Figment of Dreams - The Skylar Rains Series I

At lunch, I was not feeling my salad. I always did this—wanted to eat healthier and never really liked the options they had. I was picking away at my chicken when Kai popped a tomato in his mouth from my plate.

“Hey!” I protested and acted like I was going to stab him with my fork. He held his hands up like he was surrendering and cheekily chewed on the tomato that was currently between his right teeth. A big bulb was visible on his cheek. The goofball did make me laugh; I’d give him that.

That afternoon, we had a very weird class called Social Study, which I didn’t like. It had the strangest subjects, and this one wasn’t any different. The teacher, Mrs. Newman, an elderly woman with white curly hair and too much lipstick that always ended up sticking to her front teeth, announced our next subject.

“Parenting!” she squealed as if that was the greatest thing in the world. I was sitting next to Kai, as usual, and rolled my eyes. Kai smirked. “She sure as hell is very happy with the subject. If it involves making babies, especially the making part, I’m down. You too, baby?” He winked at me, and I knew he wasn’t being serious, but sometimes it was hard to tell with the layer of flirting and a dash of sarcasm Kai used in everything he said. Behind me, Jax snorted. I ignored both of them.

The teacher held a fake baby in her hands. It was apparently a test baby they often used at pregnancy centers to teach parents some basic things. It pooped, it cried, it needed milk. The whole shebang. I was not liking where this was going.

“For the next week, you and your partner will take care of this baby. We will be testing the baby at the end of the week to make sure you have done your tasks. How we will check? You will not know beforehand!” she still squealed as if this was the best thing in the world, and all I could think about was that the fake baby could poop? What the heck...

“You and your partner will alternate the baby, feed it, change it, sleep next to it. To make sure it survives the week in good health.” At least I would be parenting it with Kai; that was the only bright point about this.

“I have chosen the parent teams myself,” she proudly said, and I was already feeling nauseous, my gut instinct telling me I won’t be with Kai for this project. This was not going well.

Kai tensed up beside me, already feeling the same ominous foreboding I did. She announced the list happily. “Kai and Malin.” Fuck, I thought or said out loud.

Next to me, Kai shook his head, but from behind me, I heard a low laugh.

“Jax and Lux.” My heart dropped to my stomach. I felt my blood swoosh to my ears. This was not happening.

“Excuse me, miss, can we switch partners?” It was Jax. Of course, it was Jax. That damaged my fragile heart again. He must stop doing that; I can’t wait to be away from him next year.

Kai nodded at the teacher as if that would help. “We will do no such thing, Mr. Skylar. You will finish your assignment or fail my class. Is that clear?” Jax grunted a response, but I didn’t comprehend any of it. The teacher dropped the baby on my desk, and I just stared at it, dumbfounded, like it was a monster.

I was parenting this thing with Jax? Lord help me. He hasn’t said two things to me in the last couple of years, and when he speaks to me, it’s usually something cruel.

I felt a shadow loom over me, and a lemon-pinewood scent came with it. This made me realize Jax and Kai smelled a little the same. Kai’s had more sandalwood in it, but still a pine scent. Perhaps it was a Rainer thing.

“Well… Elmrose… I guess it’s you and me. Like the old days,” he added with a treacherous smirk like he couldn’t wait to torture me some more. Kai turned around so quickly that I heard his neck crack. A dangerous storm brewed in his ocean-blue eyes.

“Listen to me, Skylar, one hair on her head and I have yours.” He snarled between clenched teeth, jaw clenched. Jax gave him his lethal smile again. “Trust me, Welkin, I wouldn’t touch her in the slightest.” Contempt and disgust laced his voice. A pang of hurt grabbed my heart and pulled. I suddenly had to push back tears and anger. A whole lot of anger.

I grabbed the baby and pushed it into his chest with a much harsher push than I thought I would be capable of. Jax grunted from the impact and stumbled backward, stunned for a second. I stood up and looked him in the eye with so much menace I was almost spitting fire.

