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“My father’s farm. We need to move. He will be here soon. I haven’t found a hiding place that he can’t find,” she says as she starts to pace.
“Your father?” I question.
She shakes her head no, “He’s worse.” The haunted look in her eyes has my heart stopping.
An emotion of giddiness and the thrill of the chase overwhelm me.
“Blow out the light and hide,” I tell her. “He is nearing us. I can feel his excitement.”
My heart rate pulses so fast that I swear it’s going to explode as we are plunged into darkness once more. Pandora takes my hand and pulls me behind her and we wedge in between the boards that frame this place, hidden from the naked eye.
The door we entered starts to rattle and shake and Pandora jumps at the sound but calms as I squeeze her hand.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” a man’s voice taunts. “You know that you can’t hide from me, Pandora,” he says in a creepy whisper, the wind carrying his words.
“Is there another way in?” I ask Raven’s cousin.
“Yes, it should be locked,” she states firmly.
That’s when we hear the glass shatter, and Pandora screams as arms appear next to her.
How could I be so stupid not to see the window?
This is not a good hiding spot after all. I’m not the ally she needs in this nightmare. I’m the science guy, not the survival one.
I move away from the wall and pull Pandora with me.
“How do we get out? And is there somewhere better we can hide?” I question as the man’s laughter fills the air.
“You are destined for me, Pandora,” the man roars as he climbs over the broken glass without wincing. Even as blood seeps from the fresh wounds, his eyes stay on his prey.
Just as he gets on his feet, I push Pandora behind me.
“And what are you going to do?” he asks me with a laugh. I’d thought he didn’t even notice me but now, I have all of his attention.
“Fight you till my last breath,” I say, my voice not wavering. Maybe I’m not a tough guy or one who knows how to fight, but determination is something I pride myself on.
“Is that so?” he taunts as he reaches for me, shaking me hard enough it’s disorienting.
Then, I’m being shaken, in what I now know is a nightmare and real life, but waking up is harder than I imagined. My brain is stuck in a strange limbo that I can’t free myself from.
The slap to my face does the trick and I sit up, covers tangled around me.
“You can’t have her!” I yell into Eli’s face. He blinks at me, stunned, then laughs.
“Chill out man, we agreed to share,” he smirks.
“What happened?” I question as I take in the room. Lucien is at Raven’s side and she is smiling through her tears.
“We had a day, man. Then came home to find you in some kind of nightmare, rolling around on the bed moaning, words like ‘no, stop.’ When Raven stepped over the threshold she started to cry and mumbled Pandora. We’ve been looking for her cousin and she was here with you,” Eli tells me.
“I thought the nightmare things were your area, why did it happen to me?” I ask him as I try to loosen the sheets’ hold on me.
“Pandora says that of the three of my guys, you are the one that reminds her of her lost lover,” Raven comments before looking back toward the mirror.
It’s odd to see her talking to thin air, but I know that it is more than it seems.
Even as the grogginess falls away, I can’t shake the strange feeling that still has a hold of me. What I saw couldn’t have been her final moments, right? Did this monster have her trapped for months and tormented her with moments of freedom?
