(It's) Always There
Copyright© 2026 by Daniel Tors
Chapter 25
...
...
...
...
Not laying, not still, not relaxed, not stirring, not breathing, but thinking, but unnerved, but tense, but writhing, but choking. She grabs at anything – their sheets, herself. She makes sounds. She whimpers. Her thoughts are in a place. Her body is warm. Her air comes in wrong, goes out wrong.
A girl is sleeping. A girl is dreaming. A girl beside him is having a nightmare. A girl beside him tries to speak, but can’t. A girl beside him is crying.
...
Case turned the lamp on.
The sound, and her eyelids drifted up, a little sore and definitely wet. Their shared room encased by dark beyond the walls, he was sat upright. He wasn’t, earlier.
Away from him, cold soak was on her pillow and cheek. “Was I ... Did I wake you up?”
“No. I’ve been awake.”
To him. The wolf didn’t look in kind. “Sorry. I had a bad dream.”
... There’d be no sleeping tonight; not again. So the tiger wondered, up on her elbows, “Do you want some company?”
A shrug Is what she got. Navy sat up in bed, covered waist-down by her comforter, staring forward at nothing. Like him.
...
“How long have you been awake?” Bad question. She knew. “I mean, like ... h-how late is it.”
“A while. It’s after three.”
...”What do you wanna do tomorrow? Or, today, I mean. Can do whatever, ‘cause we’re off ... not that you forgot.”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
...
She couldn’t sit quietly. “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
...
Navy picked at her blanket. “You, uh ... Sleeping together – or not, sleeping together, I mean...” Holy FUCK take the words out and speak like a normal fucking person. “If it’s not easy to sleep next to me, you can go. I won’t mind.”
“It’s not that. I’m just awake.”
“Okay.”
...
Come on. Did this feel bad? Did it hurt? Was he hurting you?
What were you doing? What were you thinking.
The fuck were you doing.
...
Navy would beg, slump her back and wilt her voice and sink and sink and stoop lower ... lower, trying to talk to him, making sounds so she could hear him again – so she could be quiet.
Please.
“Case ... I want to know what you’re thinking. You can say whatever, I ... I just want to know you. You can talk and then I could talk, about anything. Please talk to me.”
“ ... Will it make you feel better?”
“Yes.”
...
“I was thinking about how I got here. A long time ago, I met a woman named Atlanta. The gang I was in found her surviving alone; we could take someone, she was useful, so we did. She was fucked in the head – tried and usually failed to hit people she didn’t like, and was overall a petty dick to us. Good at moving quietly, good at staying awake, good at sewing and other things, so whatever. You want to see her picture?”
As ... As in a picture that’s hers or a picture of her? How would– “Sure.”
Its location in his bag of things was known exactly by Case. The photo was of a wolf not much older than Case exposing some of her bra, pose charming and playful though a bit hard to see in the dark ... An eye lost or hurt, beneath a medical patch. Etchings into skin made etchings on fur, scars made into words, on her stomach, on her arms, on her face. She’d lived with them for quite a while. The paper was creased at her neck.
“We liked each other. That’s from a “date” – now I think about it – that she was trying to make happen. I’d never seen a wind-up battery work, or an electric flash of light, or a woman’s chest before ... She fucked, we fucked, then only we fucked. Atlanta mellowed out, and we ignored everyone that wasn’t us unless we had to. I didn’t care that she never told me who cut those words into her, or why; I didn’t care what she did, or how she did it.”
The story continued. “When there were only three of us left, my friend Logan was killed while clearing some building, and I was shot in the gut. I fainted. Atlanta put me in a closet, left me, and I never saw her again ... I blamed her a lot. I thought about her a lot ... for as long as I was alone, so about a year-and-a-half. But I don’t blame her so much anymore. I was dying. There was no good reason to believe I would wake up again, and there’s no way she could have known if the man chasing us was Burned or not. To live, Atlanta’s choice made sense. I knew that then, too. And I could have looked for her. Maybe I would have found her. I killed a man for her, and for Logan. Even with that, I didn’t look because Atlanta already told me I wasn’t worth dying for. So I left her, for that, and she’s probably dead now. That’s how it is sometimes.”
...
