Kristie Cook - Purpose

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I felt a lot better when we were swimming. Now I feel like I’m getting sick.”

Tristan held his palm to my face and then wrapped it around my hand. It felt like a heating pad. “You’re like ice. Colder than you were with Sheree.”

He and Owen exchanged meaningful looks.

“I’ll call Sophia and Rina,” Owen said.

He stepped outside and Tristan disappeared into our bedroom. He came out a few minutes later with wet hair and wearing khaki shorts, instead of swim trunks. He must have taken a quick shower. I felt bad—it had to have been freezing because I used all the hot water.

Owen returned at the same time. “I couldn’t get either one of them but finally got a hold of Julia. She’s with them at the safe house. They’re still working on Sheree, but they want to know if anything happens with you and the Ang’dora, so Julia said she’d tell them.”

“Is this normal?” I asked. “For the Ang’dora, I mean?”

Owen shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person. But there’s not exactly anything normal about you, Alexis.”

He was teasing, but absolutely right.

I pulled the comforter tighter around me, closed my eyes and tried to focus on making the shivers go away. The attempt proved pointless. Tristan lifted my head and shoulders and sat down, laying me down in his lap and rubbing my arms and shoulders. If his shower had been cold, I couldn’t feel it on him now. He felt nice and toasty. He asked Owen to get more blankets from the back bedrooms and a minute later I felt the added weight, but they didn’t do much to warm me.

“Sh-sh-sheesh, I-I-I’m s-so c-c-cold,” I chattered. Tristan was right. This version of cold felt much worse than it had with Sheree. My whole body felt like it had been plunged into a tub of ice water, the ache going right to the bone, everywhere except around my heart. Warmth cocooned it. At least it won’t freeze. Has to be a good sign, right?

I closed my eyes again and tried to imagine pulling the warmth from my heart into the rest of my body. Then I tried not to focus on how cold I felt at all, but on something different. I pictured Dorian’s face. My heart warmed more, but nothing else. So I imagined being held in Tristan’s warm arms, close to his warm body. The thoughts seemed to be working until a violent shudder racked my body. Tristan moved to get up.

“No, p-p-please d-d-don’t leave.”

“I’ll be right back.”

When he returned, he placed a hot, wet washcloth around the back of my neck. Then he removed the back cushions from the couch and lay down behind me, wrapping his arms around me, the whole length of my body pressed against his. The shivering slowed and then finally stopped. I closed my eyes and deep sleep overcame me.

I didn’t remember dreaming, but I did remember a disembodied face staring at me. I thought it belonged to the man who’d taken Sheree, but I couldn’t be positive. I’d only seen her kidnapper’s face for a brief time and through the haze of her memories. The face watching me floated in front of me, his hair and a goatee white as snow, his eyes like blue ice. Though the hair gave the impression of old age, no wrinkles lined his face. His lips pulled into a devious grin, exposing icicles for teeth. The face observed me and I thought he might be patiently waiting for me to do something. Nothing ever happened, though.

When I awoke much later, chills racked my body. Through the sliding glass doors, I saw the moon hanging low in the sky, as if strung on a necklace between the trees over our beach. I had no idea of the exact time, but I felt sure midnight had slipped by while I slept. Tristan had left my side. He came back when he saw me shaking and lay next to me again.

“S-s-sorry,” I said. “I-I-I kn-now it’s n-not comfortable.”

He had to scrunch his legs up just to fit on the couch.

“Do you want to go to the bed?” he asked.

“N-n-no. N-not now. I c-can’t move.”

My body felt like a slab of marble—too heavy to lift and cold to the touch—and I wondered if death felt like this. Tristan eventually warmed me enough again that I stopped shivering. I just wanted to lay there like a rock. Not a log—I felt too heavy to be a log. I was definitely a cold, heavy rock.

“Did Owen leave?” I asked.

“He’s just making more calls. Trying to find out when Sophia and Rina will be back, but they’re still working with Sheree. Do you need me to get you anything?”

“No. Just stay here, please. You’re really warm.”

He kissed my cheek and neck. His lips felt like hot matches striking against my icy skin. Pulling on every ounce of energy I could muster to move what felt like twice my body weight, I turned over to face him. I pressed my face against his chest and inhaled his warmth, his mouthwatering scent coating the back of my throat. He rubbed my back through the layers of blankets. Sleep overcame me again.

The next time I awoke, the sky was pitch-black and it felt like that time just before morning, when the whole world seemed to be dead. The coldest and darkest hour of the day. I couldn’t even see the moon from my position on my back. It had probably set by now. There were no lights on inside and I should have been blind in the complete darkness, but I could see perfectly. Owen slept sideways in the chair, his legs dangling over the arm. Tristan slept next to me, his arm and leg thrown over me, pinning me down. My clothes stuck to my skin, making me realize they were drenched in sweat. I had the sudden need to escape from all the heavy blankets, feeling as though they were made of iron and weighing me down. I kicked and thrashed, not able to get Tristan and the blankets off of me fast enough.

“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked, quickly awake. Owen stirred in the chair and peered at me through slit eyes.

“I’m so hot now,” I panted, finally unwrapping myself.

I stood up and pinpricks of light danced in front of my eyes. My legs trembled, feeling like cooked noodles under my weight. Tristan held his hand to the small of my back before I toppled back on him. Once I steadied myself, I headed for the bedroom, peeling the sweat-soaked clothes off of me. I wanted to lay naked, spread eagle on the cool bed, but stuffing still bulged out of its shredded top. I took another shower instead, this time letting the cool water run over me. I had to change the pressure on the showerhead to a gentle spray—anything else felt like thousands of needles piercing me. I felt every single drop patter against my skin, like the fat drops at the beginning of a rain storm hitting me one-by-one, but these were small and thousands at a time. It was a strange feeling.

Clean clothes at a minimum, I put on a tank top and pajama shorts, my only other choice being one of the fancy sundresses. The clothes rubbed harshly against my skin, feeling more like paper than cotton. The fabric even sounded like paper scraping and crinkling against itself. Tristan and Owen both eyed me when I came out of the bedroom.

“How do you feel?” Tristan asked. I flinched and covered my ears with my hands. He sounded like he nearly yelled.

“Except that everything feels, looks and sounds so intense, a lot better,” I whispered. “A little shaky, though. I’m really thirsty…and hungry.”

They both sighed with relief and the rush of air sounded like two train whistles. Being thirsty and hungry must have been a good sign. I drank a big glass of ice water and it cooled my insides, but not enough to radiate outwards to my feverish skin. I fixed another glass, retrieved the last of the crackers and sat next to Tristan on the couch. My muscles twitched, like they did when I wanted to run.

“That was weird,” I said, still whispering. “I was so cold and tired. Now I feel really warm but energetic. I feel like I could go for a ten-mile run.”