Page 4 of Sorrow & Strangers

I stop walking but continue to look ahead, unable to see his face contorted with pity.

“I . . . Shit,” he curses. “I’m sorry.”

I tug my arm free. Max releases me with little resistance, but my muscles still complain from the effort. I keep walking.

He’s not there anymore, Summer. He’s gone.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t . . .” he calls behind me, but he doesn’t complete the thought.

My walk home passes in a haze. The tears silently track down my cheeks, my vision blurry from the unshed ones that stubbornly pool in my eyes.

I don’t know how long it takes me to get back to Morningstar House, but the second I’m inside, I crumple into a pile on the floor. Sobs rip from my throat as I feel every single molecule of heartbreak. I’m not sure how long I scream and cry into the void, but at some point, Alice comes home. She helps me to my feet and leads me upstairs to settle me into bed. Climbing in with me, she curls around me and holds all my broken pieces together. It’s only once the sobs ease and my breathing calms that she helps me out of my uniform and into comfy clothes. She brushes my hair, washes and moisturizes my face, doing anything she can to make me feel even slightly better, but nothing truly helps.

Alice leaves me only long enough to heat some clear broth. It’s the only thing I will eat, and the only thing that’s kept me alive. She patiently feeds me until I push at her hand, and while she tries to get me to eat a few more bites, she finally gives up when I turn away from her. The bed shifts as she climbs in beside me, and I close my eyes, the exhaustion tugging at me, the darkness immediately overwhelming my senses.

There is that one moment of blissful darkness before the nightmare starts.

The damp scent of the cave burns my nose, and the ropes painfully chafe against my⁠—

“Little fae.”

Chapter Three

Summer

“Little fae.” His voice echoes around me, a voice I have grown so used to, a voice I once found comfort in. A voice I once found sexy. The voice that left me time and again. The voice I once trusted.

The ground shakes beneath me. Everything is black behind the blindfold, and those two little words make my body so tense I feel like I will break with every breath. The sound of falling rocks echoes through the cave as the ground continues to quake, everything becoming more unstable.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” the voice asks, a little closer this time, as if he is crouching next to me.

The blindfold is yanked from my face, and Aqua’s blurred form flies at me, her dagger plunging into my stomach. An unsteady gasp leaves my lips, phantom pain radiating through me, but I am distracted by that voice again, the sense of his presence. Where is he? Is he no longer here? Was this another part of the dream? Another part of the torture? Why is tonight different?

A scream rips from Aqua’s throat, and the blade is pulled from me with such force that I groan. I watch in shock as Aqua’s body is tossed away from me with such violence that her body slams against the far wall of the cave.

“Get up,” the voice beside me growls.

I cough wetly, blood bubbling from my lips. I am too weak to move, but I am also ignoring him, trying to will him away. This is just part of the dream, another way my mind punishes me.

Aqua fades from my view, and then her maniacal laugh sounds from behind me, sending an icy chill down my spine. The sensation is made even worse by the lingering warmth of his voice.

I prepare for the pain, for the blade as it pierces my skin, knowing it will be nothing compared to my shattered heart. The dream continues to quake, and my body prepares for the impact, almost looking forward to it. The physical pain has nothing on the emotional devastation that plagues me every fucking second. But nothing comes. The ground splits, and suddenly, the dream is gone. I blink, lifting my wrists, noticing that I’m no longer tethered to the old, worn chair. I flex my ankles, which are also free, and look around the space. It is dark, but it’s not impenetrable. It’s a blank dream­scape just waiting for me to paint on it.

“Why do this to yourself?” he asks. The dream shifts again, and suddenly I’m standing. I feel his large body behind me, heat radiating off him. I stand there unmoving, every muscle tense and ready to run, but to where?

His hand brushes against my forearm, and that’s when it strikes me. He is not part of my dream. He is an invader, and that thought ignites something inside me. I snarl and whirl on him. My anger surges, and it is blissful, burning through the pain as if it were kindling, leaving only unfiltered fury in its wake. Finally.

“What did you do?” I snarl again at his blurred form.

“This is your dream. I simply altered it,” he hisses back, anger lining his voice.

I turn away from him, looking around. This is my dream. This is my dream. Take control. He will not force me from my dream.

My wrists and ankles start to chafe as I rebuild the dream. I need to relive this. I need to feel the pain, the agony.

The cave has barely been reconstructed when it is shattered once again. “You torture yourself,” he growls into my ear.

Yes, because I deserve it.