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Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rebecca
SUNDAY
Suffocating.
My eyes pop wide as the air is cut off. My aching lungs burn with the desperation to breathe. Fingers claw at the tightness in my neck, getting tangled in the masses of my brown hair. I suffer, desperate to live even as I live only to suffer.
Niko, save me.
My thoughts turn bleak as a blackness coats my vision like an oily paint. The only sound I hear is the galloping drum of my own heart and the rustling of the sheets as I thrash around in an ugly dance for survival. A monster is near, and he’s here to take and take and take.
The shadow man.
“Rebecca.”
I wake with a start.
Fingers curled along the wrought iron footboard, my uncle peers over me with a harsh look of worry coloring his face. “You were having a nightmare,” he croaks. As if I didn’t already know that by the turbulent way I was thrown from my dreams.
“Why are you in here?” I whimper, still half in the clutches of my sleep. Reality tips and skews at this hour, and making sense of it becomes nearly impossible.
“Your screaming woke me. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I-I...” He stops, rubbing the back of his neck and dropping his chin to his chest. “I know you don’t remember me, but you loved me. You used to love me,” he pleads. “I pray that you’ll remember because every moment you look at me with vacant eyes guts me.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head sadly. “Don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry. I never protected you the way I should’ve. If it weren’t for me …” He looks away as if in pain and lets out a grunt. “Someday, we’ll get past this, and everything will go back to the way it should be.”
The lingering nightmare terrifies me, intensified by the darkness of the room. And even through that fear, and that of the unknown and newness of my situation, I can’t help but feel a nagging sympathy for my uncle. For what he went through missing me. Because he did miss me. It’s written all over his features and in the adoration of which he gazes down at me.
I want him to leave me alone, so I give him what feels like a small piece of me in order to make him go. “I want that too.”
With a small grin, he hikes up his pants at the waistband and turns from the bed. “Sleep well, Rebecca.”
THURSDAY
I lookdown at the phone in my hand and Niko’s last text.
If you need to talk afterward, call or message me.
With fumbling fingers, I punch out the words, I will. My fingers tighten around the small phone and I hold it to my chest as if the move will bring me closer to Niko. Someday, I hope to be able to type as fast as he can, and we can have entire conversations with only our fingertips. It’s strange to write words and somehow the phone magically sends those words to someone else. That this is how people communicate. I know I’m quiet and don’t have a lot to say most of the time, but I’d still rather talk. I’d rather pick up the phone and call Niko, if only for his voice to comfort me.
This place is strange. My—uncle—is strange. He’s nice enough and cares for me, making sure I’m eating and not sleeping all the time, but I don’t feel a familial connection to him. Though, Niko said that could take time. That hopefully my memory will return now that I’m back home. I hope it happens soon. With every hour that ticks past, I begin to feel more and more alone.
A knock sounds on my bedroom door. I jump, the phone falling from my fingertips to the carpet, and I gasp out loud.
“Rebecca? Can I enter?”
I appreciate him giving me the option to say no. And I have. The first night here, I told him no when he asked that same question. He told me not to be afraid, and that he was there if I needed him. When I didn’t respond, he whispered, “Sleep well,” and left me alone.
Except he didn’t completely.
That night, I dreamed of the shadow man, and when I awoke from the nightmare, my uncle was in my room. He said he heard me and came to check on me. And while that’s nice, I wish he hadn’t. I don’t like knowing he was in here while I was asleep. Even if only for a few minutes and even if he was unsure of what to do and simply wanted to watch over me.
It unsettles me.
“Okay,” I reply, raising my voice slightly but hardly at a normal decibel.
