“Are you dreaming?” he asks, easing himself down to sit beside me. He props his elbows on his knees and gives me a sidelong glance. “Or are you awake?”
All the hairs on my arm stand up and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s so close or the way his eyes seem to gaze right into the heart of me, or because I’m starting to think maybe I am awake after all.
“You never answered my question,” I tell him, shifting away slightly, his proximity to me producing a strange push pull, like two magnets about to connect. “Why do I keep dreaming you? Have we met before? What’s your name?”
“So many questions, Ada, so little time” he says. There’s something so soothing about his voice, both low and silken, even in such a dead place like this where all sound is worn down, dull. “But you have met me before. At the wedding.”
“I knew it,” I whisper, feeling mildly triumphant.
“I guess it doesn’t say much about me that you don’t really remember,” he says with a wince, a piece of wavy hair flopping on his forehead. “Or maybe it says a lot.”
“I blame the champagne,” I tell him. “So now I know I’ve met you before. Am I conjuring you up because I found you absurdly handsome and I’m hoping to pick up where we left off?”
Okay, normally I’m not this forward with guys but it’s my dream, I can do what the hell I want.
The corner of his mouth quirks up. He has damn fine lips. “We didn’t really leave off anywhere. You took off your shoes and went to get champagne. I never saw you again.”
I’m wondering if that’s true or if it’s what my subconscious wants me to believe. After all, it’s pretty much what Perry had told me earlier.
“You’re here,” he says slowly, his face falling slightly, “because I have something to show you.”
He gets to his feet in one fluid motion and reaches down for my hand.
Without thinking, as if my hand has a mind of its own, it goes to his and I feel an immediate jolt of electricity running through me. Not just the electricity you read about in romance novels. I mean actual voltage. My lips are buzzing.
“Sorry,” he says, hauling me to my feet, still holding onto my hand. “The connection in here can be a livewire.”
A livewire? It’s magnetic is what it is, it feels like my palm is stuck to his and our hands meld together like they were always meant to be this way.
Fuck. Though the respite from the horror is welcome, I’m not sure all this Twilight-like, magnetic, electric bullshit is any better, dream-wise.
Come on, he says in my head. And use your inside voice.
Okay, I say, hearing my words escape, despite not opening my mouth.
He leads the way, his large form in front of me as he takes me toward the forest.
The forest of darkness and death.
My chest feels heavy and he pauses, looking at me over his shoulder.
You’ll be fine with me. I won’t let anything happen to you.
What are you showing me? I ask him. I don’t even really know who you are.
I’m the one who has your back, he says. And I’ve been watching you for a very, very long time.
I don’t have the luxury to puzzle over his remark. We enter the forest and I immediately feel this sense of doom slide over me, as if evil has taken up residence here and it’s just oozing from the trees. The light in here is nearly gone and I can barely make out the tree trunks from the shadows. Everything is the darkest, grainiest red, a world seeped in blood.
Without realizing it, I’m holding his hand for dear life. He’s leading me further into my nightmare and I don’t even know his name.
It’s Jay, he says, glancing at me over his shoulder.
Oh great, Jay, the thought reader.
Sorry, he says. It’s impossible not to when we’re in here.
You keep saying in here, I say as I give wide berth to a flowering vine that’s reaching halfway across the path. I swear there are eyeballs at the center of the flowers, watching me as I go. You mean my dream.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Things aren’t always as they seem here.
No shit, I mutter to myself.
Suddenly he stops and I run into his back. A nice, hard, firm back. I yearn to run my fingers over his muscles and reach up to do so, because again, it’s my dream and it’s been forever since I’ve had a sexy one, but he says, listen.
I take my hand away, my other still grasping his, unable to let go, and cock my head in concentration.
I hear a flurry of wings beating and look up to see the faint shape of what looks to be a bat the size of an eagle flying overhead, a black blot beyond the dark reaches of the tree limbs.
Not that, he says.
I close my eyes, straining to hear more.
At first I just hear my own heartbeat, a strange thing to pick up on in a dream, and for a moment I wonder if I’m still in bed with Perry, if my heart is racing in real life, if I’m tossing and turning.
Then I hear it.
Again.
“Help me, Ada.”
My mother’s voice.
I grasp Jay’s hand tighter. What is that? What’s going on?
It’s not your mother, he says, glancing down at me, his brows low. That’s what I want to show you, what you need to know.
I peer around him.
The path in front of us widens, but as the trees fan out, it doesn’t become lighter. It becomes darker. Instead of a forest it’s a black veil, like we’re standing on the edge of a starless universe. And there, just feet away in the earth, is a large gaping pit with a sole hand sticking out of it.