A Flame to a Cold Memory

“No.” She was choking. Her hands couldn’t move to help herself. There was a paralyzing hold over her, nothing would follow the command, the involuntary need to stop choking. And then she felt a rough transition of fire tearing through her veins, her mouth tasting like slivers of lead had been shoved down to the roots of her teeth. Then she sucked in a breath, coughing violently into consciousness.

“Just try and relax, Dahlia.” Millie was next to her, a wet cloth in her hand that dabbed her forehead.

“Make it stop.” She jerked, her muscles locking and shimmering with seizure like movements.

“I-I’m trying.” Millie got up quickly and left her side.

Dahlia let her head fall to the side, tears streaming down her face. She saw a woman standing against the cave wall. There was a vague familiarity about her. The way her chestnut hair curled around her face was wrong, so many things weren’t as they were suppose to be. Dahlia blinked and then the woman’s face was inches from her. Dahlia lacked the capacity to scream in fright but an unspoken voice had silenced her.

“You promised you’d be safe.”The woman’s hand stroked Dahlia’s cheek lovingly but there was a cringe of disappointment that wrinkled from the corners of her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Dahlia whispered, feeling a false warm fall away with the woman who was next to her. She smelled of grass, hot under the summer sun and a perfume she couldn’t put a finger on. Her muscles fell still, replaced with a heavy exhaustion.

“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.” Millie came back to her, mistaking Dahlia’s words for herself. “I hope he feels like the donkey’s ass.”

“Just do it, Millie.” Dahlia wanted to be yanked from the Earth, she didn’t like this world. The one that spit her out again and again, turning against its own creation.

“Do what?” Millie asked, stopping her worried movements.

“Kill me.” A small smile formed from Dahlia’s lips, that release would be sweet. “Please, I’m abominable.”

Millie’s face was thrown into a stunned expression. “What was done to you was abominable, Dahlia. I refused to give up on you, even if you’ve given up on yourself.”

A cloth was placed over her mouth, an airy mist being breathed into airway. And then her vision became clouded and before she lost consciousness, the woman was kneeling down behind Millie, a hand placed tenderly on her shoulder.

◦◦

Dahlia stirred awake, a headache knocking just underneath her skull. She glared against the sun peering into the cave. “She didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Conner’s voice asked from the opposite wall Dahlia was curled up against.

Jaden was slicing pieces of an apple up in his hand and slowly eating them, turning on his heel to leave. “Nothing.”

Dahlia aimed to get up but her body was much too stiff and fell back against the wall. Connor jumped up, coming over to steady her. “You should stay down, really.”

“No.” Dahlia tried to push him away. “Let me go, please.”

Conner wasn’t exactly complacent in her demand, and kept his hands hovered just above her. Dahlia was on a mission, she needed to feel something different than what she was currently feeling. Lost, depressed, confused, and in a lot of pain. She grappled towards the ocean water, the waves lapping up onto the sand.

“What are you doing?” Conner gripped her from going into the water.

“Do not touch me,” Dahlia turned, her tone biting. Conner dropped his hands like he had picked up a hot plate, backing away.

She waded into the cool water, not stopping under she was waist deep and the waves felt like they could carry her away into its infinite world. A deep breath was held as she ducked herself under the water, eyes squeezed shut. The salt stung her nostrils and eyes. She ignored it though, willing herself to keep under the waves. Tradition, consistency. These are the things she needed.

When Dahlia came up for air, Conner was not alone. Harper was standing by his side, arguing with him until she saw Dahlia alive and breathing. “See! I told you, she just needs some time.”

“Whatever,” she threw her hands back, walking off.

Dahlia floated onto her back, steadying her breathing, watching the clouds move above her in solitude formations. She deflated her lungs, letting herself sink below the water. The quiet was healing, the hug of the water around her. It was homely. Things burned though. The healing wound on her abdomen, the cuts she had slashed into herself in a fit, her body, her mind. And then she was rushed to the surface.

“Are you crazy?” Millie was angry, eyes wide.

Dahlia just cocked her head to the side, “don’t call me that.”

Millie dropped her hands from Dahlia’s shoulders, “I didn’t mean it like that.” She probably didn’t but what else did Dahlia seem like?

Dahlia walked from the water, continuing up the shoreline. She thought for sure someone would follow but when she looked back, Conner was easing Millie in the other direction.

