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He’d thought he’d lost his will to fight against the assholes holding him captive, but as the blackness oozed up his body, making his skin burn from frostbite and his bones start to ache, he knew he had a little fight left in him after all.
As the thing crested his pecs, he cried out again, begging for someone to help him but knowing exactly what was going to happen. It would cover his mouth, and his nose, and his eyes, pressing, pressing, pressing until he couldn’t breathe or see or speak.
Suffocate him slowly, alone in this room full of remembered pain, in this place where he’d barely survived.
He started to scream, over and over again. His struggles against the bindings were growing weak, all the energy sucked from him at the intense cold. He was going numb, nothing but sharp prickles left.
Oh goddess, it was almost to his mouth.
The mound of ooze arched above him, thinning and spreading until it shadowed his whole head just inches above him. He sucked in harsh breaths—and then froze.
That wasn’t black ooze.
No. No, no, no, no, no!
He screamed and strained to move his head away. “I’m sorry! Please, don’t! I’m so sorry!”
The thick layer of dark red blood pulsed angrily. The coppery scent was filling his nose. He could already taste it in the back of his throat.
He wouldn’t be able to breathe.
He wouldn’t be able to breathe.
He couldn’t breathe!
“Caden! Wake up.”
He jolted awake, a cry on his lips, and scrambled to get out from underneath the blankets. He needed to uncover his whole body. Somehow, he was overheating and freezing at the same time, his body slick with sweat, even as his teeth chattered.
He threw the covers off him and ran his fingers over his legs and his wrists, touching his chest and his throat. He could see in the pre-dawn gray light seeping into the room that there was nothing on him, that it had just been a bad dream.
There was no black sludge or suffocating glob of blood. There never was.
But there had been a Gray Room.
“Caden, look at me.”
He jerked his head around and met Quinten’s worried eyes.
“Are you alright?”
He nodded, feeling so disjointed and confused he wasn’t sure what to say. “Sorry for waking you. I’ll go.”
He started to crawl out of the bed, but Quinten wrapped an arm around him from behind and pulled him back into the warmth of his embrace. He expected to feel claustrophobic—that’s how he usually was when he woke up from one of his nightmares. When he was still at the Bad Place, he’d pace as much as he could, wishing to be able to open a window for a single breath of fresh air.
But instead, feeling the warmth of Quinten’s body pressed all down his back, feeling his lungs expanding and his scent filling his nose as one of his big hands rubbed Caden’s abs gently, he relaxed faster than he ever had before.
Sinking back against Quinten’s body, he sighed. “Sorry,” he mumbled again.
Quinten ran his nose up the back of Caden’s ear. “Quit apologizing. Did you have a nightmare?”
He nodded, pulling Quinten’s arm over him more fully. He wanted to be smothered by him, which didn’t make sense, considering what had been terrifying him in that dream. But that’s what he wanted. He wanted to cease to exist as Caden for a while and just sink into Quinten’s body. He wanted to be shielded by it, protected.
“Will you tell me about it?”
He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said wetly, fighting the urge to cry. “Not right now.”
“Tomorrow?”