“I’ve killed a lot of people. I’ve put a hole in every area bodies have, cut open throats, hit people so hard they crack and swell and bleed, choked them on the floor in silence, counting the seconds and minutes until they suffocate to death. I don’t remember all of them – all the people I’ve taken the life of. Instead, I remember catching Atlanta scraping those words into her body to make sure they’ll never fade, whimpers through the gaps between her teeth. Anything more intimate than casual sex and she’d lock up, freezing when eyes met, mumbling every word, flinching when I’d touch certain places, all confidence slipping away, and she never said anything was wrong. She never would ... not that I asked very often.”
“A lot of people hurt her. I tried to help, and she left me to die. She wanted to live, and I killed her. A man defended his home, and I ripped his throat out for it.”
“ ... It’s only by total chance I didn’t die too. Could’ve gotten an infection, or bled out so bad there was nothing I could do about it, or tore something vital, or my organs spilled out, or he found me, or he heard me sooner, or I was shot in the head not the gut, or it hit my spine, or the Burned snapped my neck instead of my arm, or Hane didn’t kill it in time, or Red missed, or anyone at any point in my life just happened to kill me instead of not. Chance. Red could have lived, but chance didn’t allow it like all the other times. I could have died instead. Hane could have. You could have. Or nobody, if I didn’t take us to the library.”
“I’ve never been trained. Not anything more than a couple moves here and there, a couple ideas to keep in mind. I just had a knack for killing things, and it all worked out for me. I guess, and it works. I put a lot of thought in, both when I’m fighting and when I’m not, but I don’t actually know how to fight. The Burned do, Hane does, Red did. I get away with it because I’m young. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy thinking about it. I don’t like guns. I don’t like shooting them. I don’t enjoy killing. I don’t like people. I don’t like having friends. I don’t like talking. I don’t like walking. I don’t enjoy scenery. My sleep is instant and I never feel rested. People don’t trust me. I don’t trust them. People hurt me. People would kill me if it meant they lived. I don’t know what I want ... But I keep waking up. I keep walking. I keep following orders. I keep believing in others. I keep killing. I try to do what helps. I keep my mind off it. But if every second of my life is hate and pain, then why do I keep getting up? I don’t even know what I want.”
... His voice was still, molding water.
“Atlanta could’ve gotten here, to where everyone has been fighting to live, and it would be no different. We’ve both killed to get here, not knowing why, it’s just that I happened to make it, and she never will.” The wolf saw into her. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
...
It was.
...
...
The tiger asked, “ ... Why’d you turn the light on?”
“Because you were having a bad dream. You were crying. I didn’t know what else to do.”
...
The tiger asked, “ ... Would you feel better if I told you about my dream?”
“ ... Sure. If you want to.”
Where to start. “Well, uhm ... I–”
Deep. Deep inside. “I was dreaming about when mom died. I woke up and heard stuff and the exit wasn’t blocked and she was supposed to go outside and ... I saw her on the cameras with four other guys. They were talking. I don’t know why, but she was threatening one of them and I think she’d shot him already. Then she ... killed them. She shot one of them in the neck and...” A long, hard gulp, and her eyes closed. “He – the hostage – was shot in the head while he was on the [gag] ... floor. The other two guys tried to kill her back but they couldn’t. Before she g-got the last one, he set off a grenade that killed him and h-hurt h-her really bad ... while I sat downstairs and watched. I was in the chair again. My body wouldn’t move again. I was explaining to myself, again, ‘She’s better at this; what could I do; I don’t know what I’m doing; I’d make it worse; it’s hard to get out anyway; she’s doing good,’ and now she’s dead. One ‘boom’ from over me, I-I can’t see wha’s happening anymore, and then she was dead. There was nothing anyone could do to help anymore; a-and I tried ... to help. After she was dead I got some gauze and picked out th-th-the shrapnel and she just k-kept bleeding so much and soaking all the bandages and I...” No. Not yet. “I-I could barely move [hhe] ‘cause I’d held her too tight and cried too hard for too long. I felt like I was dying. I felt like I was d-dead and I didn’t know what to do so ... maybe dig a grave, but, ‘Mum said go back inside. I promised.’ So I did, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to dig a grave. I-in-instead I curled up on the [sniff] floor and puked my guts out. The only thing I did for her between laying on my bed, crying, and vomiting was put a blanket over her, nail some boards over the window, and lock the door forever and never go in again ... Anything I ate came back up it was really really bad, so bad I filled bags or dry-heaved if n-nothing was in me. So I sat still ... as close to under mum as I could be.”
