“Sloane?”
I scream again as a man throws open the doorway. “No hippo dick!Back, hippo dick!”
He freezes.
Peggy meows.
My eyes adjust, and even with my heart pounding this fast and my blood pressure making dots dance in my vision, I remember who I am.
Where I am.
Why I am.
Maybe notallwhy I am, but definitely why I’m here. Specifically in this trailer.
Maybe not on earth.
And the T-shirt.
I’m wearing one of Davis’s T-shirts that he pulled out for me because I didn’t want to sleep in my scrubs and I wasn’t allowed to take anything but my cat from my house and I didn’t think to ask Tillie Jean for any clothes before we left her house.
I drop my head to my knees and pant for breath.
The floor creaks, and a moment later, the mattress sags next to me. I’m in the middle of the queen-size bed because I live alone, so I sleep alone, and I practice taking up space by taking up space when I’m subconscious.
“Bad dream?” Davis asks quietly.
Peggy leaps onto the bed and hops over to rub her face against my quilt-covered legs.
“Yeah.” I gulp more air. “I’m fine.”
He falls quiet while Peggy meows until I pull her against me and concentrate on slowing my breathing.
It was a bad dream.
Nigel can’t make me do anything.
He’s not eating treasure and sticking it up my nose.
If he has a hippo-sized penis, I will hopefully never know.
But also, in my dream—Nigel had Patrick’s face.
“Always fucking with me,” I mutter to myself as I exhale slowly to control my breathing.
“In your nightmares?”
I snort softly. “Sometimes in real life too. He showed up tonight, didn’t he?”
I don’t expect him to say anything—let’s be real here, it’s Davis—but after a moment, his voice rumbles softly in the darkness. “This isn’t the first time Nigel’s tried to hurt you.”
Peggy purrs, and I bury my face into her body. “People hurt people. It’s what we do.”
“Not always.”
“Do you date?”
“No.”
