Dark Child

by Jo Raven

Fear seizes me, paralyzes me. Why is the room so dark, and what are those fingers of blackness creeping over the bed? They seem to drip blood on the pale sheets.

  No way, oh God…

  “Merc!” My own cry startles me, breaks me out of my trance. Forcing myself to move, I hurry over to the bed on shaky legs. I grab his shoulder and shake him. “Wake up. Wake up!”

  What’s this craziness? I’m not a little kid to believe in dreams and ghosts. As I shake him again, I think that the mind can play crazy tricks on you. This has to be the explanation. A rational explanation.

  Although I tried to dismiss my dreams, whatever caused them—that hard core of worry over something I can’t put my finger on—still bothers me.

  And something has to be bothering Merc, too, judging from the cold terror in his eyes when he finally stops thrashing and blinks at me, his face white and drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with each ragged breath.

  Then he pushes away from me, scrambling on the bed, clapping a hand over his mouth, and stumbles out of the room and into the bathroom. I hear retching sounds.

  My knees decide not to hold me anymore, and I sink on the edge of the mattress. I pass my hands over my face. My heart kicks against my ribcage.

  What’s going on?

  When I walk into the bathroom, I find him getting to his feet, holding onto the sink for support, his face an unhealthy gray color. His eyes are bloodshot.

  “I’m okay,” he says, and tries to smile.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I put my arms around his broad back, against chilled skin, and hold on tight. “You scared me,” I whisper.

  He says nothing, his arms coming up to hold me.

  “What did you dream about?”

  A shiver goes through him. “Nothing.”

  I draw back just enough to look up at his face. “Merc. Come on. JC said you have nightmares every night.”

  “JC?” He steps back, his arms dropping away, mouth twisting. “When did he say that?”

  “Just now.” I watch his handsome face, the emotions flitting over his features—anger, confusion, shame, fear. “I just want to help.”

  “You can’t.”

  I wince. “Why won’t you tell me? Is it a big secret?” I frown. “Is it the secret your sister is keeping for you?”

  He sways a little, which scares the crap out of me. “What the fuck? Why would you say that?”

  He’s shaking again. I don’t like this at all. “Come.” I take his hand and tug. He lets me. “Let’s go to bed.”

  We walk back to the bedroom, sit on the bed. He’s frowning at something, jaw tight, lips pressed into a line.

  “Don’t you trust me?” I ask him. “Why won’t you talk about this?”

  “Fuck, CosieCat…” He runs his hands through his hair. “This isn’t… is this a test? I just have bad dreams sometimes. What do my dreams have to do with anything?”

  “They make you sick. You can’t sleep. You can’t go on like this.” He’s shaking his head, denying it. “You asked me to trust you. Maybe you can trust me too?”

  “Cos…”

  Speaking of trust… “Look, I have dreams about you.”

  “What? What sort of dreams?”

  I bet he can see from my face it’s not the good kind. “If I tell you, will you tell me about yours?”

  “Dammit, Cos.” He’s staring at me, his eyes too dark in his pale face. “What the hell…?” He swallows hard. “Know what? Fine, you win. You got yourself a deal.”

  “Listen…” I draw a deep breath. It doesn’t feel like a victory. That’s not what it was about. And now that he’s looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak, I’m finding it difficult to say the words. “I dream a lot. Always have.”

  The knot in his throat moves when he swallows again. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “Okay. And?”

  “Since I met you, I’ve had these dreams about you. You’re always in some sort of danger and… I can’t help you. Like, once you were bleeding out. Another time you walked off a cliff. And another you drowned.”

  He flinches. “Awesome.”

  “And a few times you asked for help. But I didn’t know how to help you.”

  “You do know they are just dreams, right?”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “What do you mean? Christ.”

  “I mean, I’m worried about you. I feel that you’re not okay, and my subconscious is expressing my worry in dreams. I have dreams about my sister, too, had them before she told me about Griffin and his diagnosis. I felt her fear, her despair, her pain. And that’s how I know you need help.”

