Chapter Thirteen
FOR SEVEN YEARS, SLEEP HAD BEEN my best friend and favourite medicine.
Sleep could erase a shitty day, heal a hurting head, and reset my messed up nervous system in ways nothing else could.
If I had the choice, I would sleep longer than I was actually awake, preferring to exist in dreams where I wasn’t so shattered and my parents were still alive.
Tonight, I dreamed of the very first place where I’d fled after watching my parents inject themselves with a chemical that didn’t grant immortality like they’d hoped but turned them into puddles of molten bone instead.
I hadn’t even gone home to shower off the strangely coloured blood that’d splashed all over me.
I’d ignored Frank and all the staff.
I’d grabbed my passport from the safe, my bag from the office, walked out of the company, and vanished. I’d spent seven months in the jungles of Vietnam—not to find myself or heal my grief—but because it was the first plane out of the airport.
I’d somehow ended up in a tiny village where no one knew me, no reporters wanted to interview me, and the pressure of ruling a company that Forbes claimed would single-handedly bethe reason why death would become a pastime we could all avoid was non-existent.
I gladly and gratefully slipped into Asian provincial life.
It didn’t matter I couldn’t speak the language or that my credit cards were useless without an ATM. A local family took pity on me and taught me how to work in their fields.
I found salvation in long, hard hours—even though my condition tormented me—and collapsed into a deep, healing sleep the moment the day was done.
I’d often wake in the middle of the night to find the pack of local village dogs—all ownerless but fed by the community—curled around me on the floor where I slept.
So when something cool and wet nudged my hand, my dreams shot me straight back to that time when I was nobody. It filled me with profound peace, and I reached for those memories, longing to return to such simplicity.
My arms snaked around the dog that’d come to snuffle me awake, just like I’d grown used to. The dog seemed bigger than the scruffy mutts I’d cuddled before, but it was still warm and soft and wonderful.
Nuzzling closer, I sighed and sank deeper into dreams.
* * * * *
I woke to the raspiest tongue licking my cheek.
I giggled and tucked my chin, pushing the mutt out of the way. “Khoai, quit it.” My favourite of the dogs had been called Potato in Vietnamese, mainly because he was as round as one.
The cold kiss of a canine nose, followed by the huff of breath. My heart swelled enough to crack. After my parents’ death, I hadn’t been touched by another person. I didn’t allow anyone to get close enough because I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Yet I also ached for touch. I yearned for a hug that would protectme from everything. I wanted to be taken care of, even while pretending I needed no one.
The only times I let down my walls were around animals—hurling myself into their unconditional embraces and soaking up everything I was missing.
That raspy, dry lick came again, right on my temple.
“Eww, Khoai, what happened to your tongue?” Rolling onto my back, I opened my eyes and—
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Scrambling upright and shooting off the bed, I tripped in the blankets tangled around my legs and fell straight back down again.
The panther arched an eyebrow where it lay—whereI’dbeen lying. It huffed as if judging me and then stood and stretched. Its claws punctured my pillow, its spine flattening and arching as gracefully as a ballerina.
My heart stopped as it yawned, revealing a mouthful of sharp fangs and extremely pointy teeth.
I tried to get up off the floor. To stop my racing adrenaline. But then the panther leapt off my bed and prowled toward me. Towering over me, it burned me alive with its golden, glowing stare before humming quietly and headbutting me right in the forehead.
“Oww...” I winced, rocking backward and rubbing yet another bruise. “You really don’t know your own strength, do you?”
It sat down, its leggy limbs perfect for loping through a jungle, its paws absolutely gigantic.