“We will not fail this class, you hear me? Whatever your problem is with me. Put it aside for one fucking week! I am graduating this year, so I can get to fuck away from you!” My words came out in such a deep growl it even scared me. Kai and Jax were staring at me like I was the Rainer in the room. I turned on my heel and stormed out, leaving Jax flabbergasted with the baby still clutched in his hands.

The next couple of days were madness. The baby kept on crying each night. For some reason, I was the one to take care of it because of course, I was. Kai and Malin took their baby every other day, and that was a good solution. That was what a healthy partnership should look like.

By day five, I was so cranky from lack of sleep, and the nightmares didn’t help either. I was sitting on my couch watching TV when the baby cried again, and I snapped. Completely lost my marbles because my feet were moving towards my front door of their own accord. I stalked over to the neighbors in a couple of long strides. Baby under my arm, crying his little heart out. I wanted to strangle the doll for real. I might be more messed up than I realized.

I rang the doorbell furiously, and I might have overdone it with the number of times I pressed the little button. Jax opened the door, eyebrow raised, a smirk on his face. Clearly expecting it was me. He was naked from the waist up. Long blond mane flapped to one side, scruffy blond beard longer than usual. Grey sweatpants hung low on his hips. He had new tattoos all over his chest, all black, and all different snapshots of his life. I saw a guitar, I saw an ocean. A few signs in Mons, the Rainer main language. For a moment, I was forgetting everything. Standing there like a total idiot with my mouth agape. Then I realized what I was here for when the baby let out a long whining shriek.

“You…!” I stuttered angrily. “You can’t just let me take care of that thing at night!” my voice came out much weaker. He still had that effect on me after all these years. Jax just took me in, head to toe, his eyes slowly wandering over my body. Then I realized I was only wearing my camisole, and it was cold out. Or it was just Jax. I saw his expression change from something deeper, more hidden and private, to his usual cold disdain.

“We agreed. I take the bastard during the day. You take the night shift. Has that changed, Elmrose?” I stared him down.

“My name is Lux. Stop calling me by my last name as if you don’t know!” Or call me Lulu or Freckles, as his nicknames for me once were. Anything other than my last name, which he used to reserve for all the people he hated.

Another pang of heartbreak shook me, but I didn’t show it.

“Lux, has our plan changed? Because tonight, I have company. I can’t have a baby to look after.” He glanced at the doll, which hung upside down between my arms, whining and crying, and he wrinkled his nose at it.

Behind him, I could make out a pair of heels. That affected me more than I realized. “Tomorrow, this baby is yours. It’s the weekend, so make sure you come and collect it in time. We need to write the paper together before Sunday evening, and I also have plans.”

This made him laugh, as if that was absolutely absurd.

“With whom?” As if I could ever have plans with anyone. Bastard.

“With Kai.” I left out that Malin was coming too, but that was something he didn’t need to know right now. His mood changed instantly, Kai working on him like a red cloth on a bull.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll be there. Tomorrow.”

I sighed. “Sunday is fine. Tomorrow, Kai is here. As I just told you…”

He stared at me, brooding, his mind going into overdrive for just a second before he responded. “Sunday won’t work for me. I will come by tomorrow.” And he slammed the door shut in my face.

“Asshole!” I yelled at the closed door and stalked back to my place with a crying baby under my arm, fully prepared for another night of nightmare hopping and running away from my Dark Stalker again. Because stress always brought out the worst of those nightmares, and I knew I was in for a treat today.

Saturday evening came rather quickly despite not having slept a single bit last night, and Jax was coming over to drop the baby at my place. He had taken care of it all day, and to my surprise, he had been at my door to collect it this morning.

Kai was already here, sitting on my couch casually, flipping through the movies on Netflix. Malin was running late with their baby.

“What about Antman?” he asked me, popcorn in his hand, which he plopped down into his big mouth in one swoop. I was in the kitchen fixing us some drinks.

“We already saw that one a couple of weeks ago, remember?” I put some ice cubes in our gin tonics.

