The Test

Seventeen

A week later

The door to my apartment splinters under their fists. Soldiers. They've been banging down the door for the last three minutes, at least. My bare feet hit the floor beneath my bed with soft slaps, barely audible over the noise of the soldiers. I take a step towards the door, but then someone appears behind me. I whirl around to face the new presence, heart beating out of my chest, a scream building in my throat. A hand clamps over my mouth. "Shh," Luc's voice comes out of the darkness, a low, velvet whisper that wraps around me like warm chocolate.

"How did you get in here?" I ask in a whisper, incredulous.

He shakes his head, grinning slightly. "Doesn't matter."

This is a dream, after all, his eyes say.

He takes his hand from my mouth and steps back. He's suddenly serious - his eyes darken, his hands rest on my shoulders."What matters is that they're coming for you. You have to leave. Now." He takes a step toward the door, and I realise what he's about to do. "No, Luc!" I cry, jumping at him and managing to wrestle him against the door, if only because I caught him by surprise. "You are not going out there, Lucas," I whisper fiercely, tightening my grip on his shoulders. But he just reaches up and removes my hands slowly, holding them in both of his for a second before letting them drop and running a finger, then a hand, down my cheek in a soft, tender caress. Without thinking about it, I lean into his palm. He lets me, and makes no move to leave. But just as I start to relax, the loudest crash I've ever heard rips through the apartment and soldiers' voices fill the once still air. The boy before me stiffens, then shoots me a look that is at once knowing, sad and regretful, and whispers sadly; "You and I both know what I have to do."

'No," I whisper, softly, fiercely, as he presses his lips to mine once, letting them linger there for a second before drawing back. "Please," I whisper, something breaking inside me. I'm already utterly hopeless; the word is all I have left to give.

"I'll protect your parents with my life," he whispers; the words he didn't say but should have hovering in the air like a broken promise - and, as the soldiers start opening doors to check who's inside, he slips out of mine. I fling open the door and run into the hallway just in time to see him dive in front of my father, who is jumping to attack the soldier still holding a gun. A gun that's still pointing at my mother's now lifeless body.

Just in time to see the bullet hit him in the chest from that same gun that killed my mother; the gun that moved before I could react.

Just in time to hear the scream rip from my own lips as I run to him, trying in vain to catch him before he falls.

And I know then that this is not a dream, but a nightmare.

I wake with that same scream on my lips.

"NO!"

My legs shake with cold as I swing out of bed. I know I shouldn't do this, but I am anyway. I have to see whether it was my imagination, I reason as I pull on my boots for the trek across to the barn. I have to see if he's ok.

Of course he's ok, I chide myself. It was a dream. No. A nightmare.

He couldn't have been there. You weren't even there when your parents died. The whole thing was a product of your fear about them and your feelings for him-

Oh no. A blush creeps up my cheeks as I imagine the way he cupped my cheek in his palm and kissed me - chastely but with an intensity that conveyed the feelings I imagined he had for me...

I should just stop now, before I die in a hole - a hole that I buried myself in.

Still. I have to see.