Blue Blood and Belgium Chocolate

|10| Of Nightmares pt 2

PRINCE DAEGAN

The moment I first felt alive, was when a grenade had hit a soldier I'd just met a five meters away from me. I'd done what any logical man had done. I'd run away. I swear, I'd never ran faster than I did. We all did, we had seconds to escape and fear was a song among all of us. It's only then, in that moment of utter fear, I'd felt alive.

It's almost tantamount on incidents with high adrenaline, only then, does your body truly push yourself to hit what it's been capable of. The most extreme length I've gone, the last was when I'd dragged myself & my crushed leg to safety.

Each time, I'm breathless that it's possible.

And after, I'm so drained, it's a herculean effort to move my head.

The moments in between would slip through my fingers like water. Hard to hold in the palm of your hands but the brief feeling that's almost mind-numbing in essence. 

I sit, outside of the room Laurie has been kept in. It's one of the spare rooms we had on the bottom floor. It's also the makeshift medical room with a full time nurse to care for. The doctor wasn't in during the night shifts. 

I tried to stay in the room with him, I truly did but the smell of liquor, blood and vile brought up one too many unpleasant memories and bile and the back of my throat.

I hear footsteps. Someone had woken up Adaliz. With the mess of guards and staff, to narrow down who would be as useless as finding a needle in a haystack. He's dressed in shirts and slacks, but the shirt is a little messy which was the only indicator that he'd been rudely awoken. 

With a sharp glare in my direction, Adaliz asks "What did you do?"

I shake my head, "this is not me this time."

Adaliz doesn't stop moving, he walks forward to look at Laurie but when he opens his door, his face scrunches up in a look of utter disgust. Like me, he can't take the smell. There's only so much love for Laurie he has to withstand it. He looks in long enough to see that Laurie isn't conscious. 

"What happened?" Adaliz asks me. 

I didn't know, but I tell him everything I'd seen and what we did and learnt with the girl that had followed him. 

"Father isn't going to like this," Adaliz replies weary when I'm done.

"We don't have to tell him."

He raises his eyebrows, "You think he isn't waking up right this instant?"

And of course, he's right. Within minutes, mother runs past us, a robe covering her for Laurie's room. I wondered how long it would take for her to run back out. We hear her shouting at the staff demanding for the doctor to be in right this second.

"We should let her know what happens?" I say, rising to stand.

"There's no point in panicking her right now. Wait for the full story." Adaliz rubs the space on his nose between his eyes. He coughs, a dry cough. I wait for him to finish. "Also, father will be here soon. I'd like it if you stayed with me to deal with father."

"Okay," I reply silently.

Father comes a minute after out mother. He's dressed well, wearing his shirt, slacks and a belt.

No one would think he'd just been woken up.

As he walks in the wing. He see's Adaliz and I sitting waiting for the doctor. "What's going on?" He asks Adaliz. He doesn't bother to go in. I can't help but wonder what happened in the decade I hadn't been home between father and Laurie.