“Really? I thought it was the other Marvel one?”

As I was walking back, the doorbell rang. I opened it and saw Jax with the baby under his arm like it was a bag of rice. He was wearing his track shorts and tee; he had just come back from his football practice. He had showered at the scene because his hair was wet and smelling like that favorite shampoo he always uses, a touch of mint in it somewhere.

“Here is the little stinker,” Jax announced, while throwing the child at me like a football, which I could barely pluck from the air before it crashed, and he strutted in without invitation. He pranced toward the living room as he had done a million times.

“Well, come on in,” I added sarcastically. Like a complete asshole, he grabbed one of the two gin tonics I had made and placed it on the counter before I opened the door. He sipped from it. I placed the baby on the back of the couch and took the other glass protectively in my hands.

“That was Kai’s!” I said, stunned.

“Nothing here is Kai’s,” he added coolly. I was even more shocked by that statement and said a very loud, strange-sounding “What?”

He ignored me completely and walked toward the couch area, sitting in the lone recliner—an old brown thing we inherited from my late grandma. He used to sit there all the time when we were playing video games back in the day.

I just stood there rooted to the spot, one gin tonic in my hand, flabbergasted by the scene before me. Kai was still lounging and flipping through the movies. He casually waved me over like he couldn’t be bothered at all by Jax’s presence.

I sat down next to him, my legs hitched up, resting on his side. We usually sat like this, or sometimes I let my legs rest over his.

“It’s okay, baby, we’ll share that one.” He slapped my thigh reassuringly, sipped from my glass, and gave it back to me. Jax visibly paled. Kai let his arms fall back and rubbed his hands up and down my lower back soothingly, feeling the tension I had all over my body from having Jax this near.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Skylar?” Kai added casually and sipped from my glass again. “We were just about to watch a movie, and that is kind of difficult with you here,” he added.

Jax was getting so angry, for God knows what reason. Kai always brought this out in him. I could see the thunderclouds rolling behind his eyes.

“I’m here to write a paper, so she is coming with me,” Jax added through clenched teeth and downed his glass in one big gulp. He stood up and held his hand out to me. I was looking at it like it was going to bite. What was happening?

“Come on, Lux. Let’s go upstairs so we can write that paper.” I looked at Kai, panic in my eyes. I was not going anywhere with Jax.

He dropped his hand and sighed. “Fine, you want to write downstairs?” he casually moved his hands to his pockets. He wasn’t even looking at me with his usual disgust. There was something different in his eyes as soon as he saw the panic in mine from having to go somewhere alone with him.

I still couldn’t speak.

“I think that would be wise,” said Kai, still rubbing my back. I was grabbing his knee so hard it would bruise tomorrow.

“Yeah…yeah okay…” I stood up and stumbled a bit. Jax and Kai were both staring at me as if I was an enigma. I probably was.

“I’m just going to get my laptop…” still in shock but functioning, I ran up the stairs to find the thing.

Downstairs, Malin had entered. I heard her high-pitched voice and the low rumble of the boys. I came back down and awkwardly motioned Jax over toward the kitchen table. He was finding my anxious self very amusing, and the Jax from moments ago had disappeared again.

We sat down on the barstools, and I nervously opened the laptop. This was the longest we had been near each other in years. I was bracing myself for the insults and the horrible feeling he could give me.

Like I wasn’t enough and never would be enough.

I couldn’t look him in the eyes as I started typing, even though he was staring at them rather intently, not blinking—a thing Rainers sometimes did. Kai and Malin were on the couch watching some talent show, waiting for me to finish so we could start Iron Man.

I caught Kai looking at me occasionally, trying to ask with his eyes if I was okay, but I wouldn’t give him an answer. I needed to focus and get this over with quickly. I was a complete mess after a while from the nerves of having him near me, but at least I had almost finished the paper.

“Lux, look at me,” Jax said all of a sudden. It was barely a whisper. I looked over at Kai for support, but he hadn’t heard and was chatting away to Malin about the trip he was doing next weekend to Big Bear.