... Compose yourself.
“I don’t ever know what to do. Or if I should help, or if I even could. Mum never told me how to do important stuff, like ... immediate survival, kinds of things. Nobody ever did ... Basic sense would suggest helping my mom not die in a shootout against four guys would be the right thing to do ... but I guess not. Could have at least tried. At least she’d know I tried, even if it meant I got killed instead, or ... whatever might have happened. I would have tried, and she would have seen it. I’d be a better daughter that didn’t watch my mother get killed while doing nothing.” That’s what you did. “That’s what I did ... Never stopped. I sat around, ate my rations, and cried like a little bitch over and over. Tried doing what I did before, and I cried. Tried doing new things, and I cried. Even if I wasn’t bawling myself into a puddle, my sight would get so blurry that I was useless. Mom wasn’t there anymore – to make me feel better. Mom was a corpse rotting just a few feet above me while I learned science facts or played a game with myself, eating food that was for her, not me. I had guns. I could go outside. I could go find how to do anything I’d need to keep living, but I stayed in my little home, crying and feeling sorry, curled up every night with my arms around whatever was big and soft. I was going to get myself killed doing that – or as close to it as I could. Then you three showed up ... How lucky I get to keep acting like a pampered child while everybody else does my job for me, pity taken on the poor girl that can’t help herself.”
...
Now’s good. This is what you get.
Tears wet her cheeks, a wail seeped into her voice. Destroyed. “M-m-my first m-memory ever is from-m mom’s shoulder, o-of dad slum-mped over a car. [hu-hhu] He’d been k-killed. He cared for m-mom an’ me. He pr-rotected us, and he died for-r us. That’s what everybody sa-ays. Dad died for me, and mom died for me, and Red died to save me, and s-s-oo many peo’le have been killed so I ge-t to live. But nobody says wh-why. I don’t know what they would even say. Ev-rybody l-looks and thinks, ‘Wow, what a stupid u-seless moronic girl that needs to be saved.’ Why? Wha’ did I-I do fo-r that? And they’re right. I’m a fu-cking idiot that needs everything done f-for me. What I know isn’t worth anything, I can’t shoot, I ca-n’t stay c-calm, I-I’m not talented, I can’t make friends, I can’t fucking t-talk right, I can’t blen’ in; I’m good at walking behind someon’ else doing it all f-for me while I play helper with my a-nm ... am ... MMMMMMMMM! with my animals which I have to be told how to do also. So why? Why me? Why do I-I get to be here? I left my home to rot. I don’t remember if all the electronics are off. It might burn down. Mom’s body might get turned to ash because I was too ‘Mm ... em ... uh ... oh no ... maybe?’ to use a little backbone and make sure. The things I did with her – all of them – turned to charred black nothing because I was too much of a bitch to ask. Either way? I left it. I got my mom killed. I got Red killed. I got my dad killed. I...”
Do it.
Say it.
Come on.
Dig the fucking hole. Bury yourself. Sob like rotting flesh over what you did ... who you are.
“I pointed a gun at the back of a stranger and murdered him because I was scared. I didn’ ... I-I don’ kn-know who he [h-hhh-h-hh] wa-s or why he wa’ dere or what he wanned or ... I wen’ upstairs t-to him. H-hhe was defen’ing himself, and might have t-mm-taken me down not s-ure what t’ do with the body of some dumb g-girl that obviousl-y knew nothing about any-thing. I didn’t know, shot him from behind, and now he’s d-d-ecomposing in a pile of shit and trash f-orever because I panicked.”
No no; there’s more to get out – to tell him.
“After the library, I-I ran away, an’ I wasn’t su-ure where to g-go or...” The heat in your face is good. The tears are good. Tell him. “I went t-to see the man I killed again. I wanted to s-see Red, b-because of what I did, because h-he gave his life f-or me, even if we didn’ like eeach other a lot. At the back door, I stood w-ith it open, looking at the trees – if I wen’ out at walked an’ never stopped then you and Hane wouldn’t be able to find me. W-we’d never have to meet again.” It’s okay. You can cry. “I could go until I collapsed, or probably before that, die slowly, and never have to look at them ... or think about you ever gain. I-i-i-i-t would be over forever an’ ever because I’m dead. I stood there for so-o long ... and I got re-ally close, over-r and over.”
