Big Heavy Doors

“So what happened to you?” asked Jason as he looked across the fire at Gretchen.

She wrapped her arms around her legs and put her chin on her knee as she looked at the fire, but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, the silent treatment. My wife’s a champ at that shit,” Rhett said. “You know, you’re related to her kind of. To Jason here too. Jake’s his brother in law.”

Gretchen glanced at Jason then rolled her eyes away as she clenched her jaw.

“ I know quite a bit about your family, you know,” said Jason. “Let’s see, Logan only has one niece, so that makes you...Gretchen. You’re called Gretchen, aren’t you?”

Gretchen sighed and laid down on the ground with her head on her bag, “Right.”

Damien looked over at her, then took his cloak from the ground and handed it over to Gretchen. “Drop dead,” she said as she ignored his gesture.

“There’s no need for all that,” said Jason. “We’re just trying to help you Gretchen.”

“The three of you have been pretty much as far from fucking helpful as anyone has ever been in the history of being helpful,” she said. “In fact, I didn’t have a goddamn problem in the whole world until the three of you showed up in it.”

“So, again, how’d you get here?” asked Jason.

“I don’t know,” said Gretchen. “I don’t have the faintest idea what happened to me.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” asked Jason.

Gretchen took a deep breath. She was going to have to play whatever game these guys had going on right now or she’d never get to Tessa and Logan.

“The last couple of weeks before...before I got here are kind of fuzzy. The last thing I remember for sure is my fiancé and I laying in bed watching a movie. That’s it, that’s all I remember.”

Jason cringed at that and looked back to Damien. Damien bit his lip and looked away.

“Was he a Lycan too?” asked Rhett.

“Human,” she said. “We were supposed to get married at Christmas. I guess I’ll be a fucking no show.”

Damien clasped his hands in front of him and he dropped his forehead on top of them as he listened to her talk about the human. Then he asked, “Why’d you get involved with a human? Why didn’t you wait for your mate?”

Gretchen laughed out loud and said, “Jesus, grow up Damien.”

Damien’s hurt expression turned to disgust then he pushed himself up to stand. “Humans are fucking worthless. If he was worth his weight, you’d still be alive and with your family right now Gretchen.”

Gretchen clenched her jaw and then said, “Really? Well, where was my supernatural supermate? No fucking where. He didn’t do a goddamn thing to save me. Go preach your old religion bullshit somewhere else Damien. I’m not interested.”

Rhett and Jason both looked to Damien as he wiped his hand across his mouth. His shoulders heaved up and down and his nostrils flared as he looked back to Gretchen, but he finally blinked away then walked over into the darkness beyond the pillars.

Jason looked at Rhett and then down to the ground and sighed. “You should get some sleep Gretchen. We’ll start off at first light.”

Once Gretchen was asleep, Damien returned and sat down across from her. As he leaned back against the hard, cold stone pillar and watched Gretchen sleep with the glow of the fire lighting up her body, he thought back to his first home...the one he shared with his wife. They made love by the fire every night for the short time they were married. It was Damien’s favorite memory and he often wished he could go back in time and just lay down there with her one more time.

Damien wiped away the tears of his memories then took off his cloak and placed it over Gretchen. Life is very different now for Damien and he was going to protect Gretchen whether she wanted it or not. She could hate him forever if it pleased her, but Damien would never again fail the women in his life.

As the sun rose over the mountainside the next morning, Gretchen woke up to find herself covered in Damien’s cloak and him sitting up sleeping with his head against a pillar before her. With last night's anger all but forgotten, she looked in his face and admired him. His shaggy dark hair blew around in the morning breeze and it made another brief glimpse of a memory come back to her. When the breeze died down and his hair touched his collar, Gretchen noticed a bite mark on Damien’s neck and her heart sank as she realized that he belonged to someone.

Gretchen shook away the confusing twinge of jealousy and got back to her plan to escape from her captors. She rubbed the tip of her thumb against her lips as she contemplated her options.

They’d have to let her have some privacy at some point, then she’d make a run for it. Or, maybe she’d luck out and another group of goblins would attack to distract them. As she played all the scenarios in her mind, she felt the weight of Damien’s stare then looked up and locked eyes with him. He breathed heavily while he tried to connect with her mind. Gretchen shook her head and rolled her eyes away.

