Cocooned in Thom\u2019s arms, I eventually drifted back to sleep, though it wasn\u2019t mercifully dreamless like most of my nights had been lately.\u00a0 Someone was laughing, cackling almost madly, and it left my skin crawling even as I jerked awake again, only marginally conscious of what I\u2019d been dreaming.\u00a0 The fading fragments of nightmare and vision were jumbled together in a dark haze as I hunched over, breathing hard, skin puckering at the chill of our cot in the early hours before dawn.<\/p>\n
Thom touched my arm, pushing himself up on an elbow.\u00a0 \u201cMar?\u201d he whispered over the sound of the raging storm.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNightmares,\u201d I whispered.\u00a0 \u201cVisions.\u00a0 I\u2026I don\u2019t know, Thom.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember them now, just someone laughing and fingers like\u2026like claws\u2026\u201d\u00a0 I swallowed hard against a knot in my throat, against bile that crept higher and higher.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be sick.\u00a0 Keep it together.\u00a0 For the love of everything holy and sacred, keep it together.<\/i><\/p>\n
I shuddered as Thom sat up and put his arms around me, drawing me tight against his chest.\u00a0 My eyes stung as I curled into a ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must have been bad,\u201d he murmured.\u00a0 \u201cEspecially if you don\u2019t remember them now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d I whispered.\u00a0 \u201cGod, I know.\u00a0 Maybe it was nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something,\u201d a voice said from the darkness near our door.\u00a0 I squinted in the dim and just barely made out Neve\u2019s shape in the darkness.\u00a0 She leaned against her crutches in the open doorway, her face as pale as the long nightgown that shrouded her.\u00a0 I was shocked we hadn\u2019t heard her coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know?\u201d\u00a0 I asked, almost breathless as my heart began to beat a little faster.\u00a0 She was as powerful and as sensitive as her cousin, though both were loath to admit it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just do,\u201d she said, limping deeper into our space.\u00a0 Thom and I moved over in the bed so she could sit on the edge and take weight off her bad leg, off her injured back.\u00a0 She settled there, her face a mask of pain for a long moment, her eyes sparkling with tears she barely held inside.\u00a0 \u201cI can feel it deep down in here.\u201d\u00a0 She pressed a hand against her belly as she caught her lower lip in her teeth.\u00a0 \u201cCan you feel it, too?\u201d<\/p>\n
I swallowed again and nodded. \u00a0\u201cYeah.\u00a0 Ever since the storm started.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the beginning,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf what?\u201d\u00a0 Thom asked.\u00a0 His arms tightened around me and I rested my head against his shoulder, my forehead against his neck.\u00a0 Even as the storm howled outside and a ball of dread coiled in my belly, I felt safe in his arms.\u00a0 He\u2019d never let anything hurt me\u2014not as long as he could do something about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Neve admitted softly, \u201cbut I know it\u2019s not good.\u00a0 Maybe Phelan\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d I agreed.\u00a0 \u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cocooned in Thom\u2019s arms, I eventually drifted back to sleep, though it wasn\u2019t mercifully dreamless like most of my nights had been lately.\u00a0 Someone was laughing, cackling almost madly, and it left my skin crawling even as I jerked awake … Continue reading