Snippet #2501313

The booming noises. Was it something that she'd imagined? Either way, the night was cold and the desert look like it was dark green.

Brigitte's head hurt badly; she remembered a masked man (or was it a woman?), with blackened eyes and a gaping mouth, swinging the sharp hook down at her head. How it felt like burning when the razor-sharp edge caught behind her ear and nearly sliced her shoulder away from her arm. She allowed herself to fly several feet and crash her face into the hot dirt, lying as still as she possibly could. She breathed shallow and kept her eyes floating shut, relaxing as she bled into the dirt. A sharp booted toe scraped her back after most of the commotion settled. They were content that she was dead, from how heavily her body fell back into place. The noise stopped entirely about an hour later. Her eyes closed about two hours later.

When she opened her eyes next, she was laying in the back of a covered flatbed, her head resting in someone's lap. The dark indigo-purple skirt was soaked in the blood swishing from the back of her head. A woman with jet-black hair and frantic eyes looked down at her and spoke soundlessly. Brigitte's ears were full of noise, like a rushing river. The woman even stroked her brown hair, splayed down her back, long and straight.

Part of the rushing sound died after the engine was turned off. The woman tearfully handed the small girl to a young man with long arms. He called her
"Bonita." She called him "Pete." Brigitte's arms fell like heavy sandbags below her body.

The garage fell silent as the gathered staff watched Bonita panic. Pete pulled the girl from her arms and rushed her through several doors into a stark-white room. Brigitte could feel her stomach twist her body as she lay on the table. A sharp burn flew from her ears down to the middle of her back and she passed out again.

# # #

Brigitte snapped up, letting out an unsettled yell. The wind was howling outside again, and rattled a loose latch on her bedroom window. Some sand was even starting to sift in through the crack. She got up and hurried over with a bucket and a rag, her light blue crepe nightgown flying behind her. She bolted the window shut again and knelt down to scoop the sand into the bucket. She rubbed her hands together and resolved to sweep more of the mess in just a few hours.

She sighed, dragging her forearm across her eyebrow as she stood, trying to find the coolest spot in the apartment. shutting all the windows meant shutting in the heat during this time of year. She set herself down in the light armchair not far from the door to the outer room, staring at the clock. 3:30 a.m. Curfew hadn't even lifted yet.

It had been a long time since she dreamed about that day, so many years ago. She had forgotten that Bonita had reacted so emotionally to the incident; maybe that explained her behavior from earlier. And Pete was there, too. Come to think of it, Pete was always there.

Her heart filled with gratitude at the thought of it all. She was a sucker for accounting for things that were worth feeling grateful for. But at the moment she also rebuked herself for being so tough on Bonita, even going so far as to joke about the KoB and the Enclave. If she Brigitte had been someone else who said that to Bonita, the old woman would have had their hide. But not Brigitte.

She decided suddenly that going back to bed would be better than sitting out in the distracting living room. She walked back to her bed and flipped her pillow over. It was just a dream. Nothing to worry about. She kept repeating it to herself as she slowly drifted back off.