FLY BOY - Completed

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

River could not remember ever having felt so awful. She felt like she might be sick at any moment and her pounding headache wasn't helping.  She reached over to grab the small garbage pail from beside her night table. She thought that if she didn't make it to the washroom, which was way down at the end of the hall, that at least the pail would be better than nothing. Her reaching fingers touched something strange beside her. Her eyes flew open. Her heart rate accelerated from zero to sixty when she realized that the firm, warm lump laying beside her was... holy freaking hell... Dayden Johnston. Her hand was on Dayden Johnston's bare chest. He was sleeping right beside her. In the same bed. With no shirt on. River's heart rate raced into overdrive. Surely Dayden was wearing something. Surely he was not lying nude beside her. What had happened last night?

River's drastically spiked heart rate was making it hard for her to breathe. She continued to gasp as she frantically crawled as far away from Dayden as possible. Incredibly enough, it was more important to River, to put space between her and Dayden, than it was for her to get oxygen into her lungs. The only good thing she discovered was that at least she was wearing clothes. She had on a big baggy tee shirt and a pair of baggy boxers. The good feeling went right out the window as she came to the conclusion that the clothes she was wearing were not hers. Whose clothes was she wearing? As she asked herself that question her whole body started to shake.

All the commotion startled Dayden into an instant wide-awake state. He sprung to his knees. He seemed worried that something was wrong with River. Though all she cared about was the fact that he was dressed in shorts, his sudden movement and his big owl eyes caused her breathing to escalate to DEFCON level two - just one level away from full on nuclear fall out. 

Recognizing that River was headed towards another panic attack, Dayden tried his best to ease her anxiety. "River, you need to calm down," he said in a soothing voice, his hands palms out in front of him, as if to say 'it's all good.'

His words did not help though. River was still processing his presence in her bed, in her room... she looked around. Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. This was not her bed. This was not her room. She was not in her room. Whose room was it? Holy freaking double hell, was this Dayden's room? She broke out into a clammy sweat. Her breathing grew more sporadic and wispy. 

"River! You are starting to hyperventilate," Dayden said more forcefully. "You have to take bigger, slower breaths." He jumped up from the bed and started to furiously search the room. 

River's eyes followed Dayden as he grabbed a suitcase from the floor and quickly unzipped it. River's eyes narrowed as she noted that the suitcase that Dayden was now frantically emptying onto the floor was in fact hers and all the contents that were spilling out onto the floor, all belonged to her. She noted her filled knapsack sitting on the floor next to her bulging gym bag. She could see her silver picture frame at the top of the partially zipped bag. It was the picture of River when she was younger with her mom on one side of her and her father on the other side. The picture had been taken right after her last piano recital. Once again her eyes grew large as she concluded that it was all of her stuff, her belongings that Dayden was rummaging through. What were her belongings doing in Dayden's room?

With that last thought River's face turned a deathly shade of pale blue as she continued to struggle to suck air into her lungs. She was feeling dizzy and her whole body was tingling. She watched as Dayden picked up the purple velvet drawstring bag that had belonged to her mother. He dumped out all of her mother's jewellery. She saw her mother's gold treble note broach fall to the carpet. That's when she felt herself fall as well. 

Dayden was next to her in seconds. He was trying to suffocate her with her mother's purple velvet bag. She tried to fight him, to stop him from covering her mouth. All she wanted was air and he was covering her mouth with the bag. He was trying to kill her, she was sure. Why was Dayden trying to kill her? She had no strength left. Her tingling hands fell to the bed and no matter how she willed them to move they would not obey. Dayden was screaming something at her, but she couldn't make it out. She refused to look at him. If she was going to die, she did not want his frantic face to be the last thing she saw. She looked over his shoulder towards the only window in the room. She focused on a small sticker on the window. It was hard to make out, but just before her eyes closed the words came into focus. "Special Operation's windows are alarmed with Counterforce Security."