Chapter
One
BLAIRE
Blood.
I had never seen so muchblood.
A layer of it coated my left hand, slick as oil. It dripped between my fingers, falling to the tile floor with wet plops. I watched curiously as it spread out on the white ceramic, its edges like tiny arms stretching for salvation. The blood would stain the pale grout, I realized, and I would never be able to get it out.
I pulled my gaze up to the cheap white bathtub and registered a man’s body slumped over the edge. Someone had obviously made an unsuccessful effort to contain the mess. He wasn’t dead yet, but close to it, a faint gurgling coming from the angry gash across his throat. This wasn’t an accident, by any means.
I didn’t scream when I saw the nearly dead body. The screaming came when I looked down at my other hand and saw the knife, glittering brightly with my sin.
My shriek carriedover into my once-silent room, as I bolted upright in bed. Pressing my hand against my chest, I attempted to slow my racing heart. I had been here before. Too many times to count at this point. The scene was the same every night—the dream shocking me awake in my bed, a tangle of sheets keeping me locked in place.
The dream, though, was never the same room. Never the same weapon. The victim was always different, but the result was always the same.
Me, standing over a body, my skin coated with sticky red blood.
Holding my hand out in front of me, I tried to make out my flesh in the dim light, but it was in vain. Even my nightlight didn’t produce enough glow to tell if there was crimson staining my skin.
I knew I was being ridiculous. I would walk to the bathroom, examine my body in detail like I did after every other twisted dream, and I would find nothing. Nothing except my tired eyes, and my skin a shade too pale.
It was only a dream.Then why did it feel so real?
“It was only a dream,” I repeated out loud, flopping back onto my pillow. “Fucking hell.”
I’d been so hopeful that tonight would be different…
Doing exactly what the bottle label told menotto do, I’d washed down the sleeping pill with a glass of wine. If the pill didn’t knock me out, the alcohol definitely would. My psychiatrist wouldn’t approve, but I needed sleep.
And it was only a dream.
The words rolled bitter in my mouth, arsenic I had forgotten to wash out.
Beside me, my alarm clock lit up 2:22 while my brain continued to race. My thoughts had always been quicker than my mouth. My anxieties cut deeper than logic.
I grabbed for the small journal I kept next to my bed, the dream journal my psychologist asked me to keep, and jotted down as much as I could remember. It too, was a futile activity, but at least it made me feel like I was doingsomething.
It was funny, really. The way people thoughtthosekinds of things wouldn’t happen to them. The kinds of things we feared at night when we were alone—illness, kidnapping, injury,death. How they held to some steadfast belief they were protected by an all-seeing being who cared so much about their soul, they could afford to watch them specifically, at theexactmoment of their downfall.
Humans were too cocky. Too naïve. Because the moment you thought you were safe, it all came crashing down around you.
At the end of the day, the only person watching your back was you.
In my opinion, it was better to always be prepared for the worst. To buy the extra lock, even though your landlord insisted the deadbolt was steadfast. To carefully examine the shadows that lurked in corners before they shifted into something unfamiliar. The dark and I had never been friends, and we probably never would be. However, a kind of truce stretched between us, fragile at best. We knew where we stood. I never ventured too far into the unknown, and the darkness stayed outside the reach of the nightlights that flooded my apartment.
Careful meant safe. It also meant that when I staggered awake after another dream, my only comfort gleaned from the soft glow of my nightlights. A bitter laugh escaped my mouth,and I disentangled myself from the sheets. I was stupid to think I could ever escape the dream—nightmare.
“Alright. Bathroom. One. Two…”Three. Hauling myself to my feet, I stumbled across the room. Flicking on the switch, I blinked in the bright light. My grip on the sink was the only thing keeping me upright as I examined myself in the mirror.
Anxiety wasn’t new to me. My brain had worked overtime for as long as I could remember, which wasn’t overly far. A traumatic childhood left me with many of my earlier memories blocked out, according to my therapist. I wasn’t sure how much I could trust them.
My memories, or my therapist. Psychologist. Psychiatrist. All these people who said they could help me, and yet here I was at two in the morning, examining my freckled skin for blood that didn’t exist.
It was only a dream.Why could I still smell rust, overpowering the thick scent of a man’s cologne?
