My eyes adjust quickly, but there’s still a haze to everything that makes me feel even more uneasy. I listen for any indication of movement around me, and when the scream comes, it’s so loud and jarring that I scream myself in shock and fear. I slam a hand over my mouth, but it doesn’t stop the smell of old, stale blood from assaulting my senses.
The scream trails off, the sound so visceral and raw. I couldn’t tell you if it was from a man or a woman, but the urge to run is nipping at my every nerve as my heart hammers in my chest and I try to process where the hell I am. I can’t see right, and the smell is wrong. There’s no way I’m in the room I fell asleep in last night, but then where the hell am I and how did I get here?
Memories clamor in my mind of Prek blowing powder into my face, Rogan holding me, and the feeling of a needle being shoved in my neck. Confusion pulses through me in time with my heart. Did that just happen? Did it happen again? My thoughts are fuzzy like they’re floating in stagnant water with weeks’ worth of mold growing on them.
The screaming starts again, and this time I bite down on my own panic. I call magic to me, try to blanket myself in its protection, but even when it comes, I don’t feel better. Maybe it’s because I can’t see. I can’t tell what’s coming my way or what’s making that person release such feral, soul-shattering pleas.
My name bursts out amidst the screams, and suddenly everything around me clicks into place. It doesn’t matter that everything is black and hazy or that I can’t smell anything beyond rotten blood and dust. I know who’s screaming, and I have to get to him now.
“Tad!” I bellow, pained and desperate as more agonized wails reach wherever the hell I am. “Taaaad!” I scream again when silence crushes everything around me like a tidal wave, and nothing and nobody answers me.
I try to feel for what’s around me, for what my eyes refuse to reveal, but I realize I can’t move. I’m trapped somehow, and I know if I have to hear him screaming again, there will be no coming back. I will fracture into a million pieces and never be the same. Dread pools in my gut. Anticipation chokes me, and just when I’m about to scream from my inability to take it, I gasp and sit up in my bed.
Alarm strikes through me like a jackhammer. My room comes clearly into view, everything tucked in by shadows and kissed by night. I pull air in and rush to expel it, my lungs on the cusp of hyperventilation. Sweat drips down my brow, and I swallow the acrid taste of panic as once again an echo of a dream haunts me.
I have no fucking clue what’s going on, but I ignore the need to try and figure it out as I reach for the charging phone on my bedside table. Fingers shaking, I struggle to unlock it. I almost yelp with relief when my third attempt finally pays off and I pull up Tad’s number. The line starts to ring, and I say a silent thank you to Prek for finally trusting me with this device. I bite at my cuticles as ring number three trills in my ear, and a silent plea ofcome on, Tad, answer the damn phonestarts in my head.
“Hello?” a froggy, sleep-laced voice asks.
“Tad,” I practically scream in relief, my eyes prickling with tears. “Are you okay?” I demand, pushing sweaty curls from my face as I lean back against the cushioned headboard in my room.
“Leni?” Tad asks drowsily, and I hear him sit up in his bed. “What happened?” he presses, his voice a little more alert and focused.
“Nothing, I’m fine, but are you okay? Is Aunt Hillen okay? Nobody that you know of currently being tortured?” I ask with a strained chuckle as I run a hand down my face. Adrenaline starts to abandon me, but when I close my eyes and rest my head against the tufted headboard, it’s like I can hear Tad’s screams all over again. I sit up with a jerk, shoving my tangle of covers away from me.
“Yeah, we’re fine. Everybody is fine. Why? Are you sure you’re okay?”
I release a deep, relieved breath and take a moment to collect myself.What the hell is up with these nightmares?
“I had a bad dream. It...it freaked me out, I’m sorry I woke you up,” I offer, but I can’t seem to shake the boulder of trepidation now sitting square on my chest.
I felt like the dream about Rogan was some kind of prophecy, maybe a warning, but I won’t survive if this dream about Tad is one too.
“You wanna talk about it?” Tad asks, worry ringing in his tone.
“No, not really, go back to bed, I’m sorry I woke you,” I concede, but neither one of us is quick to hang up.
“Talk to me,” he encourages simply, and the familiarity of his warmth opens the floodgates to my worries.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s this place that’s fucking with me, but I just feel...hunted. I can’t explain it, but it’s like I’m watching a clock that’s counting down, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I don’t even know what happens when it finally gets to zero, just that it feels bad, wrong somehow,” I confess, dumping on my cousin and best friend a burden that’s getting too heavy for me to carry.
“That makes sense,” he reassures me, and I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it, bewildered for a moment.
“It does?” I ask, chagrined.
“Well, yeah. I mean, you’re up at witch central, working on a case about missing people,” he tells me as though I need the reminder. “And come on, we’ve watched enough crime dramas to easily think of all the horrible things that could be happening to them. Of course you feel like you’re racing against time. You’re out of your element with all this. Not to mention, you just went through some shit with Tall-hot-and-untrustworthy. If youweren’tfreaking out a little, I’d be worried. We solve already-solved crimes from the safety of our couch, thank you, Netflix. But now you’re there, actually trying to solve some real-life crap, and that’s bound to take a toll.”
His words work to comfort me a little. I mean, he’s right. Nothing in all my massage school classes ever prepared me for this kind of shit.
“Stress does weird things to people, like give them nightmares, or finds them falling into bed with their enemies,” he adds, innuendo drizzling all over his tone.
I snort out a laugh and roll my eyes. “You have got to let that one go,” I chastise, my worry easing and the boulder on my chest lightening ever so slightly.
“Pshhhh, I refuse, and you can’t make me,” Tad teases, and I can’t help but chuckle at his antics. “Any news on the missing witches?” he asks hesitantly, and I rub my eyes, hating my answer.
“No, nothing.”
“Have you talked tohim?” he asks after we’re both quiet for a beat.
