Forged in magic, p.15
Forged In Magic, page 15
Even in her sleep, Kate’s new obsession with touching the walls continued—as if she always hoped to feel something. But there was only the drywall and the cold.
It had been two weeks since they lost their magic. A total of twenty-two days in the room. Counting the days had become his obsession. Somewhere in his mind he figured if he lost track of time—something that would be so easy to do in the room—he would lose track of reality.
Time had never really concerned him before. He had never worn a watch but out of necessity, he had a clock on the wall in his shop, and his phone was usually someplace close. His clients knew when to show up, and if they didn’t, staring at the time wouldn’t change anything.
To make sure he was never late for an appointment he always set a couple of warning alarms on his phone. They did the trick and allowed Isaac to focus on more important things than watching a clock.
Their recent loss of technology had changed the tide for him. Once he knew that the batteries on the chargers would eventually run out, he got the sense that he and Kate were sand in an hourglass. The glass measured time in days or weeks instead of hours, but the feeling was the same.
To add to the sense of doom, every couple of days, new cracks formed in the walls. The walls continued to creep inward… diminishing the room’s size. Their space used to be a ten-by-ten room, but now was just a little over seven-by-seven.
The walls sandwiched the bed from either end. What was left of the full five-gallon jugs of water were now in the middle of the room with the empties piled by the shelves. To get to the toilet, they had to step over the items crowded together on the floor.
A foul stench lingered in the air. The smells from the toilets and food waste worsened a little each day. He and Kate didn’t smell like roses either, but it didn’t bother him as much as it did her. When she had her period, she had tried to keep her distance from him. Not that it was possible in their space, but she said she couldn’t understand how he’d even want to touch her.
He couldn’t help but smile thinking about all the conversations they’d had recently, even the awkward ones.
“I feel totally gross,” Kate whined.
Isaac pulled her closer. “Neither of us are clean and I don’t care. We’re together, that’s all that matters. Just think of this as an adventure and we’re camping.”
Kate laughed. “If I was camping, I’d at least have hot coffee.”
“Well…” he paused as if seriously thinking about camping. “We have lanterns and portable toilets. That’s like camping.”
She snorted a laugh. “I can’t argue with that. But first I had my period—I mean that’s just nature, so it’s not normally gross, but I want a shower. And I want to shave my legs and armpits. If we were camping there’d be a shower.”
“We might not smell clean, but you’re still beautiful to me.”
“Ahhh… you always know just what to say.” She kissed him and ran her fingers through his beard.
“If you can handle this thick beard I’ve got going on, then the hair on your body is not going to bother me.”
As fun as teasing had been, Isaac thought their state of cleanliness was the least of their worries. Even with rationing their food, they had eaten the last of it yesterday. He’d read somewhere once that the human body could survive without food for about three weeks, sometimes a month. But that depended on the person.
Kate hadn’t been eating much before they lost their magic, and he worried she wouldn’t last even two weeks without food. The thought of losing her was more than he could bear to contemplate. The fear was a living, breathing entity that beat inside him, louder than his heartbeat.
He knew a body could only survive without water for a few days at most. Luckily, they still had water, but the thought of running out had worsened Isaac’s obsession with time and knowing the date. Checking the date had advanced from an obsession to a compulsion. Each time he woke, he looked at the clock to see if another day had passed.
December twenty-sixth. That was his new compulsion. December twenty-sixth. He’d taken to repeating the date again and again in his mind. That day would signal eleven days without food. If they were rescued before then he believed Kate would have a chance.
As he lay in the near-dark huddled next to Kate, he kept his arms around her and one hand on her chest. He needed to feel the rise and fall of her breaths for his own peace of mind. They only use one lantern at a time now. The battery in one had died, leaving them with only two. They kept the setting on low, which allowed it to emit only a dim light, but Isaac wanted to conserve the battery. The chargers were almost drained, but they had them just in case.
When Kate stirred sometime later, she rolled onto her back. “Hey, my handsome tattooed lumberjack.”
She’d started calling him a lumberjack a few days before. They had a small mirror Kate had conjured early on, but he didn’t bother to look at himself. He figured he looked more like a scruffy homeless person than a hulking lumberjack, but if teasing him distracted her, she could call him anything she liked.
Rolling back a bit to reach beside the bed, he grabbed a bottle of water and passed it to her. “Here, have some water.”
She took the bottle and pushed up to a sitting position, but she didn’t drink. “Are you sure we have enough?”
“We’re fine. Please drink.”
When she’d drunk almost the entire bottle, he finished off what was left and put the bottle back on the floor.
They snuggled back under the covers, using them and their body heat to get keep warm. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a little more each day. Going to the toilet now felt just like the camping adventure he tried to convince Kate to think of. That is, if they were camping in winter.
“Is it still the same day?” Kate asked in a whisper.
“Yes, still December sixteenth.”
Kate palmed his cheek as their gazes met. “I love you, Isaac.”
