Page 15 of In Somnis

I jam the lollipop back between my teeth and drag another curtain of darkness around myself, willing the shadows to swallow me whole.

If one of her dream projections—pieces of her consciousness—clocks me as an intruder, it’s game over. She might not be aware I’m here, but her subconscious will be, and once it notices someone like me roaming around, it will throw the whole damn dream at me to kick me out, even if it has to tear itself apart to do it. And I’m not quite done with feeling like myself again.

The guy’s gaze drifts back to her, and the blonde slowly pushes herself to her feet. I brace for the usual routine, but she doesn’t run this time. She turns around, arms crossed, chin lifted as if she’s finally done being everyone’s crash-test dummy.

I study the guy again, taking my time, and there’s nothing remarkable about him. Average face and build, early forties maybe. Taller than her by a mile, but not nearly attractive enough to justify the emotional theatrics her dream is throwing at him. Still… something about him is wrong. Not visually or physically, just off. Like the dream built him from bad memories and a sour aftertaste.

That’s the thing about non-lucid dreams. They run on emotion. Every sound, every shadow, every face in here is sculpted from whatever the dreamer is too tired or scared to process, and right now, the only thing radiating off her is hurt.

Not a new hurt, though. Old. I know the difference. I’ve built enough of both inside nightmares to recognize the texture of them. The parents are fresh wounds. This guy hurt her in a way that’s been there long enough to scar over wrong.

So yeah, not a friend. Ex-boyfriend, maybe. Ex-husband? She looks mid-thirties, give or take a few years younger than me. It’s hard to tell when she’s crying hard enough to blur the details.

Before I can pin it down, the spotlight snaps off, he vanishes, and a low rumble rolls through the dark that sounds like… an engine?

“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter around my lollipop. “What now, woman?”

Twin headlights blink into existence, eyes opening in the void. The beams intensify as a car materializes far ahead, aimed right at her, but she doesn’t move or even flinch. She stands there, trembling and looking tiny against the blinding wall of light.

“Move, Blondie.” I pull the lollipop from my mouth and take a slow step forward, but she doesn’t. Only her fear spikes so hard it makes the air hum.

It’s just a nightmare—normal dreams don’t hurt. Pain is a lucid thing. It only shows up when you’re awake enough inside the dream to feel it.

So, I know the worst this can do is slam her awake in a panic, but waking up feeling like you got flattened by a tree trunk is not an experience I’d recommend.

“Move!” I bark.

Still nothing.

Christ, she really is a crash-test dummy.

When the car is a few feet away from us, I drop the lollipop and lunge. My arms hook around her waist, and I yank her back just as it screams past us. The wind kicks up and slams into me, rattling the dream around the edges.

She thrashes in my hold, breath snatching around a word that sounds like, “Tessa?”

“You’re dreaming.” I tighten my grip and drag her against me, then lean down to murmur against her ear. “It’s just a dream.”

She goes still almost instantly, like someone pulled the plug on all that panic. The tension bleeds out in tiny tremors, her breath catching once, twice, before smoothing into calm.

Around us, the darkness begins to give in, and light fractures along her skin, breaking into drifting flecks that slip through my fingers as if I’m trying to hold on to dust in a sunbeam. Her weight evaporates from my arms, leaving me clutching at nothing but warm air and the faint echo of her fear.

Somewhere behind me, I hear the distant clatter of my dropped lollipop hitting whatever counts as a floor in this place, the sound warped and stretched like the dream is swallowing it whole.

And then the place cracks open and away from under me⁠—

I jerk awake, heart slamming hard enough that I expect to see cracks spreading across the ceiling plaster. The room is dark but familiar, yet my brain hasn’t caught up with the fact that I’m no longer in a place of someone else’s trauma anymore. It’s like I can still hear her sobbing. Wait…

That’s because I fucking can.

Through the wall to my left, barely there, comes one of her soft, small sobs. I sit up, straining for it, but after a few moments, the sound fades. I let myself fall back onto the mattress with a groan.

Am I still dreaming?

Dragging a hand down my face, I lift the other into the sliver of streetlight coming through the blinds. Five fingers.

Reality.

Derek gave her the apartment next to mine? Fantastic. He didn’t mention a damn thing earlier today when he and Melanie dropped by.