TOMMY GASPED AWAKE, clawing at his throat for air but none went through to his lungs. He was back in his bed, in his room, in Winchester. The lights were suddenly turned on, but there was a flicker of a warm red glow somewhere. The fireplace? Where am I? Tommy pulled himself out of bed, and half jumped, half fell from it. He spun around, looking, looking for the fireplace, his brother, where was he? Did he pull up the sleeves of his hoodie to see the scars where was the blood?
The thoughts were accelerating inside his head. He wanted them to slow so he could just breathe, but they kept fighting his every attempt. His breaths came in hard, choked gasps, and he thought he might pass out soon if he didn't figure out how to use his lungs again. His heart was a tyrant force, hammering inside his chest as if it belonged at the end of a drill.
The room was spinning at an uncontrollable speed, and Tommy tried to crouch on the floor, tried to make everything slow to something his brain and body could cope with. He felt so sick. Did he want to run to someone for help, maybe Christian? He wouldn't even know that Jonathan was here, that Tommy was in trouble, that he was dying. Maybe call an ambulance, where was his phone? Where was everybody? He needed help. The hospital, he hated the hospital. He'd die in there. Vincent or Maura — his brother's lackeys could get to him in there.
He wasn't safe. Breathe. He wasn't okay. Can't breathe. He was going to die. Never breathe again.
In a rush, he pulled on his sneakers and ran from the house, still wearing his shorts and a hoodie. It must've been at least midnight, Christian would be home, he wouldn't know that Tommy was running, that his brother was after him now. But he still didn't get it, he was just in his brother's office back in New York. But now he was running down Main Street in Winchester. It couldn't have been a dream, you couldn't feel pain in dreams, but he felt that. He felt the knives dig deep into his skin like they had before.
He slowed down and forced himself to stop running, looked around for any onlookers before pulling up his sleeves. All of the scars on his arms were as they should be, none of them was oozing blood. He grabbed hold of the fence next to him for support and crouched down, burying his eyes against his open palm, he let out a choked sob, his body wracked with uncontrollable shaking. It started to slowly all make sense. What had happened in his dream had occurred to him before, word for word, action for action. He was dreaming it, and his body was responding with phantom pains of the memory.
"Hey! Hey you!" A slurred voice called out from behind him. He gripped tightly to the fence, turning to look over his shoulder slightly, he didn't need someone's help anymore, like always he helped himself.
"Your a friend of Mason's lot aren't you?" Another voice shouted. Tommy swallowed the lump in his throat, turning to get an idea of how many of them there were.
Four... Two of which were quite drunk, easily overpowered given that they weren't that big of guys either — basically the same size as himself. The other two were sober, walking towards him with closed fists. Tommy clenched his jaw as he always did instinctively when he was expecting to get hit, he didn't need his teeth going through his tongue or gums. He recognized them from the guys who always antagonized him on the way home from work. It was the one guy in the middle that Tommy especially didn't like, the one that looked like he really wanted revenge for something and the way he was going to get it was through Tommy.
"Not really, I work with them," Tommy said bluntly, forcing his fingers to relax at his side instead of on the fence.
"But we saw you with the sister yesterday, I'm surprised little ole Mason let you get close to that," the middle man said, licking his bottom lip not at all subtly.
"And? What does that have to do with you?" Tommy bit back, trying his best to keep his voice neutral, but well, he's always had a bit of an attitude problem.
"Oh, Tommy, right?" He asked and before he had a chance to answer he carried on, "You are new here, so you don't get it; apparently, Mason doesn't dare to tell you what it means to follow him. You see Mason, and I have some bad history, and because it's Mason that means his little siblings and Nicky, you know, even his boss can be a real asshole," This guy was really starting to grind on Tommy's last nerves.
"So what are you trying to tell me? You better get to the point because as you can see here, I was going for a run," Tommy cut in, he had to force his grin down when he saw how they all stared at him in surprised frustration.
"What I'm saying is watch your back."
"No, see what I'm hearing is just a few small-town Hicks thinking they are all tough by —," Tommy didn't get to finish his sentence before the first fist landed square to his jaw. He grunted as he fell back against the fence but put his arms upon the defensive as the next punch came fatally following the first.
A sudden gush of pain jolted throughout Tommy's body from where another one of the men kicked him back, foot to chest. His stomach ached, his arms lost tension, and his legs began to weaken. He knew that he wouldn't win this, it was 4 on 1, and soon enough he was overpowered, unable to distinguish where and when the punches were landing, just that his body was on fire and he was slowly sliding down against the chain length fence.
His tongue was soaked in the taste of blood. Bruised and winded, with a leg in agony, he grabbed the foot of the man who had threatened him and pulled him to the ground. His head was pounding. He forced himself on top of him, straddling his waist as he brought a fist to his face, snapping his nose into a grotesquerie. It was only one punch, but it was satisfying enough. He felt his body dragged off of him, felt a hard elbow slam hard against his eye socket and the world fell back into darkness.
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