Page 50 of Unleashed By Eden

I sit back on my heels and stare at her slack face. “Please still be here in the morning,” I whisper.

The house creaks. A click, somewhere near the hallway. I freeze and look up, listening.

Silence.

I push myself to my feet. Breathe through my mouth so I don’t have to taste the vodka in the air. The carpet squishes under my socks where the spill soaked through. The damp spot clings to my foot all the way down the corridor.

The hallway feels too long. The walls seem to bend. Shadows jump in the corners, turning into things I don’t want to see.

My room is a narrow box. Thin mattress with springs that poke into my side and a flat pillow. I crawl under the threadbare blanket anyway.

Please let her be alive when I wake up.

Please let him be gone.

Please let tomorrow not be the same fucking thing.

There’s a sound outside my door. The knob turns, and I squeeze my eyes shut—

I jerk awake with a sound lodged in my throat, somewhere between a breath and a choke. For an instant, the darkness has the same sick yellow tint. The air smells like smoke. My brain grabs the wrong decade and runs with it.

Then the room snaps into focus.

A hotel suite.

Stockholm.

Violet.

Gray morning light sneaks around the border of the blackout curtains, cutting a dull stripe across the floor.

My heart punches against my ribs, trying to break free. I drag a hand down my face, fingers scraping over stubble, anchoring myself in the feel of now. I’m thirty, not thirteen. There is no one in the hallway coming to drag me out of bed by my shirt and put me through a wall. The carpet beneath me is clean, not stained with vodka.

My body doesn’t get the memo. Panic clings, thick and suffocating.

I push myself upright. The sheets are twisted around my legs, damp with sweat. My skin’s clammy, hair plastered to my forehead. I blow out a shaky breath and swipe my hair back.

A hand lands on my shoulder and I lurch away, muscles firing before my brain understands what’s happening.

Her hand comes back, gentler this time.

“Carter.” Violet’s voice is thick with sleep. “Hey. Look at me.”

I force myself to turn.

She’s sitting beside me, knees drawn up under the duvet, black hair a mess around her shoulders. One hand on my shoulder, the other curled around my forearm, where I jerked away. Her face is soft, eyes still unfocused from being dragged out of sleep too fast, but the concern is clear through the haze.

“You’re okay,” she soothes. “You’re here. It was just a dream.”

My breathing stutters. Too fast. Too shallow. I drag in air, and it gets stuck halfway, my chest feeling overfull and empty at the same time. I can’t seem to get a proper breath in.

“It wasn’t real,” she says.

I shake my head. “But it was,” I manage. “Once.”

She studies me for a long moment, then whispers, “Maeve?”

My throat closes around my mom’s name. I nod.