Awakening the Beast Pt. 07: Veritas

Author's note: This story continues directly from Parts 1-6. While not required, Pts 1-6 are strongly recommended first, to follow the story, get to know the characters, and understand what's really happening in this chapter. This one is a little different from previous parts, but integral to the overall story series. Do enjoy, rate the story on the final page, and keep the comments coming, positive and negative. Even more story to come soon. I very much appreciate every read, every comment, and every star ranking. I reserve all copyrights as the original author. --TIB

--------------------------------------------------------

Fall had come.

Kelly wrapped the blanket around herself a little tighter, looking out from the cabin porch to the forested splendor around her. Oranges, yellows, and rusted reds adorned the trees that painted the landscape. It was so beautiful. Far from civilization, it was quiet. Peaceful.

And yet... Kelly was lost in thought, trying to draw in the beauty around her, but fighting a losing battle. Her mind was racing with memories and uninvited thoughts she didn't want to dwell on, but try as she might, it was like trying to hold back the wind with one's outstretched arms. She was anything but at peace.

The wind. As if to complete the metaphor, a small and short gust of a breeze blew past, rustling up leaves that had cascaded lazily to the ground around the cabin. Kelly reacted to the chill by clutching her blanket again. She tossed her head to the side, letting the breeze lightly blow her long red hair from her face. That much felt good--purifying, clean, and natural.

Kelly became aware of a tear she hadn't even noticed, that the wind had blown down her cheek. She pursed her lips in a small frown and, staying wrapped in the blanket, pushed the back of her hand up and wiped the tear away.

She heard the front screen door open with a creak, and looked up just as Caelin walked out. He looked so handsome and rugged in his familiar light brown cargo pants, a red and black checkered shirt, sleeves rolled up past his strong forearms as he liked to do.

Caelin looked at Kelly, and must have seen something on her face that troubled him. He scrunched up his face with a curious look, then sat down on the porch swing next to her.

The two of them sat quietly together, taking in the view, letting nature provide the light background sounds of soft rustling with the occasional breeze. The porch swing rocked back and forth in the smallest of arcs, a tiny creak at the bottom of every swing. It could almost pass for serenity.

Couldn't it?

Kelly sighed, a bit louder than she intended, without even realizing it, wanting to keep her thoughts contained in herself. Hoping he didn't notice.

Another minute passed in silence.

"Baby girl..."

Kelly turned to look at him, not liking the way this sounded. Intrusive. Feeling like her little self-domain castle of pain was about to be challenged.

Caelin paused. Then turned to look at her, and spoke slowly.

"I see you.

I know you."

Caelin took her hand in his. She always felt so small in his big, strong hands. He turned his head to look off the porch for a minute, then turned back to her.

"I know something troubles you. You carry a burden so big, it might as well be a rucksack of granite on your back. I see it in you clear as day."

His face took on a caring and concerned look. "I don't judge. You know I, of all people, won't ever judge. I have my own troubles.

It's for you to decide. If you ever want to talk about it, I..." his voice trailed off. He patted her hand with his free palm, then still holding it with his other, turned back to gaze from the porch.

And it began again. Started to well up inside her. Those demons clawed at her, stirring from their sleep. Kelly looked at him, studying the side of his face as her mind raced. Maybe it was time.

No, no... she couldn't ever. Could she? Didn't she have to endure it for the rest of her life? It was her cross to bear, and hers alone.

Or, was it?

That which he had left unsaid--she heard many things in it. An offer. Even a promise. Latitude. Understanding. Maybe even empowerment. But also a suggestion. Or maybe more.

Kelly drooped her head again in shamed chagrin. He kept his gaze looking outwards at the countryside, and she joined him, squeezing his hand, feeling her palm a little sweaty in fear. So much beauty out there in the world. So much ugliness and pain she felt within, in flagrant contrast. How could she ever uncover, that which she felt she had to perpetually and eternally keep hidden?

But he was him. And there was... whatever this was, between them.

Fuck it.

Kelly squeezed his hand. He turned his head to look at her, seeing the torment on her face. She smiled at him through welled-up eyes, and silently gave him a knowing little nod. He rose as she stood, and, together, they wordlessly walked inside the cabin, the wooden door clamping shut behind them.

Kelly led him to the sitting area next to the wood stove, and they took two chairs facing each other.

