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I dreamed about Ireland.I was chained up by my wrists and could hear the sea below the slitted windows. Nathaniel was chained in front of me by his wrists, and I knew that wasn’t right. They’d wrapped him around with chains and hung him upside down with his ankle-length hair spilling to the floor. Then she had cut his hair and left it like an auburn pile on the floor. She’d promised when they came back they’d cut other things off him that wouldn’t grow back. They’d ruin his beauty in front of me and feed off my terror and despair. In this dream he was standing in front of me with his manacled wrists attached to long dangling chains like mine. That wasn’t true, this was wrong. His hair was still long and uncut, not the shoulder length of now, but a thick auburn sheet of hair that fell around his nude body like a modesty curtain to tangle around his legs. This wasn’t right, it hadn’t happened this way, and the thought was so clear, so strong it should have broken the dream, but it didn’t. Fuck.
Nathaniel had tears shining in his lavender eyes. He was so much the victim in that moment, like when I’d first met him. He looked younger, less muscled; this was him at nineteen when he was everyone’s meat. His hair fell across one eye and suddenly the hair was brown and so was the eye. The skin was tanned, the body taller, muscled, and beautiful and covered in bite marks. White scars, pinkscars, like he’d been attacked by vampires for days, weeks, months, forever. I whispered his name: “Phillip.”
He raised his face up and looked at me, tears shining in his brown eyes, fresh blood dripping down his body from new bite marks. He’d been addicted to vampires and their power; most of the bites that decorated his body he’d wanted, enjoyed, but not the ones bleeding now. He was chained against a wall and that had been true. I’d gone up and pushed his hair out of his eyes, as if that had mattered in that moment. He said, “A few months back, I’d have paid money for this.”
I stared at him, then realized he was trying to make a joke. God. My throat felt tight.
Burchard, the vampire’s human servant, had stood at the top of the stairs behind us. “It is time to go,” he said.
I stared into Phillip’s eyes, perfect brown, torchlight dancing in them like black mirrors. “I won’t leave you here, Phillip.”
His eyes flickered to the man on the stairs and back to me. Fear turned his face young, helpless. “See you later,” he said.
I stepped back from him. “You can count on it.”
“It is not wise to keep her waiting,” Burchard said.
He was probably right. Phillip and I stared at each other for a handful of moments. The pulse in his throat jumped under his skin like it was trying to escape. My throat ached; my chest was tight. The torchlight flickered in my vision for just a second. I turned away and walked to the steps. We tough-as-nails vampire slayers don’t cry. At least, never in public. At least, never when we can help it.
In reality, I’d walked up the steps and left him, because I thought I could negotiate for his safety, because I still hoped I could save him. I’d been wrong, I’d been so wrong. I didn’t want to see the next part of this memory, I wanted to change it, I wanted…
I ran back down the steps and pressed the front of my body against his, my hands touching the blood on his skin, but that didn’t matter. I went up on tiptoe and leaned up toward him. His brown eyes went wide, startled, because we’d only kissed once before and that hadmostly been a trick on his part. I’d been so mad about it. Now, I offered him a kiss and he leaned down toward me. I touched his face, ran one hand through the warm thickness of his hair. Our lips touched and I gave myself to the kiss as I never had in real life. I kissed Phillip the way he needed to be kissed, like I loved him, and just like that I realized had he lived I might have. Physically he was so close to Richard, except prettier, more delicate of face like Micah, and he was addicted to vampires. He’d been trying to get clean to leave the freak parties and the abuse behind, but I’d forced him to go back to help me find the serial killer that had been killing vampires. I’d forced him back into his addiction and gotten him killed. He’d tried to protect me, to stand up to a master vampire, and she’d killed him for his insolence.
I kissed him in the dream as I never had in real life and let myself realize that he was like Nathaniel—submissive, everyone’s victim, except he’d been trying to break free before I met him. He’d been trying, starting to succeed, and he’d gone back to help me. I kissed him for all the lost dreams, for what might have been, for the fact that I had never let myself understand why his death haunted me so hard. He was the first person I lost that I’d known, so I’d thought that was it, I’d been attracted to him, so that was why his death scarred me so much, but that wasn’t all of it. This was all of it.
We kissed long and deep and it was so good. It felt so right, and then his arms held me back, and that felt right, too. We kissed wrapped in each other’s arms, and then he drew back to stare down into my face with his eyes shining and happy. I’d never seen him that full of joy and wonder in real life. That one look was worth so much, so much.
“I love you,” I said, when the truth wasI think I could have loved you, but I knew he would die, was going to die, so I said the words that might have happened if only, if only…
“No one’s ever loved me before,” he said, and I was so happy that I’d said the words. The person I’d been when I knew him could neverhave said them to him. He was too broken, too many issues, and I didn’t understand that I was broken and had too many damn issues. I thought I was fine, and I’d judged him too damaged, scary damaged, to ever date. I’d been a judgmental asshole.
“I love you, Phillip.”
“Anita, Anita, I love you, I can’t believe you love me.” He touched my hair, put his hand against the side of my face, and I leaned into the warmth and weight of his hand. He smiled, eyes sparkling with happiness, and then the fear was back. His eyes wide and staring. He stumbled back from me, and his throat was a red ruin, blood fell like rain. I saw his spine glistening through all the blood, so much blood.
I screamed, “Nooo!” I would not live through this twice, and the dream changed. I was back in Ireland in the stone room, but this time the chains dangled empty. Nathaniel wasn’t there, not even his cut hair.
“I’m sorry, I’m new at dreams.” A man’s voice that I couldn’t quite place. Phillip’s death was still too much in my head, I couldn’t follow the voice. Ru was suddenly there, grabbing my hand. “We have to run.” I started to ask why, but we were running through a night-dark forest full of short, twisted trees. The moon was huge and turning the world silver and black as we ran. A branch snagged my arm, and I stumbled hard enough that I nearly dragged Ru down.
He caught me in his arms, and then his hand came away from me with blood glistening black in the moonlight. “You’re hurt,” he said, and it was Ru’s softer voice, and then he raised his hand up and licked my blood off his skin.
I tried to pull away from him, because I knew when he looked down at me it wouldn’t be Ru anymore. His arms were suddenly tight around my waist, pinning my arms at my sides. It was the same face physically, but the cruelty in his eyes, the sneer on his lips, the force of his personality was someone else entirely.
I said his name. “Rodrigo.”
He smiled and it filled his eyes with joyous evil. “Anita.”
“You’re dead,” I said.
“I am.”
“Then why are you in my dreams?”
“It’s your dream, isn’t it, shouldn’t you know why I’m here?”
“Ru is sleeping with us.”
“My brother is touching you in your sleep.” He startled and looked behind us like he’d seen something. “He’s coming.”