  He scoffs, but his eyes shine a bit too brightly.

  “You want to downplay how your nightmares are affecting you, be my guest. But you don’t sleep well, and they’re obviously much worse than you say they are. Question is, why are you having them, and what are they trying to tell you?”

  “I dunno,” he says, and winces, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. “Gigi said something like that yesterday.”

  “Makes sense.” I put my arm around his back and wait for him to talk. It’s his turn, but ultimately this is his decision. “Hey, remember when you asked why I had my status on Facebook as a dream relationship? That was you. It was you, all along.”

  He pushes his fingers into his short hair and tugs. He’s silent for so long I’m starting to think this is my answer. His broad back is rigid, sweat cooling on his skin.

  But then he says, “I see a body.”

  “A body?”

  “A corpse. She looks dead, anyway. It’s a young woman, lying in a pool of blood, in the woods by the river. It’s mostly the same dream, night after night.”

  I wait for more, but he’s blinking as if he can see the image in front of him.

  “That’s it?” I eventually ask when nothing more seems to be forthcoming.

  He blinks. “Uh… there’s footsteps coming after me. A man. Sometimes he grabs me and shakes me. Sometimes…”

  “Yeah?” God, I’m so sorry he’s going through this. No matter how he tries to make it sound unimportant, it’s no small thing to live inside a horror movie every night.

  “Sometimes he doesn’t see me and keeps walking away. Gigi says… she says it’s a memory.”

  A jolt of cold goes right through me. “Is that possible?”

  “No way. No.”

  I lean against him. “That’s it? And you don’t know why you keep dreaming of this?” At his silence, I stifle a sigh. He should see a specialist about this, but I don’t want to push him more, not today. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “I wish…”

  “You wish what?”

  “That they’d stop already. The dreams. I hate that you got to see me like this. Fucking stupid dreams.”

  “I’m glad you told me. Hey.” I wait until he looks at me. “Whatever the cause, we’ll find a solution, together.”

  Some of the tension goes out of his shoulders, though he looks away again. He doesn’t like that I saw him scared, but he’s wrong to feel uneasy about that. He always seemed strong, but never stronger than now, when he’s letting me see his fears.

  And I’ve never been more in love with him.

  How do we find a solution, though? I’m out of my depth here, but I want to find a way to help. He’s obviously been having these nightmares for a while—since when?—and refuses to see a specialist. And who knows, maybe he’s right and having bad dreams is normal. Maybe something’s stressing him out, between his studies and work.

  Detective Cosima at your service.

  Whatever is the issue, it’s affecting his health. This has to stop. What to do?

  First I’m going to Google the shit out of nightmare causes, and second… talk to his sisters? They seem to know about the dreams and they’ve known Merc all his life. It’s possible they have some insight they could share.

  With me.

  Whom they barely know.

  Right.

 
Meanwhile, soon my sister will be back in town, and I’m without a job. She’s reclaiming her life, and I have to scramble up and start a new one for myself.

  That involves deciding what I’m doing next.

  As in, going back to Lin’s, getting my stuff, then returning to St. Louis and finding a place to stay, and a job, and…

  And hoping I’m doing the right thing.

  Deep inside, I know I am. I felt this spark with Merc since the beginning, despite the misunderstandings—because of me pretending to be Soph, because of Merc’s nightmares keeping him up all night.

  We connect. We have fun together. He’s always there to help me when I need him. And he’s allowing me to see him when he’s down, accepting my help.

  The more I think about him, the more happiness fills me up like sunlight. I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. That has to count for something, right?

  I tell Lin exactly that, and she squeals so loud over the phone, she almost punctures my ear drums. “Girl! It does count for something.” She laughs hysterically.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. You’re so frigging funny. What’s he doing right now?”

  “He’s asleep. These nightmares have worn him out.”