Kelly felt so nervous. No, terrified. She sat, wringing her hands, trying to find the words. Where to start? What to say? How does one go about the impossible?

Caelin sat silently, patiently waiting without any motion or prompting.

Kelly took a deep breath. It was time. She just started talking, letting the words come to her as she spoke, not sure how to go about this.

And so she began.

------------------------------

"It was just a little under four years ago, in the fall. September.

September... 22nd."

Kelly looked up, carefully watching Caelin's face as she spoke, nervous with every word she revealed.

"I had a son."

If this freaked him out at all, he didn't reveal it in his face or bodily reaction. She didn't know quite what to expect from him, but telling him this made her anxious, dreading any potential scorn, feeling vulnerable like this could lower her value in his eyes, or make her less appealing to him. Caelin sat quietly, listening with full attention.

"Michael. He was my boy. My world. He came from a relationship I had with a man, CJ. CJ and I had our troubles, and by the time I woke up and realized he wasn't quite the man for me, I was already pregnant. That was a strange time in my life, and I was looking for something with CJ, but it didn't quite seem to be there. Then I found out I was pregnant, and my whole life changed.

I was young, and didn't know what to do. I wasn't ready for a kid, to have that kind of responsibility. When I told CJ, he came unglued and said 'Well, we need to take care of that!'"

The cabin creaked a bit, as leaves fluttered against a side window in the breeze. Kelly continued, tenuously letting out the words as they came to her.

"I knew what he meant, but I wasn't raised that way, and my church would never forgive it. So I had Michael, and everything changed. I never knew what people were talking about, not knowing what true love is, until you have a child. He became my everything, the center of my world. I put all of myself into Michael.

CJ and I tried to do the right thing and work things out for Michael's sake. We moved in together, we fought a lot, but somehow kept going and talked every now and then about what the future might hold."

Kelly brushed a lock of her red hair back behind her ear.

"Anyway, when Michael was three years old, that September, we went to the lake with a bunch of our friends, me, CJ, and Michael. CJ was drinking hard with the guys, so I took it easy, just having a few wine coolers so that I could be the one to drive back home. Michael seemed to love playing on the beach, stomping around in his pudgy bare feet."

Kelly got a wistful look on her face, with a tight lipped smile at the memory, touched with pain. She spoke as an entirely different person when talking about her boy. Caelin kept listening silently.

"I was completely blind to it at the time. Or maybe I just didn't want to see it. But CJ wasn't very good to me. And I let it happen. Maybe I even asked for it, I don't know. I didn't think I was worth very much. He treated me like crap. Of course that day, the more he had to drink, the louder and meaner he got. He got pretty belligerent with all of us. Especially me. He..."

Kelly didn't finish her sentence, lost in thought for a few seconds.

"Later that night, we all said our goodbyes and went home. I felt okay to drive, so I took the keys to our crappy old station wagon. CJ was pretty drunk, so I had to buckle him in his seat belt, just like I did with Michael. There I was, taking care of two kids, not one. I kept trying to talk to CJ on the way home, to stay engaged and alert. I was so tired, but felt it my responsibility to get us home. I took my right hand off the steering wheel as I turned to him and pushed his shoulder to wake him up, and..."

A quiver started in Kelly's voice.

"...and then...

When I looked back to the road, there was a medium-sized something there. In front of me. To this day, I still don't know what--a coyote, small bear--who knows. I froze for a second, unsure what to do, then grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and swerved to the right. There was a BIG thump. Whatever it was smacked into the back left of the car. We were careening to the right, so I over-corrected and tried to come back to the left."

Kelly loosely held her arms in front of her above her lap as she told the story, hands clenched as if she were steering a car, reliving the events as she recounted them, her arms trembling.

"I lost control. We went sliding to the right, and spun off the road."

Kelly started crying, but kept speaking through her tears.

"W-we smacked into a tree," Kelly firmly clasped her hands together as she said this, emphasizing the impact with a clap, "this big pine tree. Right into the back right door, where Michael was sitting in his car seat."

Kelly's face suddenly went cold, speaking in a detached manner. "There was a huge 'BANG!' You know, how you think a car crash would sound, with progressively crunching metal?

... it wasn't like that. This huge, awful, loud 'BANG!'" Kelly again clapped her hands together in declarative emphasis.

