She rolls over and I straighten, thinking this is it. But still, she doesn’t stir. She does, however, start mumbling something I can’t decipher. Her head shakes from side to side before she lets out a gut-wrenching scream.
“What the fuck?” I’m on my feet in seconds, but by the time I reach her, she’s stopped screaming and is settled back against the covers.
There’s only one reason someone would have nightmares like that. Something happened to her.
I storm out of her room and let myself into Louie’s apartment. He meets me in the foyer. “Where’s Charlotte?” I ask him. She’s the one person who will have the answers I want.
“She’s asleep. What the fuck are you doing here?” Louie grunts.
“Wake her up.”
“I’m not doing that. What do you want, E?” he asks.
I reach behind my back, draw my pistol, and aim it at his head. “Wake her up!”
“I’m not waking up my wife for you.” Louie crosses his arms over his chest.
Footsteps sound from the other end of the hallbefore they get closer and then his new bride is right in front of me.
“Charlotte, go back to the bedroom.” Louie tries to step in front of her.
“Don’t move,” I tell her, lowering my gun, because I don’t actually want to scare the woman. “Something is wrong with Evie.”
Charlotte shoves past Louie and stops right in front of me. “What? What happened?” she asks but she’s already walking towards the door.
“She’s talking in her sleep. I want to know what happened to her. Who the fuck is she talking about?”
The question stops Charlotte in her tracks. She spins around to face me. “She’s probably having a nightmare. She has them from time to time. They’re not real.”
She’s lying.
“How do you know she’s talking in her sleep?” Charlotte glares at me with as much distrust as I feel for everyone around me at the moment.
“I was watching her,” I admit while aiming an accusatory finger instead of the pistol that’s itching to get back in my hands. “And you’re lying to me.”
Louie steps between us. “Don’t fucking speak to her like that,” he growls.
I ignore him. “I’m going to find out. You mightas well tell me, Charlotte. Someone did something to her, and I want to know who it was.”
“I think that’s something you should ask her. When she’s awake, but don’t expect her to open up to you. She doesn’t talk about her past,” Charlotte says.
She really is a loyal fucking friend. I’ve got a gun in my hand and she still won’t tell me what I want to know.
Then something flickers across her face. “But say they were real… If you could find the person who caused those nightmares, what would you do about it?” she asks me.
“You don’t want to know what I’ll do, because those are the kind of nightmares that will keepyouawake at night.” I smile at the thought.
“Look, I don’t know the full story, because like I said, she doesn’t talk about it. But I’m sure if you dug into the pageant world, you’d find the reason behind her nightmares. That’s all I’m saying. Anything else you want to know, you’ll have to ask Evie,” she says, and I know that’s about as much as I’ll get out of Charlotte.
“Thank you. I will ask her. When do you think she’ll wake up?”
“I have no idea,” Charlotte tells me.
I don’t say anything else before I walk out ofLouie’s penthouse and return to Evie’s side. She hasn’t moved. She’s still fucking asleep.
I take my phone out and Googleinsomniaand the effects on the body. I want to know how to help her…
This is fucking insane. I don’t even know her. Sure, she resembles my dead girlfriend, but that’s not why I’m so drawn to her.
