Page 51 of The Hangman's Rope

When I’d returned, it was to watch Lorelai linger on the porch… then finally go to bed.

Everyone was getting seated to continue the debate and puzzling shit out. We’d all stopped watching the cameras in front of us while we’d worked on the problem when sound started coming from Reaper’s tablet.

We all froze for a second and I put my eyes back on the screen.

Lorelai thrashed in her sleep, groaning, and pushing at invisible hands.

“Shit,” I muttered. I made to get up, but Syn held out a hand.

“Wait.” He watched intently with a deep curiosity. “Let it play out a minute.”

“You serious?” I demanded.

A sharp cry, and my eyes went back to the screen.

She was fighting like a wildcat, twisting up in the covers, curling in on herself as though to ward off blows, throwing her hands up in front of her face as a long, thin, broken wail escaped her.

The sound was soul crushing, heartbreaking in a way that I didn’t have the words to describe it.

“Yeah, fuck this,” Fear said, standing up.

I was already most of the way out the door when Death yelled, “Hey!” I turned back and caught the flying bundle of keys he lobbed in my direction, clapping them between my hands and shoulder checking the doorframe on the way out in my haste.

My shoulder screamed as I went down the steps, only half aware I had backup on my six as I moved.

I didn’t know how bad it could or would get, so as soon as I hit the outside, I broke into a lope down the street, pulling the humid night air into my lungs in ragged almost panicked breaths as I did everything to key my way through the gate and get through and up the steps.

I fumbled for a few heartbeats with the keys, looking for the right one in the dark, the adrenaline coursing through me as her screams reached my ears in real time, faint through the brick walls of the old house, and growing louder by the moment.

I got through the gate, tripping over the lip and catching myself hands to gravel. The heels of my hands stung, but I ignored them, pushing to my feet and going full tilt for the outside stairs up to my second-floor apartment. I burst through the door to the most heart-wrenching and feral sounds, as Lorelai fought the demons that only lived inside her head anymore, and I knew a thing or three about that.

I felt a lump form in my throat as I blew through the living room, into the hall and swept into my bedroom where she fought, kicked, screamed, and thrashed – all while in the grips of whatever night terror held her.

“Lorelai!” I called, and I dove onto the bed, pulling her body into my lap. She cried out, this pitiful, high-pitched, and frightened thing – her body coated in sweat, her long hair sticking to her temples and her face that was wet with tears and I wrapped arms around her holding her tight, to keep her from hurting herself.

Warmth and wet seeped into the fabric of my jeans as I realized that she pissed herself in her terror, but her silver eyes were open now, her chest heaving, expression panic stricken as she took in my face.

We hung in that moment for a heartbeat, then two, and her face just crumbled in the most heartbreaking way as she threw her arms around me and buried her face in the side of my neck and justsobbed.

“It’s okay, Sweetpea. I’ve got you, now. You’re okay.”

…but I knew nothing about this was okay. I looked up to Grim with Reaper just behind him in the hall looking in at us and with a determination that matched my brother’s name, I said to them, “Get the sheets, change the bed, I’m going to get her cleaned up. Get out of my way.”

I picked up the still sobbing woman in my arms and lifted, knees and back screaming at the unfamiliar distribution of weight in my arms as I walked her across the hall into the small bathroom, kicking the door shut behind us.

I set her ass on the edge of the sink and wrapped my arms around her tight, as she clung to me. I pressed her head to my shoulder and turned my own to press lips against her damp hair, the salt from her tears and sweat a light tang against my tongue as I flicked my tongue out to wet my dry lips.

“Easy baby, it’s me, it’s Hangman. I’ve got you, breathe. Breathe for me darlin’.”

I let her lose it. I let her cry and wail and let it all out soaking my tee with her snot and her tears and I wanted so fucking bad to take whatever it was, to draw out her pain and mold it between my hands into a knot the size of a baseball and shove it right down the motherfucker’s throat that’d caused it.

I wanted to watch him choke on it. I wanted to watch him burn with the fever of her abject terror and I wanted to kill him slow. I wanted to watch it choke off his air and I wanted to watchthe panic in his eyes as it hit him that this was it – this was how it was going to end. Choking on her sadness, choking on her pain, suffocating on her fear.

She calmed, slowly, and clung to me with such a strength that I didn’t dare try to disentangle myself from her until she was good and goddamn ready. I didn’t want to set off another panic, but by the same token, I wanted to get her out of her sweat and urine-soaked things and into the shower.

I felt a fresh wave of hatred wash through me at the thought of this beautiful creature, a grown ass woman, wetting the bed like a fucking child in sheer terror.

A light knock fell at the door and she jumped. I tightened my hold around her with one arm and reached for the knob with the other. She shrank in on herself, using me as a meat shield, hiding herself against the front of my body as I cracked the door and twisted my head on my neck at an awkward angle to see who wanted what.

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