Klef follows me out of the room. “Ride, c’mon, come back?”
I turn to him and smile. “I’m not really that mad, just riling them up. I’m tired of being shipped. It’s weird and makes me feel uncomfortable.”
Klef laughs. “Yeah, I can get that. But it’s innocent, so I let them have their fun.”
I sigh. “I’m tired.”
“Well, I suppose it is getting to be an acceptable time to fall asleep, and you’ve had quite the day,” Klef reasons, nodding. “Let’s find a room.”
“One?” a passerby asks with a smirk.
Klef blushes at the implication. I sigh. “Yes, one room! Singular! What’s so wrong with two people of the opposite sex sharing a bed?!”
They walk away, laughing. “Nothing is private,” I groan.
“Yup. C’mon, sweetheart. Let’s find a room.”
We wander around helplessly lost until Flo finds us and leads us to a room with a bed big enough to fit 2, a floor lamp, and an ensuite bathroom, but nothing else. Klef jumps onto the bed, and I close the door and flop down next to him. He pulls me in for a playful hug and I sigh and accept it. I’m just so tired…
Fire. It’s all around me. It’s what I’m almost breathing in and what I’m choking on. I hear someone yell, “Shelter! We have to get to shelter!”
“Klef!” I scream.
Coughs erupt 3 feet away from me. I reach out and grab a hand. Klef’s hand. He squeezes it, and we struggle out of the immediate fire. BANG!
“They’ve got guns!” I exclaim, panicked.
No way out this time. I look at Klef and he looks at me. There’s desperation in his eyes, and I have no doubt it’s in mine as well. And in what feels to be our final moments together…we kiss.
I bolt upright, as is now habit during my bad dreams. Klef pulls me back down onto the bed with care. “Ride, are you okay?!”
It takes my mind a second to readjust. “No…not really. I think…I think we died.”
Klef’s face turns ashen and his mouth turns into a thin line. He nods. “Had to happen someday, huh?”
I look over him, before kissing him on the lips, as if he is made of glass. He kisses back after a second, before pulling away. “What was that for?” he asks in a whisper.
“Just in case I don’t get to do it again,” I murmur, wrapping myself into his side just in front of his wings.
He hugs me close and I sigh, for once feeling relieved at the thought of having a warm body next to me. We both sleep the rest of the night.
ns 172.70.42.164da2
