Oli grabbed his hand and squeezed when Rabbit reached for him, stopping him before he could touch his brutalized face.
Rabbit’s music teacher had always been like sunshine incarnate, bright, and bubbly. He could find a silver lining amid the darkest storms and had the uncanny ability to make Rabbit want to do the same. He’d always admired the dimples on his cheeks and the fine arch of his golden brows, but now everything was caked in dried blood, and the fact that his mother was the reason for it made him want to both throw-up and beg for forgiveness.
“I should have stayed away.” He tried to pull his hand free, but Oli’s grip tightened, keeping him captive as panic swept across the older man’s expression.
“Come with me,” he blurted, casting his eyes toward the dark, looming house. They were standing with only the single porch light there to help illuminate them, only enough to make them visible to one another while standing this close, less than three feet apart. “Let’s leave, Rabbit. We can go and never look back. You can be free.”
“What—” He tried to take Oli’s other hand, gasping when that had him crying out.
Oli Easton, the best musician on this side of the planet aside from December Trace, had three broken fingers.
“No.” Rabbit shook his head and stepped back, yanking himself free from that hold. His mother was a controlling nightmare tohim, sure, but music was her God. She would never… “You need to get to a hospital!” He forgot all about the need to be quiet, grabbing onto his elbow to tug him toward the other side of the house.
They only made it a few steps before Oli dug his heels in.
“That’s not important right now,” Oli said, but Rabbit didn’t agree.
“If you don’t get this checked you’ll never play again!”
“I don’t care.”
“How can you say that?” Rabbit had only met Oli because of their shared love for the beiska. There was no way his teacher would willingly give that up, and for what? His ex-student with the overbearing mother? It didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t worth it.
“I’ll call you a cab,” Rabbit lifted his multi-slate and started doing just that. “They’ll bring you directly to the hospital. Take my account info, I have enough to cover—”
“I don’t want your money, Rabbit,” Oli stated, sounding slightly offended, but mostly just harried.
“Then,” even knowing he shouldn’t ask it, that he should insist Oli go immediately, Rabbit hesitated, “What do you want, Oli?”
“She’s a monster,” he told him. “She isn’t safe to be around. You need to leave before—”
There was a hard crashing sound and Oli instantly stopped talking. For a moment, Rabbit didn’t understand why or what was going on, frowning over at the older man.
Then—
Rabbit shot awake, mind still caught up in the dream, eyes wildly searching his surrounding sightlessly as his hands gripped the heavy material of the black and gray comforter over his lower body. He was panting, sucking in oxygen but forgetting to exhale properly, dizziness sweeping over him in no time at all.
He hardly noticed, that voice echoing in his mind over and over again, calling out to him. Pleading and harrowing.
Rabbit!
He slammed his palms over his ears and started to rock, as though that could somehow help block out the ghost that had been haunting him all this time. He’d tried so hard to keep them buried, to not let them back into the light, but now they were swarming in his head like poison and he was certain they’d drag him under to the bowels of hell.
Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Maybe death would make all of this go away permanently.
She’s a monster.
“Stop,” Rabbit murmured to himself, but the voices kept repeating and the darkness of that night kept flashing before his eyes even with them closed. “Stop!”
Hands suddenly latched onto him and he cried out, fighting the arms around him that refused to let go. The room he was in came flooding into focus—a black comforter, gray walls, silver embellishments, all dark aspects just like that night. He sobbed and fought harder, gasping for breath when he was pulled in close, his face buried against the curve of someone’s neck.
Wood smoke and eucalyptus.
Baikal.
