Nothing.
I shake harder. “Wren!”
Her eyes fly open with a gasp. For a second, she just stares at me, her chest heaving. Then recognition hits, and she sits up so fast she nearly headbutts me.
She’s in her underwear. White cotton bra and matching panties. Nothing fancy, but on her, it’s…
I force my eyes back to her face. I refuse to be that guy. Not now. Not when she’s clearly terrified.
“Grim,” she chokes out. Then she’s crying, great heaving sobs that shake her whole body.
I pull her into my arms. She collapses against my chest, and I wrap myself around her, one hand cradling the back of her head.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. It was just a nightmare.”
She clings to me, her fingers digging into my shoulders. “No…no, it wasn’t. It was so real,” she gasps between sobs.
“Tell me about it. It’ll make you feel better.” I run my hand up and down her back, trying to soothe her. “Tell me what you saw.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her face wet with tears. “I was back in the clinic. Everything was happening again. The glass breaking. The gunfire.” Her breath hitches. “Sally got shot. Just like before. But this time…”
She trails off, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
“This time what?” I ask gently.
“This time she looked at me.” Wren’s voice drops to a whisper. “Right after the bullet hit her. She looked right at me and begged me to help her.”
My chest gets tight.
“I tried to move,” Wren continues, her words tumbling out faster now. “I tried so hard. But I couldn’t. You know how it is sometimes in a dream? It was like I’d been given a sedative or something. My body wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything. It was so real.”
I pull her closer, my jaw clenching.
“Sally started crawling toward me,” Wren says, and her body shudders. “Dragging herself across the floor. Leaving this trail of blood behind her. She kept saying, ‘Help me, Wren. Please help me.’ Over and over. I was dying inside, but I still couldn’t… I…”
“Wren—”
“I tried to move,” she cuts me off, her voice breaking. “I tried so hard. I was screaming inside my head, but nothing came out. I just lay there frozen and useless.”
I tighten my arms around her.
“Then one of those men in combat gear walked up behind her.” Wren’s voice hitches. “He pointed his gun at the back of her head. Sally was still looking at me. Still begging. And he just…he…” She makes a choked sound. “He just shot her. Right there. Like it was nothing.”
“Fuck.” The word comes out as a growl.
She starts crying harder, and all I can do is hold her. Rock her. Let her get it out.
“It’s your mind’s way of processing what happened,” I tell her when she starts to calm down. “It’s trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. Something that shouldn’t have happened.”
Wren pulls back, wiping at her face. “Why?” she asks, her voice raw. “Why did it happen? Why did they do that to her? To all of them? To us? I don’t understand.”
I want to tell her the truth. Want to explain everything Drake told me. Everything I know about the vaccinations and the Mainland’s lies.
But I can’t.
Instead, I say, “I don’t know for certain. But there must be some truth to what those anti-vaxxers were saying. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.” She came up with the theory herself, and it’s the only one that makes sense because it’s true.
Wren nods, processing this. Then her eyes sharpen. “Those men in combat gear. They were humans, weren’t they?”
