by Meli Raine
She reaches for my hand again. “You look white as a ghost.”
“I feel haunted,” I reply. I can’t keep the edge out of my voice.
Bzzzzz. Amy ignores her phone, but I see her fingers switch, eager to check.
“Just don’t get hunted,” she warns.
She pulls out of her parking spot and comes to an abrupt halt. “And pizza. Tomorrow night. Your place! I want to see the palace!”
And with that she takes off into broad daylight, her little car fading into silence as I stand there, my heart taking over all the space for sound as it slams against the edge of the world.
My new boss is the man who killed my father.
Chapter Eight
“Daddy! Daddy, no!” I shout. I’m facing a long, dark tunnel. My eyes see no light. It’s pitch black and cold. I’m wearing my pajamas. I have no shoes. There is no breeze, but it’s damp. The chill feels like it’s licking my bones.
I don’t know where my dad is. I call out to him, over and over. He never answers. I know he is here, though. Why won’t he answer?
“Carrie,” says a voice I do not know. It comes from above me, and I look up. All my eyes see are blackness. There is no light now. Not behind me, not in front of me, not above. The only way I know I even exist is by touching my arms, my hands, my waist, myself.
“Who are you?” I can barely speak. A cold dread settles in my lips, my neck, along the outlines of my breasts. The fear is primal. I am about to fight for my life. I do not know what I am fighting.
Or who.
“I’m Daddy,” says the voice. It feels like someone is sliding an icicle into my heart.
That’s not my dad.
“Where’s my real dad?” I cry out, my voice high with hysteria, my sense of self fading. I become the darkness, my arms and legs disappearing into it. I’m melting and freezing at the same time, when suddenly my mouth is taken by the cold kiss of a violent being who traps me in something close to strong arms, but they feel like ribbons of death.
I can’t breathe.
The lips of this evil entity suck all the air from me. Its fingers shove beneath my waistband and up under my shirt at once, covering my tender flesh with a cold scrape of pain. I try to cry out and I gag. The sound sticks in my throat. The touch is everywhere. I cannot escape. It violates me. It penetrates me.
It wants to own me.
It wants to kill me so no one else can own me.
The ribbons that bind me begin banging, loud, over and over. The sound is pain, a loud boom that grows until I open my mouth and scream.
But sound does not come out. I gag.
Blood pours forth as I cough up my own heart, still beating—
CRASH!
The front door of the trailer slams open.
“CARRIE!” Mark shouts as I realize I’m screaming over and over, clawing at my throat. I’m sitting up in my small bed and my eyes take him in. I close my eyes and see darkness. I scream more.
I can’t breathe.
“Is someone in here? Is someone hurting you?” he asks, a gun in his hand, pointed down but ready.
I can’t breathe.
My heart pumps so hard in my chest. It feels like it’s in my throat. It was in my throat seconds ago. I vomited it up, right?
No.
That was a dream.
I hang my head and stop screaming. My throat feels like road rash. It’s happening again.
The dreams.
A cold sweat covers me as Mark takes five seconds to check the tiny trailer, prodding the bathroom door open. He quickly sees that no one else is here.
I can’t talk.
I’m still trapped in darkness. I’m still bound by the icy ropes in my dream.
Mark comes to me and sits on the very edge of the bed, holstering his gun. His eyes are cold and sharp. He’s in rescue mode.
Reality seeps in slowly. I’m in my trailer. I can see. No more dark tunnel. My skin is free to move. I lift my arms and put a palm over my heart. It’s still there. My blood pounds in my ears. I can see light.
I’m okay.
The dream wasn’t real.
In the first few weeks after I moved to Oklahoma to follow Dad, the dreams started. The same two dreams. This one, and one where I almost see the face of the being that captures me. Almost.
It’s maddening.
But I’ve spent two years without the dreams. Why are they back?
As I think, Mark studies me. His eyes change. Concern floods the irises until they’re a dark brown with a golden ring. It’s the color of worry. The color of compassion.