I stopped typing and kept looking at the screen, my breath hitching. He reached out to grab my arm, and I flinched away from him.

“Don’t, just… please don’t,” I breathily added. I looked at him then, and all I saw was concern, worry, and was that shame? No, it couldn’t be…

I just couldn’t have him touch me. Being around him was hurting me enough; I didn’t need physical contact.

“I would not hurt you, you know that, right?” he added casually, as if he hadn’t hurt me every single miserable day for the last four years. Concern laced his entire face. He gave me the look he used to give me when I had been too harsh on the slip-and-slide and hurt my knees every time I did something more dangerous than I should have done. He used to give me so much crap about my tomboy side. Sometimes he acted like my father, trying to keep me safe always. Until he stopped keeping me safe at all—stopped caring at all.

I started laughing. Really laughing. So hard I couldn’t breathe. Malin and Kai were by my side in a second. The hollowness that was the hole he had left inside me was growing with his presence, like he was taking up more of me with each second he was close. Like my body was screaming to get away from him before I became a balloon of air, with nothing else left inside me, and I would pop open all of the pain, all of the fear, of the last few years.

All of this wasn’t real, and it wasn’t happening. I was out of breath from laughing and stood up. “I need a sec.”

I ran upstairs toward my bedroom, and I let the door fall shut behind me before I fell down on my bed and cried.

I cried and cried as if I would never stop. As if this was the last time I could cry and had to drag everything out of me. It had been a while since I had sobbed like this, for him. I had been so proud of the new Lux, being so strong to have survived all of it. Sometimes it felt like I had PTSD from his rejection. Everything would always be laced with a slice of Jax, from my next step to my last breath. It would always be there, with each sunrise and each sunset. The ending of a lover and the beginning of a real-life nightmare. That he was my Dark Stalker of my day, and perhaps he was the Dark Stalker of my night as well.

The door opened. I was on my side in the corner of my bed, holding my pillow and crying like a baby. The door closed again.

When it opened once more a while later, footsteps came closer, and I felt a body crawl behind me in bed. I smelled the pine and sandalwood smell as it engulfed me. He pulled my body against his and hugged me from behind, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. I fell asleep like that, somehow safe.

I woke up with a heavy arm over my stomach and warm breath on my neck. It was Kai. I stirred, and he stirred with me, but instead of letting me go, he grabbed me closer.

“Baby, you okay?” his voice croaked from sleep. “You really worried me yesterday? And last night, you were literally crying in your sleep… it sounded like some really bad nightmare had found you.” I hadn’t bothered telling him about my nightmares and the Dark Stalker yet. Nobody knew besides Jax and my therapist. It felt like the most personal thing about me, and even though I trusted him, I wasn’t ready to show him that side of me yet.

He cuddled my neck some more. Butterflies unleashed in my stomach suddenly. I couldn’t help it; I had tried not to feel this great for anyone ever again, but it was beyond my control.

When I thought back about yesterday, I cringed. I had just left them… left Jax… and ran upstairs and cried. I was worse than that test baby.

Then he had seen firsthand how scary one of my nightmares could be. It had been the trailer park one; that one was always horrible.

“I’m… fine…”

He kissed my neck. “One day you will talk to me, baby. I know it’s not today, but still… it kind of hurts.” I turned around and grabbed his hand, rubbing it soothingly. He was a good friend… more than a friend. Way more.

“Thank you, Kai…” He kissed me softly. Eyes so small from sleep he looked like he was in pain, and dark hair sticking out on all sides. I had never woken up with him before. I had never woken up to him before now.

“For being here. You… never walk away. Thank you,” I added, throat heavy with tears again. A part of me was finally admitting that I was waiting for the moment he would walk out on me. Like Jax had done. That I had been pushing him away, but something had changed today. I could feel it.

“I will never walk away unless you force me…” he said as if he could read my mind and kissed my nose tenderly, and I believed it. His words rang true because, for the first time in four years, I wasn’t thinking about orange soda kisses anymore.