Page 35 of Realm of Dreams & Shadows

I laugh. “I think I love you.”

“Better not tell Chase. I think he’s the jealous type.” She hops off my bed, muttering something about going to the library to write a paper. “But what’s the final verdict?” she asks as she grabs her backpack. “Whitehall tomorrow? Or do we listen to your Secret Service detail?”

“Whitehall,” I say. “I want answers. And if he thinks it’s so damn dangerous, he can follow us there.”

“Cool,” Tia says, then winks. “If we’re lucky, maybe he’ll even bring his golden dragon.”

Chapter

Twelve

Professor Valdez teaches Cognitive Psych as well as Abnormal Psych, so I’m already aware of her superpower for spotting wandering minds.

Even more, I know the humiliation she’s willing to dole out on said students.

Which means I know damn well that I need to stay alert in her class.

But knowing and doing are two entirely different things and telling myself I need to stay awake doesn’t stop the professor’s voice from fading in and out as my mind circles back to yesterday’s encounter with Chase. The way he’d gathered the protective herbs. His cryptic warnings. That jolt of electricity I feel every time we touch.

Protection freely given, freely taken. Guard against the dark, shield against the shadow.

What or who is he protecting? Me? And from what kind of darkness and shadows?

“Miss Lyte? Perhaps you’d like to share your artistic endeavors with the class?”

I snap my head up, only to realize that I’ve been absently doodling in my notebook. Scorpion creatures. Sand monsters. Dark eyes watching from shadows.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.” Professor Valdez turns back to the whiteboard, continuing her lecture on perception thresholds and reality testing.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Reality testing is exactly what I’m struggling with—the blurred line between what’s objectively real and what exists only in my nightmares.

I try to focus on her words about cognitive distortions and the all-too-relevant topic of sleep deprivation, but my eyelids are getting heavy. Apparently, my elaborate ritual for stealing bits of sleep isn’t cutting it anymore. And even though I tell myself I need to stand up and get out of this room, my body has another plan.

My limbs go slack. My breathing slows.

I tell myself to focus. To stay alert. So what if I close my eyes? I can be awake enough to listen, but not asleep enough to be pulled under.

Just drifting. Not sleeping.

Not sleeping at all…

The sand is all wrong.

Instead of white, it’s black as coal, and it burns against my bare feet. Above me, the sky churns red and orange, like the inside of a furnace, and the air tastes of copper and ash.

This isn’t the beach from my other dreams. This is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere horrible and terrifying.

A child’s laughter echoes from behind me, high and wrong. I turn to see one of the lava creatures from my nightmares, but it’s different now. Bigger. More formed. It’s molten skin now cooled into jagged obsidian armor, and when it smiles, its teeth are like volcanic glass.

“She’s ready,” it says in a voice like grinding stone. “She dreams of him now.”

More laughter, from all sides now. I spin around to see dozens of sand monsters and scorpions emerging from the black sand, both gleaming in the hellish light.

But they’re not attacking.

They’re waiting.