“LUIS,”this time the voice was louder, and his eyes shot open.
Instead of the basement, he was in a bedroom. Karim was above him, hands on his shoulders trying to wake him.
He’d been having a nightmare.
There was wetness on his cheek. “Sorry,” he said, reaching to wipe his face.
But Karim just pulled him up into a hug. He was so broad and sturdy and warm. Luis buried his face against Karim’s neck and breathed him in. He smelled like Julien, a bit of violet around the edges.
He clutched tight at Karim. If Karim was here, nothing bad could happen.
“You had a nightmare,” came Julien’s soft voice. Steps crossed the room, and then a hand carded through Luis’s hair and down his sweaty neck.
Something unlocked in his stiff muscles. The panic receded, and Luis took a deep, easier breath. When he opened his eyes, they caught on the far window. There were specks of sunlight around the edges of the blackout curtains.
“I woke you up,” he said miserably as he forced himself to pull away from Karim.
“It’s okay,” Julien said soothingly. “We heard you scream and we were worried something was wrong.”
Luis wiped his eyes and turned to look at the other vampire. He was in a matched set of rumpled pajamas, his braided hair messy from sleep.
“What time is it?” Luis asked.
“About eight,” Karim said.
So they’d just gone to bed.
“I’m sorry. I’m fine now. It was just a nightmare,” Luis said, looking between the two of them. “You should go back to bed.”
“We can stay with you, it’s no trouble,” Julien said.
But it was trouble. They’d done more than enough for him, and he didn’t need to be ruining their sleep too.
“No, it’s okay,” Luis said. “I’d just feel worse–I’ll get up and have something to eat, shake it off. I’ll be fine.” Luis hadgone to sleep a few hours before them, and would still be a few hours short if he stayed up now.
But the idea of laying back down and falling back into that dream made him sick to his stomach.
The two vampires had a silent back-and-forth conversation, and then Karim eased up off the bed.
“Okay, we’ll leave you to it. But if you need us, we’re just in the next room.”
Luis nodded. “Thank you, and I’m sorry. For waking you.”
“We’re just glad it wasn’t anything more serious,” Julien said, his hand slipping off of Luis and taking Karim’s. “We’ll see you this evening.”
“Goodnight,” Luis said.
After they left, Luis flopped back on his bed with a gusty sigh. Were the night terrors going to be a regular thing now?
Awesome.
##
On the second day that Luis woke from a nightmare to Julien and Karim in his room, Luis sent them back to bed, and went downstairs and called the detective.
The sun was still up, so it went to voicemail. Luis left a message inquiring about arrests. Maybe knowing they weren’t still out there would help? Luis didn’t know, but he couldn’t keep doing this. The guilt from disrupting Julien and Karim’s schedules was eating at him.
Hours later, when the sun set, Detective Sarris called him back with the news that they’d arrested Eric Moran, Pastor John Baker, and his mother so far, and were following leads on who else was involved.
