“Have dinner with us?” Emma asks.
My gaze slides from her kind smile to Anna’s ecstatic grin. “Sure. I’d like that.”
I step forward into silvery wisps of light spiraling around me, longing for the comfort of Parker’s touch. His easy smile. That look he gets about him when he wants something and is about to take it.
I wait for my echo, the nervous thrill I’ve come to associate with seeing Parker in my dreams, but a cold shiver twists through my body. The pervasive, bright light doesn’t repel away from me, but fades to black, enveloping me like a stale blanket. I press a shaking hand to my chest, right over the resounding thump of each staccato heartbeat.
I need to move. Now.
I’m stumbling through the darkness when off-tune music begins. Goosebumps rise over my skin, followed by a rush of adrenaline. My heart rate intensifies, but my legs grow heavy and unresponsive, as if I’m trapped in waist-high mud. My breathing becomes labored, each exhale a deathly rattle.
A warm voice fills my ears, “Stay with me,” and I cling to it, a light in this endless tunnel. The darkness seeps into me, sucking the life from my body, clipping short every beat of my racing heart. Something booms in the distance, and the sound is instantly upon me. I squeeze my eyelids shut.
You’re dreaming. Wake up.
The sound intensifies, resembling a freight train ringing in my ears.
“Wake up,” I yell, the words drowned by the ear-splitting grumble vibrating through my body.
The pressure inside my chest increases as if I’m being crushed from the inside out. I can’t breathe. I gasp for oxygen, but with each inhale, less air enters my lungs. The fiery burn of skin scraping off my knees hits me as I crumble to the floor. I take my last shallow breath, and my heart explodes in my chest.
I’m thrown into silence.
I’m floating through quiet darkness, numb and mute, when a deep voice fills my head. “I love you, Mariella.” The words are anguished and raw, as if they’ve been ripped from the speaker’s throat.
I wake in my bed, clutching my throat, my chest heaving as I gasp for breath. My limbs are live with surging current. I flick it away, willing the electrical buzzing to stop, but I’m shaking so badly my body won’t cooperate. My heart is racing, the familiar voice ringing in my ears.
“I love you, Mariella.”
How bittersweet the words are, a perfect ending to a terrifying nightmare—
I sit up. What if it wasn’t a dream? What did Rose say about subconscious travel?“It’s always within a…”
A fist pounds on my bedroom door. “Ella?” Anna’s voice is high and panicked.
Did I just glimpse my future?My pounding heart stutters.
The banging on my door continues, and yet it sounds faraway, as if I’m still in that cold, dark room.What’s going to happen to me?
I throw off my blankets and hurl open my bedroom door.
“Ella,” Anna says, searching my room for some unknown threat. “Are you okay? You were screaming.”
“I’m fine. I have to go,” I murmur, racing past her. I need to speak with Parker.
“Ella, what—Where are you going?” she calls behind me. “Your phone’s been ringing.”
Storming past the kitchen table, I grab my phone and slip it into the pocket of my pajamas. I’m out the door and across the corridor in two strides, fists aching as I pound on Parker’s door.
“You know, as soon as we restore Parker’s powers, we’re leaving and not coming back, right?”
I bang harder, but no one answers. Parker and Rose have McGregor’s journal and the sample of my blood. How long until Parker’s powers are restored and they leave? Have they already succeeded?No.Parker would come and say goodbye. And he promised to take me to see my mother. He wouldn’t lie to me.
Flashbacks of my nightmare race through my mind: the oxygen being sucked from my lungs and the stutter of my sluggish heart. Goosebumps rise along my arms. The same nightmare haunting me since I was seven years old.
My phone vibrates, and I pull it from my pocket, squinting at the harsh, artificial light. Fingers still live with current, I tap a trembling finger on the unread message from Silas:I’m back.
24Rose
