AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thirteen
“I thought I told you what to do?”
I looked up from my computer to see Amanda standing in the doorway to my darkened office. Only a bit of moonlight streaming through the open window made it evident that it was her – a face I hadn’t seen in two or three years.
“Amanda!” I jumped up from my seat, excitement coursing through me at the sight of my friend. I started to round the desk, intending to get to her and pull her into a hug, but thenshemoved.
Something about it wasn’t right.
As she made her way towards my desk, her movements were sluggish, but jerky at the same, like she was half asleep, or like… like she wasn’t in control. My own movements stalled, leaving me frozen to the spot as my brain struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. And then, she shifted her head, and I saw it – a jagged hole, right through her forehead, framed perfectly by her hair.
A scream built, then stuck in my throat, refusing to break free, even as Amanda reached the front of my desk. She put her hands down, leaning over the desk to speak as a trickle of blood spilled from the open wound in her head.
“You were given instructions. You disobeyed. So now you pay.”
That scream finally came.
I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the horror of what was in front of me, screaming my throat raw in hopes that someone would hear me. Andsaveme.
“Monica! Monica!”
Hands wrapped around my arms, gripping me tight, and I immediately went into defense mode, swinging my fists at whatever I could connect to.
“Monica!”
The hands gripped harder, moving to my wrists to keep me still. I tried to move my legs, to kick, run, anything, but something had them confined. So I did the only thing Icoulddo – I channeled Naomi Prescott, remembering what she’d told me to do in class.
I tucked my chin, and then thrust the top of my head towardwhateverthe hell the thing was that had me hostage. I didn’t have the leverage to put a ton of power behind it, but it was enough that the hold on my hands went away.
“Did you just headbutt me?! Open your goddamn eyes, Monica!”
Huh?
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in my office, in the clutches of undead-Amanda. I was… in bed, tucked under the warm confines of the covers. Wick was sitting at the side of the bed, scowling at me as he put a hand to his nose to check for blood.
“What thefuckwas that about?” he asked, and I cringed.
“Sorry,” I said, untangling my legs from the sheets to crawl to where he was sitting so I could see where I’d hit him. “Are you okay?”
He scoffed. “I’m fine. Areyouokay? You were screaming your head off. I thought somebody had gotten into the house or something.”
I sat back on my knees, embarrassed. “Oh. Uh… no, not exactly. I had a nightmare, I guess. It was super vivid. Felt real.”
“Okay, sothat’swhy you tried to smash my face in with your head,” he chuckled. “Just so you know, you need a little more power behind it if you want to stun, or do real damage.”
“I gave it all I could in the moment. That thing had my hands.”
“You meanIhad your hands,” he corrected. “You got me with a pretty nice left hook before that though. You may have been having a dream, but you were kicking real-life ass.”
I cringed. “Sorry.”
“No need to be. Areyouokay?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No,” was my immediate answer. “Not at all. I want to forget it as soon as I possibly can.”
