No matter how many times I tried to shift my focus and think about pleasant memories or what I needed to do that day, the dream always streamed back into the forefront of my mind.
Ty had suggested I not dwell on it, that it wouldn’t change anything and only make me more miserable, but the emotions that consumed me were damn near impossible to ignore.
I’d imagined every possible explanation for the vivid nightmare, and all I could come up with was that it wasn’t just a dream. There was something much bigger to it, and I wanted answers. I wasn’t going to get a good night’s sleep until I figured it out.
I also couldn’t help but feel like something was off with the dream and like I was missing a few pieces of a puzzle. I didn’t know the names of any of the people, and I also couldn’t focus on the man’s face at the end of the dream. My gut instinct told me those were important facts I needed to discover.
Last night, I tried to will myself into the dream to no avail. Though it had been seriously traumatic the first time, I thought experiencing it again would provide the missing clues. If I could only force myself to ask questions in the dream, maybe I would unlock the mystery of my past.
I’d been hired to cater a banquet for a local banking group tonight. Even though my mind was heavy, I still had a job to do. I couldn’t afford to let this consume my life and ruin the business I’d worked so hard to build. There was no need to be losing customers just because I couldn’t snap out of my repetitive train of thought.
“Adam, once those vegetables are chopped, I need you to keep an eye on this bread. It should be ready in about two minutes.”
Adam nodded and continued to slice and dice multiple cucumbers and tomatoes for the salads.
“Shit!” Sabrina yelled from across the kitchen. “I just sliced my damn finger open.”
Holy fuck. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. I was tired ofthings.
I grabbed the first aid kit from under the sink and moved Sabrina out of the kitchen. She held a paper towel around the wound, but she hadn’t caught all of the blood in time.
“Someone sanitize her area while I fix her up!” I shouted over my shoulder as we pushed through the swinging kitchen door.
We took a seat at the closest table in the main dining hall. Digging through the first aid kit, I pulled out several band aids, some antiseptic, and an antibiotic ointment. “How’d it happen?”
“Sorry. I just wasn’t paying attention. I’ll be more careful,” she grumbled and gritted her teeth together while I cleaned the cut.
I focused on the task at hand while visions of the woman’s sad eyes from my dream flashed in my mind. There’d been so much blood then, too.
“Liza, why are you crying? It’s just a cut; I’ll be fine.” She was staring at me as if she thought I might be having a mental incident.
“Crying?” I swiped my free hand over my cheeks. Sure enough, they were wet. I was, indeed, having a mental incident, and I needed very much not to have it here and now. But there really wasn’t much I could do to stop it. My emotions were spilling over, and I hadn’t even noticed. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe that.” Sabrina tapped her fingernails on the tabletop. “Is there trouble in paradise?”
A chuckle escaped my throat despite the tears that continued to spill down my face. “No, not at all. Ty is perfect.”
I didn’t notice one of my tears fall onto Sabrina’s wound until she caught my attention with her panicked voice. “Liza? What the hell?”
She pointed to her hand, and I stared as Sabrina’s finger which had healed right in front of our eyes, her skin merged now together.
We stared in awe as the wound scabbed over within a matter of seconds. Shifters healed fast, but this was like fast had been sped up times ten, and Sabrina was human.
“What the hell just happened?” Sabrina’s voice went shrill as she stared at me with wide eyes.
I swallowed thickly. Sabrina didn’t know anything about omegas, and I had never felt the need to tell her.
“Are you some sort of supernatural superhero and didn’t know it?” I asked. I was this far into it, might as well keep it up. “Are you wearing a cape under your apron?”
It was gaslighting and I knew it, but I didn’t want her to ask questions or freak out and draw attention. I couldn’t explain this to her.
“No, of course not.” Sabrina shook her head. “My parents are a hundred-and-ten percent human. You know that.”
Panic crept from my belly up to my chest, and my heart pounded in response. It pounded so hard, as a matter of fact, it hurt. I put my hand over my heart and willed the pain to stop.
How could I keep hiding the truth from everyone, especially my best friend? Was this an omega ability? I had no fucking clue, but surely Sabrina would recognize that I wasn’t a normal shifter.
Michael when he’d injured his arm and I’d cried, then again with the rabbit, and now with Sabrina. I’d cried over each of them, and they had healed. That was… weird, at best, if I was looking at it from her point of view, and this wasn’t best. This was the opposite. It was confusing. And scary. And fuck… so many things I couldn’t comprehend, how could I expect her to understand?