The color of love.
“You were screaming,” he says in a voice hoarse with agony. “I thought someone was attacking you.”
They were, I think. Just not in the way you imagined.
I sniff and blink lots of times. My mind feels split in two. Blood floods my arms and feet. My toes feel numb. My lips feel big. Nothing is normal. I pull the sheet over my body and just stare at him. The only sound in my little home is our breath.
We’re both panting hard, but for totally different reasons.
His brow deepens with worry, the muscles around his jaw tight. His eyes flit around the room as if he’s scanning. Surveying. Still on constant watch for danger.
Danger.
“It was a dream,” I finally choke out.
“Some dream,” he says in a voice filled with sympathy. “You really screamed like someone was killing you, Carrie.” His concern becomes greater. Mark’s eyes narrow. He’s watching me like I hold the key to everything.
“They were.”
Alarm floods his features.
“In the dream, I mean,” I blurt out, reaching for his hand. I don’t know why I do that. I can see my hand stretch into the space between us. The part of me that knows it’s wrong isn’t saying anything. The part of me that needs to be connected to Mark must be stronger.
My fingers feel like a brick of ice. His hand is hot. It feels like I’m touching a stove burner and I pull back.
He softens and tilts his head. A wave of sandy blonde hair slides over his worried brow. He reaches for my hand and I let him.
“You’re so cold,” he says, his voice dropping. He sounds so protective.
My teeth start to chatter. He’s right. Suddenly, I can’t stop shivering. Everything in the trailer begins to bounce slightly, like in earthquake scenes in the movies. I shake so hard my skin starts to hurt.
“Oh, Carrie,” Mark says in a voice full of sadness. He crawls across my little bed and moves behind me, kicking off his shoes in the process. They thump—thud thud—and the sound echoes in my head.
Thud thud.
Thud thud.
Like a heartbeat.
Like my own heart in my mouth in the dream.
A sob fills my chest, growing like a balloon. It swells and fills, so big I can’t breathe again. Can’t talk. Can’t anything.
And then Mark is behind me on the bed, his jeans-covered legs around my hips, his heat pressing against my thighs, my calves. He pulls me back against his warm, muscled chest. He tucks the covers up to my chin and wraps his arms around my shoulders.
He’s so warm. He smells like old sweat and dust and coffee and autumn leaves. He feels so good behind me. I can’t stop shivering. The vibration radiates out of me from within.
I feel like a gong. Like someone hit me as hard as possible and now the ripple effects can’t stop.
“Shhh,” he says against my ear, rocking me slightly. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Safe.
Oh, I want to believe him. I lean back and give in, melting into his arms. Mark’s chest moves as he shifts one arm. I feel his gun against my hipbone. He reaches down and undoes his gun belt, as if he read my mind. It thumps onto the fake wood top of the nightstand next to the bed.
He settles back in and I relax again, his heat seeping into me. He’s like a comfort furnace. I don’t feel safer, but I do feel better.
“
You can tell me about the dream if you want to,” he whispers, brushing a long strand of hair from the side of my face. His touch is feather light. It makes my heart skitter.
I close my eyes and see the inky darkness of doom.
I shudder. Mark clears his throat and tightens his arms around me.
“Or not. Whatever you need, Carrie. We’ll do whatever you need.”
My shoulders release into him.
“I just need my dad,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes instantly.
“I wish I could give him to you,” he says after a long pause. “But I can’t.”
I know, I think. You’re the one who took him away.
I don’t have to say that aloud. I can tell Mark’s thinking it, too, as he stiffens against me, his arms freezing.
Mark makes a little sound, like he’s breathing through his nose. It’s a sound of frustration, and I feel his throat move as he swallows.
“Some day, Carrie, I’ll be able to tell you what really happened three years ago.”
My turn to stiffen.
