Page 53 of Oracle Returns: Time will Stop

She closed her eyes.

“I don’t know. It’s dark and silent here. It’s scary,” she said. “I don’t like it. It’s absolute nothingness. Like when the lights go out. That darkness.”

Yeah, he didn’t think she meant lights in a house.

“Set me free, so I can cross. I don’t want to linger or be lost here. I feel weak,” she said. “Like I’m being drained.”

He wasn’t sure how to do that.

“How do I find you? I need to figure out how to get to you, Wyn.”

When she opened her eyes, she knew there was only one way. She was going to have to give him the keys to this.

So, she pointed.

“In my purse. Find me. Ridge, promise me that you’ll stay alive and take care of Sophia. Let Bishop and Lucian help you. They’ll help keep her safe. Don’t go home. It’s not safe there. Burn it to the ground! I love you, Ridge, but I’m being pulled back down. It knows I’m talking to you. You’re not strong enough as a psychic to fight him. Let me go!”

When she screamed, it was so bloodcurdling that it shoved Ridge from sleep to be wide awake.

He sat up on his and Lucian’s shared couch, and looked around, his breathing heavy, and his heart was pounding in his chest.

As soon as he did, the door flew open, and he jumped again when Lucian came rushing in.

“Ridge.”

The man stood and started crying again. Immediately, Lucian was there, holding him against his body.

“You were dreaming,” Lucian stated. “But it felt like more. I could feel your pain, and I could feel Wynter. How?” he asked.

Ridge clung to him.

He heard footsteps and opened his eyes to see Bishop coming into the room. She gently closed the door and stood there, as if a sentry, protecting them.

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “She said I wasn’t strong enough to go up against him. I had to have been in the shallows of the static. That’s the only way.”

Shit.

That was dangerous.

“I was so exhausted I fell asleep from crying. She just showed up in my dream, but not for long.”

Hearing him explain what had happened, Bishop moved closer. She could see the man clutching her husband’s shirt in his hands as he was plastered to the front of his body. It wasn’t lost on him that Lucian was soothing him, much like he did to her.

Their touch was different somehow, and she’d not noticed until just now.

Their connection…

It had changed.

Somehow, this was different. This wasn’t that partnership that had been here before.

This was intimate.

Tender.

Loving.

This was far more than two best friends soothing each other, or two lovers in the static.