Wild Tiger Chase | Book #2 (Complete)

41: into the mist (Part I)

— Rob — 

He must've passed out at some point because the last thing Rob remembered was to be pushed inside Marlo's NAV while a thick red fog advanced towards them. He thought he had heard muffled conversations and some swearing, but as the pain in his temples increased, so did the silence in his mind. Then, everything stopped.

And now, with a pounding head and exhausted muscles, Rob was waking up in a bed.

He closed and opened his eyes, grunting. Rob looked around and tried to recognize the furniture, then the decoration, but... he couldn't. Nothing made sense in there.

"Where the fuck am I?" he mumbled. Rob looked to the side and met an open window framed by white curtains dancing with the breeze. Against the light coming from outside, a gray dresser doubled as a holoframes rack.

Rob massaged his temples and narrowed his eyes, staring at the frames. He was close enough to recognize himself in one of them, wearing trunks and carrying something long and thin under his left arm. A board? What kind of board was that, all pointy and with so many fins?

When he tried to get up, he noticed the arm resting on his chest. Rob frowned and looked downward. At his side, a man shifted and breathed in a lungful of air. Something cold swirled in Rob's stomach when he met the thick golden band of a wedding ring in the man's hand.

"You woke up early." The man pressed a kiss on Rob's shoulder, full lips smiling against his skin. "Are you surfing today?"

Rob's eyes stung, but his whole body relaxed at once. He took Léon's hand and kissed the small mole on his inner wrist, the center of his palm, then the tips of his fingers. The bed creaked when he turned around and raised a hand to comb Léon's silky hair aside, pushing dark-brown strands from his face. Léon's skin was even darker than usual, sunkissed and soft with a gentle smell of aftershave and that musky-seaweed shower gel Rob adored. With his hand cradling Léon's face, he noticed that his own skin looked a lot more tanned as well.

"Something wrong, Bhalu?" Léon asked in a whisper. He caressed the fine hairs on Rob's chest and frowned. "Did you have a nightmare again?"

"No. I'm well, it's just..." Rob blinked the tears away. His breathing hitched; he couldn't understand where all these emotions were coming from, but they hit him like a truck, leaving his voice all wobbly and teary. "This... this is our room."

Léon's eyebrows shot up, and he let out a bark of laughter. "It has been for the past three years or so." After a moment, a soft crease formed on his forehead. "Oh, Bhalu." Léon kissed his cheeks one at a time. "Are you sure you're all right, my love?"

Rob looked around, and the memories came back to him. His surfing board was over there beside his trophies, and his teaching certificate was tacked to the wall right beside Léon's flight school diploma.

"Look at me, Bhalu," Léon whispered.

Rob did, but his eyes soon unfocused again.

Behind Léon, in the reading area near their closet, he saw Léon's guitar, a big vase of night-dame bush, and a pretty painting that in no way looked professional.

It was horrifying.

A shiver crossed Rob's back. The painting showed a little beach house inf front of a red ocean; the orange clouds in the sky looked toxic, and the two figures leaving the water had deep, bloody cuts covering their whole bodies.

Wait. There was fog leaving the painting?

What the bloody hell? Rob strained his eyes and managed to read the childish signature at the right-hand corner.