  “Not just the wild bunny sex, huh? Is the kitty with him?”

  Yeah, I tell Lin most of what goes on in my life, okay? Don’t judge. She’s my bestie for a reason. “Kitty is asleep on top of him.”

  In fact, she’s curled up on top of his bare, muscular chest, her tail like a slash over his pec.

  God, my ovaries.

  “This is why you’re so funny. You’re so aware of him. All the time.”

  Of course I am. Is that weird?

  “And you passed that cat to him, like… is it a test?”

  “Maybe,” I mutter, because it did cross my mind.

  “A test of what? Don’t tell me you gave him the kitten to see if he’d make a good daddy?”

  A flush scorches my cheeks. Did I? “Um.”

  “Is the kitty still alive?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Well there you go. Level achieved.”

  “Daddy level?”

  “Call it whatever you want, girl.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re in love with him. That’s what I call it.”

  “And what if I am?”

  “It was about time you fell in love, woman.”

  I think about that. “It is the first time, isn’t it?”

  “All other times weren’t real,” she agrees. “This sounds real.”

  Feels real, too.

  I mean, his name is Merc. From Mercury. The Roman God of the Dead. The trickster god.

  What does that tell you?

  Trouble.

  “I’ll come to pick my things up, and to see you. I can’t tell you everything over the phone, and I need my bestie.”

  “I need my bestie, too!”

  “You’re my boo,” I tell her.

  “And you’re my bae!”

  We snicker madly as we disconnect, but then I sober up.

  Whatever the reason, Merc seems to be going through a bad phase. And I’ll be there for him, just like I told him. It may seem strange, that I’d feel so close to him so quickly, but I do, and he’s been there for me.

  Moving here feels right. Fingers crossed I’m not making a mistake—but hey, you never know until you try, right? No matter how many times you got burned, there’s always the possibility that the light you see at the end of the tunnel is the sun.

  And for Merc, I’ll take all the second chances I can get.

  Merc and Kitty are having a conversation as I wander back toward his bedroom, turning these thoughts over and over in my mind.

  “No, Hiccup. No, bad cat.”

  “Meow.”

  Hiccup?

  “No, come here. Hic! Come here.”

  Hic? Seriously.

  “Hey…” I lean on the door frame, looking inside, the phone still in my hand. “What’s going on in here?”

  Merc is trying to catch the kitty who’s balancing on top of his closet. “Come down now.” He points at the floor, then lifts his hand up—and lo and behold, the kitten lets him catch her.

  He sure has a way with the girls, this boy.

  “There we go,” he mutters, lowering the cat to the floor where she scampers away, tail held high and ears flattened. He winks at me as he straightens and flexes his biceps for my benefit. “Rescue mission was a success.”

  I stifle my laughter and nod solemnly. “Don’t try this at home, kids. It’s dangerous.”

  “Join us again later for more adventures with Hiccup the Cat.” He bows, pressing one hand to his chest, golden hair falling over his face, and grins up at me. “We especially welcome sexy dark-haired girls who answer to the name of Cosima.”

  “You do, huh?” Heat suffuses my face. I bite my lip, a snort escaping me.

  “Cross my heart,” he promises, and grabs me around the waist, then flops backward onto the bed, pulling me on top of him.

  “Merc,” I gasp.

  “Right here,” he says, blue eyes bright.

  He looks so happy, so carefree, it’s hard to reconcile this Merc with the shivering, nightmare-ridden version of him I saw earlier on. If not for the dark circles under his eyes, I’d have dismissed it as—ha!—a bad dream.

  My boobs are mashed to his hard chest, his arms locked around me, his cock poking me in the hip, stiff and insistent.

  That cock is serious business, but he’s still grinning, and I’m torn between laughing and moaning with desire. I’m sprawled over him, the T-shirt hiking up so that my ass is in the air, and my bare pussy pressed to his lower stomach.

  I clench deep inside, getting wet all over again.

