Lee chuckled. “It’s a phrase. When you say ‘shoot,’ it means go ahead, say what you want.”
I hesitated, then exhaled. “I’ve been having these dreams… these nightmares.”
My fingers instinctively reached for my neck, kneading the tension.
“They started when Olivia and I got married,” I admitted.
Lee stood a few feet away now, arms crossed, his eyes attentive.
“The dreams are so vivid, so real… They’re always the same or variations of the same.”
Lee nodded. “Tell me. Describe them.”
I barely heard him. I was already sinking—falling—into the quicksand of those nightmares.
I leaned against the wall, pressing my palms against it, bracing myself for the memory.
“In the dream, I have a family,” I murmured. “A wife. Children. I’m happy—content in a way I can’t even describe.”
I swallowed hard.
“Sometimes, I’m racing through the woods on horseback… with Malik.” My voice dropped. “We ride side by side like brothers. And even though we aren’t—not in the biological sense—there’s this… bond. Something deep. Something that ties us together.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, the next part of the dream solidifying like a vision.
“Other times, we’re hunting together. We move as one—our arrowspoised, our breath in sync. We share the exultation of the kill, the thrill of the hunt.”
I narrowed my eyes as the next scene shuddered through me.
“And then I see smoke.”
My voice lowered to a rasp.
“It fills the air, thick, choking. It clogs my throat, my nose, my lungs.”
The dream rushed forward in my mind, swallowing me whole.
“When the smoke clears, I see it—my house.
“My children.
“My beautiful wife.
“They’re burning.
“Running toward me, their bodies engulfed by flames.
“Whenever I have the nightmare, I wake up drenched in sweat, tangled in the bedding. Sometimes, I wake up screaming.”
Silence.
Then, softly—“Roman…”
Lee’s voice reached me, pulling me back.
But I wasn’t done.
“There are always bad people,” I said, still trapped in the nightmare’s grip. “Always someone hunting me. Hunting them.”
