Page 92 of Somno Slave

I should fix it.

But I don’t. I sit very still instead holding my breath like the air might give me away. My heart continues to slam so loudly it makes me faint.

Peter shifts beside me, saying something I don’t fully catch. He pulls another cigarette free; attention still locked on the monitors in front of him. Smoke fills the room, the stench curling up my nose.

I move slowly, drawing the notebook in against my stomach like it can shield me from it—from him, from myself, like I can press space back into existence if I hold it tight enough. My lips stay set.

God—what the fuck have I just done?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rheda

My heart still hasn’t settled properly. It keeps kicking hard against my ribs like it’s trying to warn me about something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet.

The hallway behind me is empty.

Quiet.

Still, I glance over my shoulder anyway.

Nothing’s there, but the feeling follows me. That horrible awareness low in my stomach. The sense of being watched so intensely it starts to feel physical.

My hand trembles once against the key. The metal scrapes inside the lock louder than it should. Every tiny sound suddenly unbearable in the silence. My pulse climbs higher with each turn until I can actually hear blood rushing in my ears.

And for one sick second, before my front door finally opens, I am genuinely terrified of what might be waiting on the other side.

I step inside and close the door behind me. My eyes move through my flat automatically, checking corners without meaning to, scanning for something I wouldn’t be able to explain if I found it.

My attention narrows without permission.

My bedroom door is open.

The bed is the first thing I see, untouched, too neat. The sheets lie exactly where I left them, pale and smooth, no imprint, no evidence...but my body doesn’t believe it.

It reacts anyway. A sharp, involuntary pull low in my stomach. My shoulders tense, breath catching halfway in like something’s just stepped too close behind me. My gaze fixes on the centre of the mattress, on the exact place Iremember—

No.

I swallow hard, forcing it down.

It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t have been.

But the memory doesn’t listen, it presses in—his weight, the heat of him, the way the air shifted like the room had made space for something it shouldn’t hold. My fingers curl slightly at my sides, nails biting into my palms as if that will ground me back into something solid.

My pulse stutters, then spikes hard enough that I feel it in my throat.

He knew.

The thought lands sharp, immediate.

He knew there would be sound.

My breathing shifts. I take a step back without realising, then another, like distance might fix it, like putting space between me and the bed will undo the way my skin is starting to prickle.

It’s not possible. Dreams don’t anticipate real things. They don’t line up like that. They don’t...