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I jerked up, searching that darkness, trying to make out a shadow when I couldn’t see anything.
There, in the blackness that sounded me, twin flashes of red. The flames, those same ones I’d witnessed in the corner of Olin and Rachel’s room, they werehere.
Once I saw them, I made out the form…or at least what there was of one. It was the same shadowy figure, without definite boundaries. I couldn’t tell size, shape, nothing. It was vaguely humanoid, but that meant nothing.
It neared, and the tingling increased. Whereas what I’d experienced in Rachel’s memory was only an echo,thiswas so much different.
Instead of a tingle, electricity ran over my skin, like a million volts of warning surging through me. It told me to run. To fight. To hide.
“What are you?” I screamed into the darkness.
Only a soft whistling, as if wind blew around us, came back. Still, the shadow came closer.
I backed up, wanting to turn and run but unwilling to take my eyes off it. It didn’t move with speed, with hurry, as if it had all the time in the world.
I brought my forearms together, just like what had worked with the vampire, with the poltergeist.
Nothing.
Then again, dream tattoos might not have any power.
I had no idea what the dream rules were. If something attacked me in a dream, could it actually hurt me?
Maybe this was just a meet-and-greet?
It followed me, but as it neared, I realized…those twin flames didn’t land on me. It was as if it could sense me but not see me.
Like that thing in my living room…
The shadows expanded, swiping out to my left. They missed, further proving my guess.
Whatever this was, it couldn’t see me. But the tattoos hadn’t worked…
So why couldn’t it see me?
I couldn’t ponder the question for long before it did it again, and this time, far more direct.
Pain lashed through my arm when it made contact, when the shadow struck me. I screamed and fell to my knees, the sensation like fire burning away at my forearm.
I clutched it to my stomach and tried to scoot backward.
The shadow might not have been able to see me, but it seemed to be able to feel me. It tried again, and as the streaks of black smoke came at me, as I prepared—as well as anyone could—for my short-of-crazy life to end, the shadow struck…something.
Not me, but a barrier, something it clashed against.
A chill ran along my skin before a mist appeared between the shadow and me, and a blink later the shadow was gone, as though driven backward.
The mist remained, and I swore itturned,as though looking at me. It neared, lowering as if a crouched figure, then reached.
When it touched me, the chill deepened, a freezing sensation, before it all changed.
The darkness drifted away to a room.
I didn’t recognize the room, didn’t understand what I was seeing, where I was.
A woman stood there, her hair dark and wavy, her eyes an almost shocking shade of blue, especially against the blackness of her hair. She reached down into a crib she stood next to, humming softly.
I picked myself up off the floor, still cradling my arm to my stomach. She didn’t notice me, so I peered into the crib to find a baby, one who could only be a few months old.
