Page 21 of Heat Lightning

I flicked on the lamp in my living room and turned on the television, flipping to a rerun of Barefoot Contessa for the cozy ambience. My eye caught a fishing boat passing by outside, its gentle wake lapping against the shore. Stepping out onto the small balcony, I took in the peaceful night falling around me.

Blue hour was my favorite time of summer, when the bats came out and insects hummed their good nights. The town of Plover Bay sprawled along a relatively calm and shallow inlet of Lake Superior, also named, you guessed it, Plover Bay.

There were houses dotted along the shoreline across the bay as well, and sometimes I sat out there, well into the night, watching the glow from their windows wink out one by one as people went to bed.

I liked to imagine their lives. A few of the houses were lit up year-round; clearly, families who enjoyed the splendor of Superior in all of her seasons. Some only came alive a few weeks out of the year.

The one directly across from Mr. Marino’s estate, though, intrigued me. The house itself boasted gorgeous mid-century modern construction, with windows lining nearly every room that faced the bay.

They were never lit, though, except for one. Some nights, one single room on the far end of the house would glow warm and comforting. Occasionally, a silhouette would stand at the window, peering out at the dark water just like I was doing now.

It seemed so lonely, and yet, I felt a kinship to whoever they were. Sometimes I waited until that golden light went out before I’d go to bed, just to keep it company a little while longer.

Or maybe it was keeping me company.

I shook my head. The house was dark now, and there was no point in dwelling on the meaning of silly things like glowing lights across a lake. High school English had thoroughly beaten that dead horse for me.

Once in my room, I peeled off the rest of my clothes, not bothering to toss them in the hamper. Stepping into the attached bathroom, I cranked the tap to medium rare, still pink in the middle, and melted into the scorching, steamy shower.

Bliss.

I sighed, content in the safety of the little home I’d made for myself, complete with hot water and a door that locked, and reflected on my life.

Everything had changed after that night.

Not subtly, but all at once. As if a higher power bore witness to what I’d gone through and decided it was enough difficulty for one lifetime, my circumstances improved so drastically I sometimes woke up in a cold sweat, fearing I’d dreamt it all.

I went from lying in a lumpy bed covered in scratchy sheets, petrified of returning to my job or apartment in case the person who I thought was my friend—I refused to say his name—was there, to moving in to a fucking lake house where my biggest worry was whether or not the chicken was cooked in time for dinner. It was ludicrous.

Some things lingered in the margins, though; relics of an old life that shaped me for a future that was no longer mine to suffer.

I still locked every door I could. Now, though, I had my very own functioning deadbolt.

Looking over my shoulder became a vestigial habit, uselessly searching for that dark silhouette in every shadow. Whether it was in fear or longing depended on the day.

Sometimes the hour.

And I dreamt of him, the Masked Man, almost every night. He’d appear right when the inky fingers of my memories twisted dreams into nightmares. Sometimes, it was to slay the monsters that grew too large for me to fight on my own. Other times, he’d flash his knife at me; a threat of what he was capable of.

I’d wake in a cold sweat, and for a few seconds I’d imagine he stood next to my bed in the dark.

He was never actually there.

But even though I had a door that locked, and something other than wishful dreams to call my own, I was still all alone, and so, so empty.

It was in those quiet, lonely moments that the yawning awareness of missing something made itself most known. Those alphas may have been stopped before they could touch me, but I’d still lost a piece of myself that night; something I hadn’t shared with anyone yet, something I’d wanted to be special, and was now gone forever.

They’d forced a horrific, stimulant-fueled heat upon me for their own fucked up entertainment, and in the process stole it from me entirely.

Their faces flashed through my mind. I pictured the water running through my fingers and down the drain turned red and thick with blood.

Gwen had suggested therapy, but I was scared to go. Even if I were honest—which was a big if—they’d probably expect me to weep and moan about how difficult it was to live with the trauma of seeing people killed right in front of me.

But what if I told them the memory of the alpha who’d drugged me lying in a puddle of his own blood was sometimes the only thing that got me to sleep at night? That I imagined having the strength to do it myself? The choice to do it myself?

What if I told them I had dreams of running into the one who’d escaped on a crowded street and pushing him into traffic? What if I said I wanted to know what he’d look like, utterly terrorized, with no one coming to save him?

What would they say to that?