“The dream I had about this place wassoaccurate. The grass growing on the side of the road, the town’s population, the heat coming off the asphalt, and the road are allexactlythe same.”
“Is that unusual?”
“It’s happened before, but usually it’s not as detailed and vivid as this one. I feel like I’ve been transported back to my dream, and it’s so… sodisturbing.”
As they drove further into the town, Brie gripped the armrest, and her fingers bit into the leather. The same people she’d seen in her dream were strolling down the street.
She highly doubted all these same people walked the street every day at the same time. Sure, a couple of them probably considered this part of their daily walking routine, but all of them? Impossible.
It was a Saturday, so it made sense for a couple of dozen people to be in town, doing their chores on their day off, but for her to have seen themall?That had never happened before.
“It’sallthe same,” she muttered.
Asher glanced over at her as she gripped her knees and leaned forward in her seat. “What do you think that means?”
“I think it means we’re about to walk into some shit, and if the cow waves at me, we’ve entered the Twilight Zone.”
“If the cow does what?”
“It waved at me in my dream.”
“Oh, well, that’s perfectly normal.”
Brie cracked the tiniest of smiles until Asher turned and passed the police station. Her jaw locked as she took in the flowers and neatly manicured lawns of all the homes she’d seen before.
Her dread grew with every passing mile until a cold sweat coated her body and trickled down her neck. They should turn around. They should go back and return with an army who would tear away those boards, stomp through those signs, and destroy everything in their way.
But what if the army was destroyed by whatever lay within?
She was nervous enough about putting Asher’s life at risk; she couldn’t let others die for her mission—a mission that might amount to nothing once she had all the stones. She doubted that was the case, but it was a possibility.
She had to be the one to go into the cave, and if she thought she had any chance of convincing Asher to stay behind, she would. He would never agree to it.
Please don’t let him die.She kept trying to content herself on the knowledge she hadn’t seen the cave in her vision of his death, but it wasn’t calming her anymore. She had to tell him about her vision so he could be prepared and listen to her when the time came, but the last time she tried to warn anyone, it destroyed her life.
And while she didn’t expect Asher to react in the same way, years of self-hatred for her actions, years of distress over what happened, and years of silence made it almost impossible for her to get the words out. Soon, she would get them out, but now wasn’t exactly the time.
They had enough to face without her throwing that knowledge at him. It would only rattle him, and they both needed to be at their best for whatever lay ahead.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT
Her fingers duginto her knees as the rolling farmland came into view. Asher turned down the road she indicated, and when they passed the cows grazing alongside the fences, Brie searched for the one that waved at her.
It stood with grass hanging out of its mouth as it watched the car pass from its soulful brown eyes. When Brie waved to it, it simply continued to chew.
So far, it was the only change in detail. And she was thankful for that because even with as cute as cows were, if it waved back at her, she would have known she’d lost her mind and all this was a delusion.
The car bumped down the next dirt road and over rocks as the trees scraped the paint until they crested the summit of the hill. Then, like a monster rising from the grave, the cave came into view.
And like everything else, except the waving cow, it wasexactlylike what she’d pictured in her dream.
“It doesn’t look like anybody has been here in a while,” Asher said.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she murmured.
Asher glanced over at her as he put the car in park, turned it off, and rested his hand on her bouncing knee. Beneath his touch, she became so still that the horrible, inadvertent image of her corpse rose to mind.
He instantly shoved the image aside. He couldn’t think about her death while staring at this cave. The cave, minus all the warning signs, seemed completely innocuous to him, but it obviously terrified her, which put his senses on high alert. Her gift gave her far more insight into this place and the world than he would ever possess.
