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I stand over their bodies, out of breath but triumphant. There’s a blazing light in the room, and I realize it’s coming from me. As if I’m lit from the inside by what I’ve done.
For a minute, I’m the brightest thing in the room… but then I notice the shadows growing and changing. They’re not just at the edges of the room. They lengthen across the floor until they’re standing like people, solid and firm.
I can’t make out any faces or forms. It’s like a mass of people, a group I can’t identify, reaching for me.
My heart stutters. I grab for my gun, but it’s not there. The knife is missing too.
All I have is myself, but in the back of my mind, I already know that’s not going to be enough. I feel helpless all over again, a sinking sensation in my chest that threatens to drag me down.
I still try to fight, lashing out with my fists, my feet, my elbows. Anything I can do to keep this new threat from overwhelming me. But it’s not enough. They close around me, grabbing on to me.
Inky fingers of darkness wrap around my wrists, holding me tightly. My arms are wrenched behind my back, while another hand covers my mouth so I can’t scream. There are fingers in my hair, running up and down my arms, ghosting over my face.
I feel just as helpless as I did when I was a kid, unable to fight back.
The hands keep pawing at me, the darkness swallowing all the light in the room. My heart is pounding again, and I feel like I can’t get a good breath. My skin is clammy, and fear is sour in the pit of my stomach and the back of my throat.
It’s like drowning, watching the surface and the light of it get farther and farther away as they drag me under.
I wake up with a start.
My heart really is racing, and I can feel the cold sweat on my skin. I struggle against the feeling of hyperventilating, trying to get a good, deep breath so my lungs stop burning.
It takes a solid twenty seconds for me to get my bearings. This isn’t my bed back at home. If I was in my apartment, there would be a little light cast by the hanging paper lantern on the other side of the curtain that separates my bed from the rest of the studio.
Here, it takes my eyes some time to adjust to the darkness. The only light there is filters in dimly from the window and the streetlamps outside.
Right.I’m at the house with the four guys I’m working with now. Not in a basement, not chained to a wall.
I let out a shaky exhale, dropping my head back down to the pillow, then jerk in surprise when I realize I’m not alone in the room.
At first, all I see is a shadow near the door, and I flash back to the dream with a sickening lurch of my stomach, but then I make out the shape of Ash, standing on the other side of the room as if he’s been watching me sleep.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand. My voice comes out raspy, but with a sharp edge from all the chaos swirling inside me right now.
I feel like he can tell, like he was looking into my head and watching the nightmare play out. That’s impossible, I know, but even the thought of it makes me uncomfortable.
“Nothing. Just standing here,” he replies, flashing that charming grin at me, as if it’s perfectly normal to sneak into someone’s room while they’re sleeping. “I just wanted to make sure you were settling in okay.”
“Normal people do that when the person is awake,” I snap back. “Not while standing over the person’s bed like a creep. You must not get many houseguests.”
“Of course we don’t.” He chuckles. “You’ve met the others. Can you imagine Priest trying to be hospitable?”
“And yet they’re not the ones standing in my room in the middle of the night.”
He just keeps grinning and shrugs.
“What were you dreaming about?” he asks. “I could tell it wasn’t a good dream.”
“Uh-uh.” I rub a hand over my face and then push the wild mess of my hair back, shaking my head. “Gage and I made a deal. This is strictly a business arrangement. I’m not sharing my personal history or any stories with you assholes, and I don’t want to hear any of that shit from any of you either. Mind your own business.”
It seems like it’s pretty hard to faze Ash. The lazy smile never drops from his face, whether he’s getting what he wants or not. Or maybe he didn’t really expect me to answer. Either way, he doesn’t argue or push.
Instead, he crawls up into the bed and then moves so he’s hovering over me, looking right down into my face.
He licks his lips, and I follow the motion with my gaze. The strange sexual tension from when we were fighting before is still there, sparking between us, and I’m torn between the urge to knee him in the balls or drag him down into a kiss.
I do neither, just staring back at him.