“What?” I ask, my body going soft with exhaustion. Of all the times for me to fall apart. “What really happened?” I mumble. His arms are so strong and soft. How can he feel like both at the same time? Only Mark can do that for me.
His hand moves. I know he’s running it through his thick hair. I imagine the pained look on his face. I can feel his struggle in the way his muscles move around me.
I yawn. He makes a little sound of amusement.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m so tired.” I’m not just sleepy. I’m tired. Bone-weary exhausted. Being here in Mark’s arms feels like the first time I’ve had a chance to relax in three years. Like I can breathe. Like I’m—dare I say it?
Safe.
Safe but not safe.
God, I’m such a mess inside.
I snuggle in, turning my head. My ear is up against his heart. It’s so steady. All those confused emotions inside me simmer down. I shouldn’t want to be in his arms. I shouldn’t let him do this. The man barged into my trailer in the middle of the night. In fact—
“Wait?” I ask. “How did you get in?”
He brushes his cheek against my hair. It feels weirdly comforting.
“Bolt cutters,” he says softly. “I’ll get a new lock for you tomorrow. One that can’t be snapped with a simple tool.” He mutters something that sounds like he’s mad at Brian.
“Not his fault,” I say, half-asleep. “He jus’ was trying to help.” That doesn’t make sense, but I’m falling. Falling deeper into Mark’s arms, deeper into slumber, deeper into...
Well, something.
“Sleep, honey,” he murmurs in my ear, kissing the top of my head. “It’s all going to be all right, Carrie. I’m here. I’m here.”
As I fade out, I swear I hear him say,
“And I’m never letting you go again.”
When I wake up in the morning, he’s gone.
I’m not sure which was the dream and which was the reality until I see the snapped deadbolt outside, on the ground, staring up at me like it’s a witness to something I don’t understand.
Chapter Nine
The prestige is so thick in the air at my old college, Yates University, that you can eat it with a fork. You can smell it, too—or maybe that is something else I sniff as the late-summer air chokes me.
I sniff again.
No, that definitely isn’t the scent of prestige. It’s the smell of bullshit. There’s an endless supply of it at this college. I don’t care. Increasingly unsure, I take a deep breath and stride with purpose toward Bow Hall. It is the administrative heart of one of the top universities in the United States.
And my new employer.
I have a real job.
Heels clicking on the uneven cobblestones, the hypnotic sound soothes me, my hands smoothing the thrift-shop suit I wear today. My lilac silk shell (ninety-nine cents because it was red-tag day at the thrift shop) is neatly tucked into the waistband of a skirt I’d let out yesterday.
A few extra pounds fill out my frame now. Three years of working midnight shifts processing checks for a bank have turned me into a desk jockey. I could play a vampire in a movie—I am that pale.
My body craves movement. Excitement. Change.
“Hey!” Turning, I see the most delicious set of masculine legs pumping my way. The legs are attached to a torso chiseled and peppered with dark hair. His arms reach up with such effort and agility. Washboard abs give a display like a work of art.
Sweat coats the neckline of the upstretched shirt that covers a guy who couldn’t be more than eighteen, his face intense and focused, so utterly engrossed in trying to catch something that the force of movement entrances him.
I am invisible.
“Jim! Watch out!”
A shout, the man’s voice a high baritone out of range. A grunt, then—slam! I am diagonal in mid-air, my heels flying high, the soothing click-clack on stone gone in nanoseconds. My right side is now awash in sweaty muscle as I am tackled to the ground by a dripping wet piece of marbled sex on legs. He pins me to the newly-sodded grass strip next to the sidewalk.
Riiip.
There goes the back seam of the only skirt I own, the sound of tearing like hearing my hopes split in two.
Way to go, Carrie. Blow your shot at looking decent before you even sit down at your desk.
My brain processes the moment with two completely different minds. One mind pictures what just happened—a game on the quad and a ball that went off course. An accident. Pure coincidence.