A couple more.
“Fucking ... All I can ever think about is, ‘Me me me me me me me. I feel bad.’ I didn’t walk into the forest because I wanted somebody to like me. I wanted you to change your mind. I wanted ... to see you again. I wanted somebody to make me feel better. How utterly, completely fucking pathetic. Everybody is dead and all I want is for a boy to like me. ‘Please gimme nice feelies, no bad meanie ones.’ I’d do anything for it ... You were drunk, and I knew I could get away with it so I let us be together, knowing that you didn’t really want it – that you’d hurt after. I didn’t even like your mouth on me, I just wanted you to be close. I took advantage of you. I hurt you. Like usual.”
One more.
...
“Mom never told me, but I was an accident. They didn’t have me on purpose and ... why would you? I was born and entered their lives and ruined everything. I killed my dad and made my mom cry every day – made her hide all the pain until it burst, doing it for her hapless little girl.”
Let it out.
“I should have helped my mom.”
“I killed my parents.”
“I’m a mistake.”
“Any stranger should have killed me.”
“I should have never been born.”
“I should have gone into the woods and killed myself by now.”
“Everyone would be happier if I was never here.”
...
Was that good for you?
...
...
Navy’s self collapsed inward. “I don’t feel any better.”
And there she goes again. Who was this supposed to be for?
...
... [sniffle]
...
Next to her, a body came closer, side-to-side, elbow-to-elbow; touching. It grasped Navy’s head, reclining it to the shoulder beside, a firm ledge of person to rest on. She let it happen. The man’s solid feel pet her once, after, wandering to their midway, the girl taken at her knee...
It beat fast. It beat slow. Back again, weird, in either way, and always ... different, a feeling warm and strange, and confusing. Their connection felt different from how it was. She didn’t know how, yet.
Case told her, “I don’t feel better either ... but I’d like to.”
... What to do. How to be. How’s she supposed to be next to him. What’s she supposed to do. Does she touch him, brush on him, hold him, or is that wrong? Where should she do it ... His arm, his side, his thigh, his neck. How does she put herself ... still, straight, slouched, into him, on him, feeling him. Does she talk. Does she stay quiet. Does she enjoy this.
The boy promised, “You don’t hurt me.”
Her boyfriend concluded, “When we’re together, stop trying so hard to be someone you’re not. I’m here for you.”
... He’d made her lip quiver.
He made Navy want to cry. So she did. At first it was only a few drips on her face, following many from earlier, yet there were so so many more inside her, waiting for the time they should well over her eyes and make the girl whimper, impossible to stop or stifle, running up from her insides from her inner side from her heart pumping and turning and twisting, the feelings it gave clutched to his body as close they could, leg over his, arms around his waist, kicking and heaving, into Case, because he let her, because he was close, because he liked her, because she liked him, because there was so much in her that there was no other way to bring out. She sobbed, and felt horrible. She felt everything, and it was all bad. There was no controlling her, or keeping it forced down. She just cried, however it felt right to. Maybe he’d leave her; maybe she’d kill herself; maybe she was worthless.
Think only of our bodies entwined. Please let me have this, for now.
...
It was dying down, then it would be gone. All in her heart would be all out. She had to cry some more. Pushing it out hurt. She wanted to, anyway.
...
Please let me hold you.
Keep yourself together; verbalize what’s inside. “I-I wan’ to fe-el better ... too.” Cling to him. Meet him between. Look into him. Say it like you mean it ... because it’s true. “You make me feel better.”
... He moved, pulled Navy to the bed on her side, and joined her – so their faces could be closer. They were brought together, at once, from both, forming a hug where all of their fronts touched, body-to-body, head-over-head. They could snuggle up, sensing their partner all over, hot, partway under the covers, smelling like each other, listening to sounds nobody would get to hear any other way. He felt good. She felt good. Neither of them talked. They just hugged. Tighter, tighter ... tighter ... tighter...
They’re together. They’re boyfriend and girlfriend. She was his, and he was hers. They liked it. They enjoyed each other, and wanted more. For now they’d hug. The rest can come later.
... The rest can come later.
The rest can come later.
The rest can come later...
... Rest.
Rest with him.
Rest with her.
...
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