The wind was a chilly front against Dahlia’s drying salt skin. But it made her feel something, and the goosebumps rising was a response that verified her feeling. How had she managed to feel as lost and alone as she had before? She settled down against a piece of driftwood. The sun was in its beginning stages of its final decent into the horizon.

Movement in the corner of her eyes caused her to look over, seeing Jaden walking towards her. He was far enough away for her to decidedly get up, striding into a briskly walk in the other direction. The last thing she needed was another interrogation and anger projected onto her. Nothing good came whenever Jaden was around.

“Dahlia,” her name carried in the wind. “Stop walking.”

She didn’t listen but she didn’t speed up either. Eventually, he was right on her heels and then blocking her path. His arms were crossed and anytime she tried to step around him, he matched her.

“Leave me alone.” Her voice wasn’t a light suggestion, it was a warning.

“Can’t do that.” Jaden looked beyond her. “I have to say something before you get the chance to try and disappear again.”

“Another token, accusatory statement? What could you possibly have still?” Dahlia felt like trash in his eyes. She couldn’t even look at him.

“I wanted to—to,” he seemed to grit his teeth, “apologize. I was wrong.”

Dahlia was a stone wall of expression, moving around him quickly before he could say anything more. There wasn’t three steps between them before he was next to her, matching her quickening steps.

“It’s rare that I ever apologize, even rarer when I admit that I was wrong.” He repeated himself, the words seeming like a flow of truth. Dahlia wouldn’t stop walking if her life depended on it, that was until a hand grazed her arm and she jerked away.

“Think of laying a hand on me and you lose it.” The aggression was a raw appearance, causing her to coil herself back into check.

Jaden scoffed, shaking his head. “I’m trying to apologize here, Dahlia. Give a guy a break.”

Dahlia internally reeled back, aghast. “Give you a break?” She felt as if she wouldn’t be able to catch her breath, she was furious. “Oh, poor pitiful, you! Please, smite me for having the audacity of having a tiny inkling of anger towards you! Who do you think you are? Untouchable, some god-like complex? No one can be above you, only clinging to life under your thumb until you give them permission to breathe! I don’t care what I did, if it somehow is connected to you or anyone else. I’m done being put down by you. Even have a half-thought about me or my past again, I swear I will double down on anything Fidus did to you, and worse.”

She was heaving, her ears were burning. And Jaden, he was no longer in a lax stance but was strong considering some horrible things to do in heed of her warning. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But don’t I? Am I not some little planted spy here to ruin everything? Or is it a new theory now?” She was afraid of how black his eyes became but if she showed her fear then, he’d never take her remarks as seriously as she meant them.

“I don’t know what you are,” he spat. “How fucked up did you have to be for the devil himself to cast you from his hell? And then erase your memories? What could you have possibly done? Maybe he missed his intent to wipe you from existence. Maybe you were meant to stay in that grave you were in.”

Dahlia couldn’t control herself, with white-knuckles, she hit Jaden square in the nose. The connection shrieked out a. crack. Jaden stumbled back, cupping his nose while letting a slew of curses leave his mouth.

“Only I have the control and permission to let myself go from my existence. Don’t ever, and I mean it, ever let those words leave your mouth again.”

Then her headache galloped throughout her body, a vision of hands scraping and clawing to keep connected to her own, before a searing sensation implanted itself at the base of her neck. She didn’t let it take her away from reality, not this time.

“Fuck.” Jaden sniffed, blood dripping between his fingers as he looked up at Dahlia with a raised brow. And then he nodded, a simple and curt nod of understanding. It was like she had achieved something.

“What the heck?” Dahlia saw Constantine jogging up to them. “What happened? Where did you two go?” He tilted Jaden’s head to get a look at his nose, “and how did you break this?”

“Keep him on a tighter leash. I’d hate for something else to happen to him because of foolish actions.” Dahlia said this with a small sneer, an intent of showiness so she really wouldn’t have to do that again. No part of her like that after it was done, it wasn’t her.

And by the time she was back in the cave, hiding her swelling knuckles, she was tired. She wanted this day to end, as quickly as it had begun. In the meantime, she settled herself into her bed, pulling the blanket high over her head and shut her eyes. No one bothered her for the rest of the night.