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I’m so fucking cold. Freezing my balls off. But my eyes burn, my head feels like I have spikes pushed through the back. Sometimes flames lick my skin. Then the cold returns, ice filling my veins, making me shake so hard my teeth rattle.
There are snakes in the water. Their heads hunt after me as I wade through the rapids, sinking into mud. Their poisoned fangs sink into me, tear at my flesh, and the poison spreads, black seeping into my skin, rising up my body.
I’m falling, sinking, floating in the river, trying to swim but my limbs don’t obey, too heavy. Weighed with stones. Skeletons float by, grinning skulls snapping at me. My heart is pounding so hard it feels it’ll burst out of my chest.
Death is here for me. I should fight it, escape, and I try again to move my leaden limbs, swim away, swim to shore. But what’s the use?
I’m sinking through the river mud, and it’s black and coarse, filling my mouth and nose. I can’t breathe, and the snakes are wrapping around my wrists and ankles.
Fuck.
I’m back in prison, tied to a narrow bed, woozy and confused. My head throbs, and I can taste blood in my mouth. Pleasure hits me, and looking down I know I’m hard, and this makes no fucking sense. Where am I?
A girl is blowing me, her dark curls hiding her face, but I know who she is even if I can’t recall her name, and it’s so good. I want her. The knowledge sinks into me, the awareness that I wanna fuck her, be inside her—but meanwhile the poison is spreading, fire sinking into my ribs, mingling with the pleasure in a weird, dizzying way.
I blink and instead of the girl, there are grizzled, jeering faces gazing down on me, eyes gleeful. I jerk, but the bonds around my limbs hold me down—or maybe they’re hands—not letting me up. I blink again, and they’re gone, and it’s my dad standing there, laughing as I die.
He’s lifting a knife that’s dripping blood. “How’re you doing, son?” he sneers. “It’s a good day to die, isn’t it? I’m here to finish the job.”
I jerk so hard on the bed I wake up, back arching as I struggle to get my limbs free, to lift them off the soaked mattress. It takes long moments for reality to assert itself, for me to recognize my old bedroom in the light slipping through the window slats. I’m gasping for breath my lungs not getting enough air, and when I finally sit up, my head is spinning.
Fuck, fuck...
I don’t know what woke me up until I hear noise inside the house. Still panting harshly, I turn and throw my legs off the bed, wondering how I’ll fight anyone breaking into the house. Coming for me, maybe. I wouldn’t put it past Edward and his pals.
But the bedroom door creaks open, and there’s the girl, that girl from the dream, from the past... from last night.
“Ross? You didn’t answer the door, but it was unlocked anyway...” She steps inside, her curls a halo around her head, lit from behind.
She looks like an angel. I’m staring at her, unable to remember why she’s here, and what’s expected of me. All I want is to haul her against me, but the dream is still echoing through me, weighing me down.
“Ross,” she whispers, coming to a stop in front of me, “what happened?”
I rub a hand over my chest because my goddamn breathing’s still ragged. “Nothing.”
Just a nightmare. Not accurate. I fought back in prison, and... and Dad was never there. What the fuck’s going on in my brain? I made a name for myself behind bars, fight to be known as an aggressive bastard to avoid being cornered. But I was cornered a few times anyway. And the snakes in the river? The dead?
Jesus fuck.
“You’re shaking,” she says.
“Just... dreams.” Dunno what possessed me to reply. Why can’t I keep my fucking mouth shut?
“Probably fever dreams. Hey...”
No way am I telling her they probably aren’t. They’re distorted memories, mangled and twisted, like my half-brother Merc’s were about our dad.
I’m okay. Perfectly fucking fine. I tell myself I don’t need this, don’t need no hugs, no comfort, but my throat’s inexplicably tight.
When she puts her arms around me, I don’t resist. I can’t. Can’t stop myself. I grab her to my chest, hold her tight.
***
“I brought you a few things,” she says. We’re curled up on top of my bed, and she’s stroking my face, light touches on my aching brow, occasionally checking the wound on my head. “Medicine. Something to eat and drink. Something for the pain. Antiseptic.”
My eyes are closing. I have the sexiest of girls on my bed, the girl I’ve always fantasized about, and all I can fucking do is nod off.
“What were you dreaming of?” she whispers.
