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Amelia
I had recurringnightmares of Nathan murdering Brennan, but somehow those memories felt even stronger now after seeing it all play out so vividly. The smells. The sounds. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it didn’t matter.
I’d never escape the past.
“Amelia, stay with me,” Liam said quietly.
I should be scared of him, shouldn’t I? But right now, I was just afraid of the past that ruined my every moment, awake or asleep.
I tried to focus on the present moment. The scent of lavender rising in the air, mixed with pine and the musky scent of Liam’s body. His heart beat against my shoulder, as he carried me. His hard arms.
The forest rising around us, like an old friend.
Liam settled down with his back against a tree, still holding me as he settled me on his lap. He kissed my forehead tenderly, and I pulled back, confused.
“Right,” he said, sounding like he’d just accidentally stepped on my foot. “It isn’t time yet.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
He shook his head, as if to clear it. “You and I haven’t fallen in love yet, right?”
“No.”
“All right,” he said. “Sorry, I get confused sometimes.”
“I get confused too,” I assured him.
I was always confused when I was anywhere near Liam.
But at least being close to him, looking at his handsome face, was a distraction from the memories that seemed to press in on me. My heart was racing, my body in panic mode even though there was no one to fight.
“Let me give you back one of your good memories,” he said. “I used to love this one when we were young.”
As usual, I had no clue what he was talking about. But he wrapped his hands around mine and held them tightly between us, his forehead dropping forward until it met mine.
His breathing was slow and even, and when panic threatened to sweep me away, I mimicked his breathing. Slowly, the pressure of the past receded, and I started to breathe easily again.
I opened my eyes and realized somehow, he had pulled me into his dream. I was still sitting on his lap, but flowers hung over our heads, white and luminous and glowing under the moonlight.
“How is it night here?”
“It’s always night here,” he said. “I used to go here all the time when I couldn’t take…things. But this was your world first. Sometimes I found you here.”
“I wish I remembered it,” I said, feeling like I’d lost something. I climbed off his lap and began to wander through the deep forest around us, which was different than anyplace I’d been before, primordial and magical. And slowly, it began to come back to me, the faded bits of pleasant dreams bursting into full color.
And slowly, I started to remember a boy who had been by my side here oftentimes.
I turned to look at Liam, my lips parting as I remembered him. I felt guilty I’d forgotten. Even though they were still just the faintest wisps of memory.
His lips quirked, but his eyes were sad. “I can always find my way into the dreams. I saved them up inside when I was trying to survive, and they’re a part of me. But the visions don’t belong to me. The past, the present, the future… I don’t know how to make sense of any of it.”
“Maybe you could figure it out,” I said. I held out my hand to him, remembering that I had done this once a long time ago, when I was a little girl and I thought he was just a dream. “Maybe we could figure it out together.”
Together, the two of us walked through the world of dreams. Waterfalls cascaded into emerald-blue lakes, and around every turn were beautiful flowers blooming wildly or odd little houses with smoke rising from the chimneys. A family of white-dotted deer wandered across the grass, and apples hung low from tree branches. I reached for one bright red apple and it came away easily in my hand, and I was suddenly tempted to offer it to Liam. He turned to me with a smile on his face, offering the apple he’d just plucked from the heavy limbs.
Then, suddenly, Stone’s voice jolted us both out of our dreams.
I grabbed for Liam’s hand again, but it didn’t matter. I opened my eyes in the forest again, feeling cold and exhausted, and scrambled to my feet. Liam was already up, facing Stone furiously with his hands folded into fists.