“Those are both foolish ideas Gretchen. Why would you intentionally put yourself in danger when we’re only trying to help you?” he asked.

“So, not only do you use magic against me, you don’t even give me enough goddamn respect to stay out of my mind. You’re a real charmer, you know that?” she asked sarcastically.

Damien rubbed his hands together as he looked at them, “I can’t help it Gretchen.”

“Right,” she said as she stood up and brushed off her pants.

“You should eat something. You’ve barely eaten anything at all since you got to the realm,” said Damien.

“Get out of my head,” Gretchen said as she began rummaging through her bag.

“You can’t keep this up forever. You’re immortal here, but you still have to take care of yourself,” Damien said.

Gretchen grabbed the canteen that was packed in her bag and threw it at Damien then yelled, “Leave me the hell alone,” as she fought back the angry tears in her eyes.
“Just shut your filthy fucking mouth Damien,” said Gretchen as the tears finally overcame her and she walked off past the ruins. Once she was outside the structure, she leaned over and put her hands on her knees then just let the tears come freely.

Damien stood and took a step towards her then stopped and looked down at the ground as he decided what to do.

“Damien, man, just leave her alone. She’s not ready to hear anything you have to say,” said Rhett as he scratched his head.

“She’s so angry with me,” Damien said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“She needs her family,” said Jason.

“She needs me,” snapped Damien.

“Not now, you’re just going to make her hate you if you keep doing this,” said Jason. “Just take her to her family. When she calms down, maybe it will all come to her.”

Rhett agreed and said, “Besides, your father would never put up with that smart mouth of hers. He won’t care who the fuck she is.”

Damien bit his lip and tried to push away the pain rising in his chest. “Fine. You two head back. I’ll get her to the city.”

“Nah, man, leaving you two alone is like lighting a powder keg. We’ll all go then you can mist us back,” said Rhett as he walked to Daniel and slapped his back lightly.

When Gretchen had calmed herself down, she walked to the brook beside the ruins and splashed her face then drank from her hands. She was angry with herself for letting the men see her cry like that, not a very alpha like thing to do. She intended to detach from them as much as possible for the rest of the trip. Gretchen didn’t want anymore confrontations, she just wanted to see her family. Whatever she had to do to make that happen was all she cared about.

Gretchen thought about ways to block Damien from her mind. She hadn’t paid much attention to magic lessons, but she remembered what her grandfather Haldir taught her. Big heavy doors. When he used to read her mind when she was a little girl, he told her to think of big heavy doors to try to stop him.

In the daylight, everything looked different. Damien chose a shorter path North, not bothering to tell Gretchen about the change of plans. She was trying so hard to push him out of her mind that she didn’t notice where they were going, she just followed behind them.

“That’s a good trick, the doors,” said Damien as he glanced back over his shoulder at Gretchen. “Who taught you that?”

Gretchen didn’t answer.

“Back to the silent treatment,” said Rhett as he walked alongside Gretchen.

Gretchen walked with her arms crossed and her finger against her lips as she concentrated on the feet in front of her.

“Haldir? It was Haldir. How do you know him?” asked Damien as he saw Gretchen and Haldir talking in his mind.

Gretchen didn’t answer. Every door she put up against Damien, he kept finding a way to open. And everytime he opened one, Gretchen got a flash of her memory back for a split second. The violent visions were throwing her off balance and the hate for Damien was growing with each glimpse she got.

“Haldir’s her grandfather,” said Jason.

“Really?” asked Damien as he looked back at Gretchen again. “Haldir is a close friend of my family’s. I have a lot of stories I could tell you about him.”

Gretchen didn’t look up or acknowledge Damien, so he looked away again.

“I think we all have a Haldir story,” said Rhett. “I wonder if he still has that axe I gave him. I really loved that damn axe.”

Damien shook his head and said, “That’s unbelievable really. I’ve known Haldir my entire life, I never knew...I can’t believe he never told me about you, Gretchen.”

As she continued to ignore him, Damien sighed then said, “You can’t stop me with a door, no matter how big it is Gretchen. You can keep trying, but there’s nothing you can do to hide your mind from me.”