“I love you too, Turquoise.” She told him a dozen times a day that she loved him, and he always said it back. He did love her, more than he ever thought possible, but he understood why she was telling him so often now. They both feared that one time they would say it and it would be the last time they had a chance.
He kissed her softly on the lips and she kissed him back, her hand moving around his neck. When they’d first lost their magic, she worried that her breath wasn’t minty-fresh anymore. After he finally convinced her that it didn’t matter because nothing on them was minty-fresh, she relaxed into his kisses again.
“I want to make love to you, Kate, my beautiful Turquoise.”
She chuckled softly against his lips. “You’re getting cornier every day.”
Then she pulled back and her expression sobered. “We ran out of condoms… I could get pregnant.”
He had to swallow to make sure he could get the words out against the tightness threatening to constrict his throat. “I’d be honored to make a baby with you, Kate. I love you with everything that I am. And if we made a baby, I would love them equally as much.”
Kate’s eyes became glassy, and she only nodded before she pulled him to her. His lips glided over hers before he deepened the kiss, but neither of them rushed. They had the time to savor each other.
Talking about making a baby was emotional, but it was what they didn’t say that was overwhelming.
It was likely that if they did become pregnant, they would both die before the baby ever had a chance.
Isaac pushed all those thoughts out of his head because the only thing that was important at that moment was making love to Kate. To show her without words how much he loved her and sharing his reassurances with her through his touch.
As their hands roamed under the blankets, they stretched out their kiss, taking their time. They’d foregone clothes a couple of weeks ago because there wasn’t any point in wearing them. If they got out of bed, it was only to use the toilet or grab water, and then they were right back under the covers.
Moving down her body, Isaac trailed his lips and kisses over Kate’s jaw and neck while his hands kneaded her breasts. She had lost weight since they’d been in the room, but he would love her body no matter what—if she gained weight, lost weight—it wouldn’t matter.
Ducking his head under the blankets, he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth. She arched under him. His cock hardened where it rubbed against her thigh, creating a friction that was like sparks starting a warm smolder.
He lavished attention on both her breasts and then moved back up, knowing she didn’t want him to kiss any lower. Regardless of where he kissed her, he would ensure he sparked a fire within her.
Gliding his lips over her chest and up her neck, he worked his way back up to her mouth. The cool air hit him as he emerged from the covers, but the warmth of Kate’s kiss soon consumed him.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered as he felt her hand snake between their bodies. A groan escaped his lips when she gripped him.
“Put me inside you,” he demanded softly. He braced himself on either side of her, making sure his body and the blankets protected her from the cold air.
Kate guided him to her warmth, and when he felt her soft flesh against his, he pushed in slowly. “Oh fuck, you feel so good.” With her tight heat surrounding him, he rocked forward. Slowly. Then he retreated just as slowly.
“More, Isaac. I need more.”
“Let me take my time loving you, Turquoise.” He stroked into her again, going deeper but not faster. In and out, he continued, keeping the pace slow until she was arching up against him, begging him for more.
Dropping to his elbows one at a time, he clasped Kate’s hands. With their fingers linked and their bodies flush against each other, he continued to drive into her, deep and slow.
When he felt her body begin to tighten and his own orgasm rushing up on him, he kissed her while he continued to love her. His mouth made love to hers just as their bodies did.
“Yes!” she yelled against his mouth as he felt her arch once more, a burning igniting in them both. Their fire continued to build and their skin heated until Kate screamed his name as her body erupted with pleasure. That was all it took for him to erupt with her, his orgasm hitting him like a burst of fireworks on a clear night.
When they cleaned up with their diminishing supply of wipes and were once more tucked under the blankets, he held her as she fell asleep.
“No matter what happens, Turquoise, I will love you until my last breath,” he whispered into her hair.
18
Kate trailed her fingers along Isaac’s chest as he leaned against the headboard, partially slouched. He had one arm wrapped around her, holding her to his side. They had adopted the new position out of necessity.
The week before, to save space, they had laid the empty shelving units flat on the floor, one on top of the other. Needing them to store food was no longer an issue. On top of the units, they piled whatever they could balance.
Even the portable toilets went on the stack. If they needed to use one, they’d take it down. That wasn’t often anymore since they hadn’t eaten in over a week.
Then, three days ago, a loud crack had split the air, and the bed shook, waking them from sleep. The bed rocked, heaving them forward and pushing their feet.
Kate’s heart had leapt to her throat for two opposing reasons, both equally as strong: the fear that the room was about to implode and the hope that they would be rescued battled against each other.
Forced into the middle of the bed as the headboard pushed inward, Kate held her breath as Isaac retrieved one of the lanterns. Shuffling on his knees, he moved down to the end of the bed to inspect the damage.
That was when fear won out, killing Kate’s tiny spark of hope. The walls had moved. Again.
All four walls had contracted inward.
The wall the bed was against shoved the bed further into the cramped space, right up against the shelves and toilets.
Since the walls had already been crowding the bed from end to end, there was no room to be had when the walls pushed in.