"My whole body got yanked sideways with this terrible force. I think I smacked into CJ. I lost consciousness. Out cold. When I came to..."

Kelly froze, as if unable to speak. She stared above Caelin's head, focused on something dreadful a million miles away.

"At first... I couldn't see. There was all this noise. All this commotion. People seemed to be scrambling around. I tried to move my arms and legs, but I couldn't. I started to see some blurs, and I heard this figure looming over me in a white shirt say that I'd been in an accident, and just to lay still.

It all suddenly came rushing back. I looked to my left, and saw CJ and Michael. We were all lying on stretchers, side by side, in the back of an ambulance. I yelled for Michael, I screamed, but he didn't respond. Paramedics were doing CPR on him."

Kelly's hands balled up into fists. "... on my boy!" Her face broke into an expression of deep despair.

"I yanked and twisted my body as hard as I could. It hurt so bad, but I didn't give a shit about the pain. I was strapped down tight, and they wouldn't let me get to him. I was totally powerless.

They whisked Michael off to the ICU when we got to the hospital. CJ and I seemed not as bad. CJ broke his right arm against the door in the crash, but otherwise because he was drunk seemed to just roll with it in his relaxed state. I fought my way straight to the ICU as soon as they let me. Little Michael was just laying there, limp, these machines hooked up to him, all grotesque. His little body turning black and blue, matted blood in his hair."

Kelly looked at Caelin now with wide, forlorn eyes, somewhat panicked.

"He looked so hurt. So helpless." She motioned in front of her, as if Michael were lying there on the floor, right at that moment.

"This little innocent body. But there was nothing I could do. *I* was helpless. I would have done anything, ANYTHING in the world right then, to make him okay. I wanted to push my own life right into him, you know? For him to take all my life and health? Trade me for him? But I couldn't do anything.

Why wasn't it me? He didn't do anything wrong. He wasn't the sinner, the worthless one. Michael was good and pure and beautiful. He had value. Why was he the one on that table? Why couldn't I make it me? That was the worst moment of my life."

Shaking now, lips quivering, Kelly visibly started crumbling in front of Caelin, tears flowing freely.

"He... he died an hour later, while I watched. Right in front of my eyes, me standing there like a fucking idiot, not doing a damn thing but watching my son's life leave his body. Oh God!!!" Kelly's hand came up to cover her mouth.

After a pause, Caelin started as if to move, but Kelly started speaking again.

"It was a hell that no one should ever have to experience. Me, his mother, alive, watching his little casket be lowered in the ground, one of his little blue toy cars resting on top. Knowing my precious little son was inside, dead, where I should have been. And it was my fault. All my fault."

Caelin clenched his hands at this and pursed his lips, but didn't say anything.

"The cops took my blood in the hospital, and said my blood alcohol level was below all limits, so they didn't charge me with anything. But... if only I hadn't had those few drinks, that little bit could have made a difference. Maybe I could have reacted quicker. Maybe if I hadn't of swerved at all and just hit the damn thing straight on, I'd have been hurt, but Michael would be alive. The smallest of any change, and that tree would have hit our car in another spot, not Michael's door. Maybe if I had left just a few minutes earlier. Or later. Not a day goes by, that I don't think there's something I could have done differently, and he'd still be alive.

I can't close my eyes without seeing his broken little body in front of me, all those tubes and wires sticking out of him.

My dreams.... my nightmares. I go through the crash over, and over. I know what's coming. I know what's going to happen, and I can't ever do something to stop it. Every time, the crash... that horrible sound... my boy gets the life beaten out of him. I can't escape it."

Kelly was falling apart, but tried to pull herself back from the brink and steady her bearing. She drew a deep, quaking breath.

"CJ and I tried to make things work. He didn't openly chastise me about it like he did other things. But I could see it. I could see it in his eyes, every time he looked at me. I saw that he blamed me for Michael dying, just like I blamed myself. Eventually, he left. In many ways, I pushed him away. I deserved it. Deserved it for what I did."

Kelly lost it, wrapping her arms around herself in front of her chest, rocking forward, wailing in grief. Her hair fell in front of her face, just like on the park bench, that first day in the forest, when she met Caelin.