The other mind apparently is controlled by something deeper. I like the feel of a wall of muscle pressed against my entire body, one knee wedged between my legs, a bone pressing into my hip—oh, dear.
That is so not a bone.
He knocked the air out of me. And not just from that tackle.
Rough hands and a rougher voice enter my consciousness.
“Get the fuck off her!” an angry male voice, mature and refined, growls into the space above me. A light Irish accent. Or maybe Australian? Something foreign, but in English. A sudden withdrawal of movement and the guy who tackled me is flung across the air. He lands with an “oof” sound that makes me giggle. Even with the air knocked out of me, I can’t help but laugh.
“My God, Carrie, are you injured?” The lilt takes on a decidedly Irish accent. I stop laughing, then look up into the worried face of Eric Horner.
I haven’t seen Eric in more than three years, and he seems bigger. More mature. More substantial.
And definitely more powerful.
“Hey!” The guy who knocked me over—Jim?—gives Eric a shove with one hand, barely moving the Irishman. Short hair means Eric’s deep auburn locks and the long braid he’d worn when I last saw him are a memory.
Like my crush on him. And his crush right back at me...
He ignores Jim and reaches out for me. My knee is skinned and blood fills in the mesh of my pantyhose. The back of my tight skirt is split high. Not so high as to show my butt, but close.
“I said ‘hey!’” Jim shouts.
“Heard you,” I grumble, leaning across his twitchy feet to grab my own shoe. Jim knocked me off my feet and out of my shoes. A giggle bubbles up again.
I suppress it.
Eric turns to Jim and the two are inches from each other, faces burning with aggression.
My former anthropology teaching assistant and what looks like a football player are squaring off.
Over me.
Not me in a romantic sense. At least, not Jim. Eric, though, is protecting my honor in some kind of sweet, macho way.
I don’t know what to do.
A tiny crowd forms, and then triples in size as an orientation group walks by, the teen boys so geeky. They look like baby birds in a nest, with long, hairless necks and cheeks.
The girls stare at me. The boys stare at the cockfight that’s about to erupt.
One of Jim’s friends lumbers over. �
�Don’t pick a fight with a professor, you douche. Wanna miss your chance at the draft?”
Eric snorts. “The only draft he has a chance at is the breeze that blows when his date runs out the door after seeing his wee little pecker—”
I am standing now and grab Eric’s arm, hard. Jim’s turned away and doesn’t hear, but his friend does. He shakes his head hard, like a dog with a wet face. Like he can’t believe a professor would—
Wait. Professor?
“You’re a professor here now?”
With one eye glaring at Jim, he spares the other to smile at me. “Yes. Assistant Professor Horner. Department of Latin American Studies.”
“No kidding.”
He brushes my shoulders. Grass floats off like it’s escaping. “No kidding.” His lip curls up at the expression.
“Congratulations,” I add. “Last time I saw you, you were headed to Mexico for archival and then field work.” I had been jealous then, an eager sophomore ready to follow. Anthropology and archaeology were my passions. The past is so fascinating.
Especially when it’s not your own.
“There was an opening after Professor Michaelson died,” he says, shrugging. “I had six months to finish my dissertation and defend it, and I did it. Got the job. Here at Yates forever, if they’ll have me.” The grin he shoots toward the administration building looks a little morbid.
’Til death do us part, I think.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. We start to walk toward the main building, my right ankle a bit wobbly. By the end of the day, I can tell, my ankle will throb and scream. Right now it’s just whimpering.
“New job. Starting this morning,” I say, my voice a bit unsteady. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to run into people from my time here, three years ago. So many ghosts.
“Job? What are you to do?” His homeland’s accent comes through, the words rolling off his tongue like a melody. I always loved to hear Eric talk in lecture class.
He loved to just be with me. I friend-zoned him, though, and he wouldn’t dare date a student. The time we’d spent hanging out for a semester carried with it a weird air. Unrequited feelings suck. They suck when you’re the one carrying a torch for someone else.
