It Comes in Waves

Seventy Three

Louis holds onto my mind tightly.

He grips onto me and pleads and sobs when I start to drift. He's insistent that I stay, and I want to, but somehow it's difficult. Somehow it's almost impossible, because the pain always tries to bring me back.

The one time his crying and pleading doesn't work, my mind slips back with a snap so quick and painful that it reminds me of a rubber band breaking.

There is a man touching me, lying beside me on the sheets, but he isn't Louis, he's the Head Peacekeeper, and he's sweaty, and I'm screaming because he's naked. He shouldn't be naked.

I'm back with Louis almost immediately, my skin prickling and my stomach rolling and my heart breaking.

Louis strokes my hair back from my forehead and Gemma fuses over me, spreading a blanket over my legs and shooting angry looks at Louis. I don't know why she's angry at him. Louis whispers lovely things to me. He describes beautiful islands in the middle of the sea and underwater caves and fields full of my favorite flowers.

His words are smooth and whatever panic had taken over my spine ebbs out and I relax against the cushions, keeping my eyes on his because I have this distinct feeling that if I let myself be aware of anything but him I'm going to fade away, far away, back to a place where I'm-

No. No, don't think it. Don't acknowledge it. Nothing is happening. You don't know what is happening. You're fine.

Gemma finally tires of obsessively smoothing the blanket.

"Louis, you can't just pretend nothing is happening." She tells him, her voice thin and tight with stress and anger and maybe even sadness.

Her face is pale and her eyes dart nervously over to mine, but I can't look away from Louis'. When he turns to glance at her, I feel like something is breaking me apart.

My hand automatically rises and reaches for him at the same moment a gasp of pain escapes from my mouth for some reason. He turns back immediately, his eyes filled with a concern that is leaking free.

He keeps his eyes on me and his hands linked with mine as he replies to Gemma.

"What exactly would you rather I do, Gemma?" He inquires. "Scream it at him? Do you think knowing would make this any easier?"

His words are soft but somehow they are so loud they make my head ache. I pull my hands free from his and press my hands over my ears, because it hurts, it's not loud but it hurts and it echoes around my head. Louis shoots a pointed look at Gemma, who merely frowns deeper. Their voices sound far away when Gemma responds.

"Denial isn't helpful. It's cowardly and Harry's not a coward. We need to be helping him come to peace with what-

"Come to peace? Take it from someone who has been there. There's no coming to peace with something like this!" Louis replies incredulously. My eyes are wide as his fill with tears. "They're using his body, and-

The rest of his sentence is muffled. I press the heels of my hands so hard over my ears that all I hear is an echoing.

Gemma's eyes soften immediately.

"I know, I'm sorry, that isn't what I meant. I didn't mean to undermine what you've been through. I just meant that we need to help him while we can, while he's here with us. There's no telling what this will do to his mind. We might never get the chance again."

She stops abruptly and peers at Louis with almost a desperate look. She is searching for something, and when she asks her next question, I know it's answers she's looking for. "How can they do that to him? He's not even there mentally. How can they just throw him down and-"