"My boy!!!!! My boy!!!! Oh God!!! Sweet Jesus, forgive me, I killed him! I killed my little boy!!!" A cry came out of Kelly that was primal, escaping her tortured soul, her heart burst wide open. There was nothing human left for her to hang on to. Nothing of herself left. Only pain. Pure, raw, gut-wrenching pain that comes from a shadow of a soul that feels damned to hell.

Caelin went straight to her and wrapped his arms around her. Kelly sobbed uncontrollably, weeping into Caelin's shoulder, her body convulsing as she bawled in grief. Caelin enveloped her in his big burly embrace, cocooning this woman in a protective bear hug.

Kelly wept.

And wept.

Then wept some more.

Until she felt like all life had drained from her. Hell, she would have welcomed death, not caring anymore, if it meant no more of the pain. She felt so empty once again. That same old fucking numbness again drowned her in a black void.

Kelly wanted to die.

The persistent, never-ending aching pain inside was unbearable. She wanted to scream in self-hatred. Disgust. Anguish. Despair. Throw herself into the dark chasm that haunted her.

Caelin. He always seemed to know what to do. He'd take her. Make her feel good again. . Wouldn't he?

But Caelin did nothing. Only held her tight, letting her fall apart. Gently letting her hit rock bottom, broken and shredded to pieces, no semblance of humanity left. Kelly was sure someone could sweep away the fragments of her entire being right then with a broom, and she'd anonymously evaporate into a nondescript cloud of dust.

Nothing.

The two of them remained still in his embrace, letting time flow past as if it didn't apply to them.

Kelly's face stayed pressed into the base of Caelin's neck. Her trembling now dissolved in the numbness. Her whole body ached.

...ached...

A feeling.

Her hot breath, humid with salty tears, reflected right back from Caelin's chest, making her feel confined and claustrophobic. She could now feel her flowing tears, smeared with her mascara between the two of them in sludge, like an abstract oil painting.

Ashamed with herself, Kelly reached up to wipe her eyes and face.

Caelin caught her wrist in a flash, grasping her tightly with his strong hand, not allowing her to tend to herself. With a vice grip, he lowered her hand to his chest, pressing her palm against his chest hair, just above his open collar, then slowly released her wrist.

He gently pulled her mess of a face away from his neck and softly kissed her swollen lips. Then he became the one to tend to her, tenderly brushing off the top of one cheek with his thumb, underneath her left eye. Another soft hint of a kiss where his thumb had just left.

Then another brush of his hand, lower, across the same cheek, removing more of her black streaked mess.

Another angel's kiss.

Little by little, Caelin delicately cared for her, holding her and moving her as he needed.

As she needed.

Kelly obediently remained still, so jumbled up inside, just letting it happen.

Caelin's hands became a salve. His kisses, healing gauze. Every touch as if he were a master sculptor, scooping the tiniest of pain away. Molding.

Firmly holding her in his embrace, he slowly kissed and caressed Kelly's jawline. Her neck. Under her chin.

Still beyond deeply troubled, at least this drew a small sigh from Kelly. She felt her lips quivering again in overwhelming grief.

Rising in one fluid motion, Caelin simultaneously stood to his feet and scooped up Kelly in his arms, pulling her tightly against him. Unable to do anything else even if she had been crazy enough to want to, Kelly again remained still, balling up in this man's massive embrace as if a child in her father's arms. He cradled her protectively.

Caelin carried her into the bedroom, gently laying her down on the log-style bed. He stayed in constant contact with her, letting her feel both his enduring presence and a solid masculine touch. He straddled and sat on her legs, letting her feel a good portion of his weight holding her down onto the bed as he continued his dedicated attention upon her.

Caelin began to undress his charge ever so slowly. He paused at each step, unfastening a button on her blouse, followed by a soft kiss on the newly exposed parcel of her skin. Every inch of her skin received his caring attention.

Pinning one wrist to the bed in his grasp, outstretched from her side, Caelin worked his way out along her arm, kiss by kiss, ending by taking her hand in his, interlocking fingers with her the same way he had the first day in the forest, pressed up against the tree. And then he repeated with the other arm.

Silent and submissive even in her traumatized state, Kelly watched him work her body, covering every parcel of skin with his soft lips. Gradually, the exterior numbness began to be replaced, him leaving tender tingles lingering everywhere.