  It’s as if we didn’t spend the night fucking, as if I’m not sore. I’m already ready for more, craving his cock inside me.

  It’s so easy to get used to the pleasure of having him near, under me, around me, inside me…

  “Everything okay?” His voice is husky, and his cock is now so hard it has to hurt, big and hot like fire, caught between our bodies. “You’re frowning.”

  Have I mentioned how I love that he’s ignoring his hard-on to focus on me? That he notices my expression, that he takes his time to make sure I’m all right. Not that I don’t love the fact he wants me so much.

  Loving it.

  “Merc… I need to go back.”

  “Back where?” He smooths a hand over his T-shirt, a black Skull-ridden one. “Why?”

  “To Springfield to get my stuff. All my stuff is in with Lin, my friend. And I don’t have a job, even though I applied for a couple, and I don’t know if I should go back there and see if I find something through my contacts or—”

  “No. Just…”

  “What?” Let him ask me to stay. Let him say I can’t go.

  But he sighs. “Nothing. Look, I can drive you there, help you move.”

  Even though he didn’t say what I wanted to hear, he’s sweet. “I feel bad. How many times will you help me?”

  “As many as it takes for you to trust me. Look, I got Hiccup to trust me. Now I’m working on getting you to do the same.”

  Aw shucks. “It’s okay. Lin will drive me back. She wants to visit her parents anyway. You can’t keep skipping work and classes.”

  “We’ll see. Maybe I can change your mind?” I gasp when he shifts, the base of his thick cock pressing between my legs. “Make sure you know you’ll miss me if you go without me.”

  I can’t even laugh at this, because it’s true. I miss him every second I’m not with him, and when I am with him, I miss his touch every second he’s not plastered to me.

  Christ, Cos.

  His fingers ghost over my cheek. “Where did you go again?”

  “Tell me…” I mutter, “The kitty, why not call her Ginger? She’s a ginger cat.”

  His pale brows lift, but he doesn’t comment on the change of
topic. “I can’t call her that. That’s what I call my sister Gigi. Besides, kitten’s got a hiccup.”

  “She does?”

  He nods. “All the time.”

  Okay, first he calls his blond sister Ginger? And second, aw! He gave kitty a name, something my sister never did.

  “Naming her means you want to keep her,” I inform him.

  “It does? Is it like magic? I name her and I get to keep her?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then how about I name you, too?” His voice is warm, his tone serious, just as serious as the hard-on pressed between my legs. “Will you stay here with me?”

  My heart stops, then starts again with a thump. “You want me here?”

  “Fuck yeah. We can… watch movies, and talk, and laugh, and sleep together. I’ll take good care of you.”

  Aw, be still my heart. “Sounds good.”

  He rolls on top of me, braced on those powerful arms, gazing down at me, the head of his cock nudging at my entrance, making me moan. “I’ll show you how good it can be.”

  “Merc…” He teases, and I arch up helplessly.

  He doesn’t move, though, doesn’t enter me. He looks dead serious when he says, “Trust that I’m here to stay. To help and to hold you. Be with me, Cosie. I’ll tell you why I can’t sleep at night. I’ll tell you everything.”

  I laugh shakily. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “You’d better.” He’s gazing down at me, blue eyes clear like summer skies. “It’s what I want. Ever since I met you, I knew there was something about you. From the first time I saw you, I thought… there she is.”

  “You thought that?”

  “Not in those exact terms. But it was as if I recognized you. I knew you. I knew you were the one for me.”

  I have to lower my eyes, look away, because for some reason they feel too hot. I wind my arms around his neck and hold on because in all my life, I never had a real home, a steady home, always moving, always splitting up and wondering where I’d go next. Where I belonged.

  And he’s taken me in and he feels like home to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Merc

  The ax comes whistling down, and I’m running, bits of earth and sharp stones flying past me, cutting my legs and my back. The footsteps behind me are so heavy they make the ground shake under my feet.