The footboard collapsed and the bed buckled. What had once been a full-size bed was now a crunched and buckled frame less than six feet in length. Isaac could no longer sleep lying down. The only solution had been to pile pillows up against the end of the bed. Cushioning the buckle in the headboard made it bearable for them to lean against.
For the past three days, Kate wondered how she would die. Crushed to death by the contracting walls or her body eventually shutting down due to starvation? She’d gone over the scenarios in her mind a hundred times, and each time, she wondered if she would have been better off accepting the option of being turned into a zombie. At least then there would have been hope that someone would find a way to stop Maverick and reverse the mind control.
During the moments of despair, she realized that for as long as she lived—even if it was only a few more days—she would be grateful for the time she’d had with Isaac. For twenty-eight days, she had gotten to know and love him. She wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Isaac shifted, bringing Kate out of her thoughts. “Drink please, Turquoise,” he pleaded softly, handing her a bottle of water.
She took the water and sipped slowly, downing almost half of it before handing it back. “What about you?”
“I’ll have the rest.” He did as he said before placing the water bottle on the floor in the small space between the bed and the stacked shelving units.
Knowing she shouldn’t but unable to ignore the compulsion, Kate rotated toward the wall and pulled her arm away from Isaac’s warmth. Flattening her palm against the drywall, she closed her eyes, desperately wanting to feel something that would give her hope. Instead, the wall felt colder than it had been before. Just as the room was.
They could now see their breath.
Right after the most recent shift in the room, Kate had pushed on the wall and screeched, jerking her arm back, when she’d felt the wall move. For a moment, she feared it would crack and they would fall out into space… or wherever they were.
But instead of punching outward, the wall had moved inward a fraction more.
It still didn’t stop her from needing to touch the wall. Without saying anything, Isaac took her hand and pulled it back to his chest, tugging her body against his warm skin. She knew she was obsessed with touching the wall—hoping to feel something, but not knowing what. Her magic returning, maybe.
They’d been without their magic for three weeks now. It felt like an eternity, with dying the only end she could see. She didn’t say the words out loud to Isaac, but they both knew it.
They had been in the room for four full weeks. They hadn’t eaten in a week, their water supply was running low, and the room was slowly crushing them.
Leaning down, she placed a kiss on Isaac’s chest, then met his gaze. “I love you, Isaac.” She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d said it last, maybe hours, but she needed to make sure he knew.
“I love you too, Kate.” He kissed the top of her head.
They stayed in each other’s arms, her fingers slowly caressing his chest and his trailing over her arm. They hadn’t made love in three days—their energy was waning, it was cold, and now they had very little room to move.
After only offering Isaac sex for months, she never expected that the act of them holding each other like they were could mean so much more. They had each other’s love for however long they… She choked out a sob as a hard lump formed in the back of her throat. She didn’t want to think about them dying, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
“Hey,” Isaac said and lifted her onto his lap. She straddled him, thankful she still had enough headroom, as he pulled the blankets over her shoulders, tucking them in around them both. “What’s wrong? Are you hurting?”
She shook her head, fighting against the desolation that had become a constant shroud enveloping them, but it was no use. Her tears finally let loose and spilled over.
Isaac’s hand found its usual spot on the back of her neck, and he used his thumb to wipe away her tears. She loved that his fingers were so long they could span across so much of her skin. Although she couldn’t feel where the tattoo climbed up her neck, she knew his palm covered it as his fingers caressed her cheek.
Taking in shallow breaths, she swallowed again, trying to get herself under control. “I was just thinking about the last time we made love.”
“Well, if that made you cry, then I wasn’t doing it right,” he teased.
“What if we never—” She couldn’t finish the sentence and choked on the word, a sob bursting out of her.
Isaac pulled her against his chest, wrapping her tight in his arms. He didn’t say anything for several minutes, but then, as if shoring up his own hope in order to reply, he said, “We have to believe that someone will find us.”
Kate wasn’t sure she could believe that anymore. She didn’t think Isaac did either, but she didn’t contradict him, letting that little bit of hope linger in the air.
He held her for the longest time, her hips straddling his, but she didn’t have the energy for sex. She only needed to feel him. Sleep was threatening to pull her under when Isaac kissed her forehead.
“Merry Christmas, Turquoise. I love you.”
She pulled back so she could look up into his eyes. “Merry Christmas, my lumberjack.” They kissed softly. “I didn’t think it was the twenty-fifth yet.”
“It’s not. It’s December twenty-third. I just couldn’t wait any longer to wish you a merry Christmas.”
Isaac didn’t look away from her, but she knew he was lying. He didn’t think they were going to live until Christmas Day—only two days away.
Weakness had become Kate’s constant state of being. She slept more hours than she was awake, but she thought that was good because it conserved her energy.
Laying her head back on his chest, she wrapped her arms around his waist and listened to his heartbeat.
“Do you remember last Christmas?” he whispered. There was no reason to whisper, but they did it a lot, or they talked softly. Maybe they unconsciously didn’t want to make too big a wave out into the universe and have the room dissolve. If they were quiet, they could stay wrapped in each other’s arms a little longer, hoping for someone to rescue them.
