hair gently.

"Bryson is my mother's last name. If I had taken my," I struggled to say it. "My father's name, it would have been Calvetin." I heard his sharp intake of breath and winced a bit.

"My mother was the first woman Jared Calvetin abducted. He kept her for seven years until she got away. In these seven years, he raped and beat her. Within the first year, I was concieved. It played into his fantasy so well that he forced her to maintain the pregnancy. As soon as I was born, I was snatched away from my mother. We spent the next six years being tortured and abused. One night when Jared went-" I faltered, and he smiled encouragingly down at me, worry clear on his face. "When he went to find his next victim." I had started shaking and crying again, but I kept going. "Mom grabbed me and ran. That's why we moved around so much when I was a kid. So he'd never find us. Twelve years after my mother's daring escape, we were summoned to testify against Jared Calvetin in court." I paused, remembering with a shudder. "He was more monster than man. His teeth were broken and yellow. His eyes were black and soulless, his hair hanging down in greasey tendrils, he looked like a horror movie. I broke down upon seeing him."

Spencer played with my hair, trying to sooth me, wiping tears away from my face. "He's on death row, now. He'll be dead soon, too. But even when he's gone, I'll never escape him, he'll always haunt me. Jared Calvetin is my own personal nightmare. I am the nightmare that I could become him."

He shifted so he could wrap his arms around me as I sobbed again. "You aren't him, Polly," he whispered in my ear. "He can't hurt you anymore. You're safe."

I clung to him desperately, fear I hadn't felt in years rising unpleasantly. My head was throbbing, every one of my nerves hyper sensitive with fear. Reid continued to whisper to me, rubbing my back. I buried my head in the crook of his neck, matching my breathing with his until I was mostly collected. I looked up at him and pleaded, "Please don't leave tonight."

He smiled down at me sadly and nodded. I untangled myself from him and walked to my bedroom, he followed several paces behind. I threw myself unceremoniously onto the queen bed, then crawled under the blankets. "I won't bite," I told Spencer. "I might cling to you, though."

The left side of his mouth pulled up as he clambered into bed next to me. Cautiously, he opened his arms up to me, and I went gratefully. He was warm and solid, not as bony as I thought, more sinewy. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat regularly.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Always," he replied.

"Good night, Spence," I said, snuggling into him a bit more and closing my eyes.

He kissed the top of my head and mumbled. "G'night, Polly."