Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Professor Valdez teaches Cognitive Psych as well as Abnormal Psych, so I’m already aware of her superpower for spotting wandering minds.
Even more, I know the humiliation she’s willing to dole out on said students.
Which means I know damn well that I need to stay alert in her class.
But knowing and doing are two entirely different things and telling myself I need to stay awake doesn’t stop the professor’s voice from fading in and out as my mind circles back to yesterday’s encounter with Chase.
The way he’d gathered the protective herbs.
His cryptic warnings. That jolt of electricity I feel every time we touch.
Protection freely given, freely taken. Guard against the dark, shield against the shadow.
What or who is he protecting? Me? And from what kind of darkness and shadows?
“Miss Lyte? Perhaps you’d like to share your artistic endeavors with the class?”
I snap my head up, only to realize that I’ve been absently doodling in my notebook. Scorpion creatures. Sand monsters. Dark eyes watching from shadows.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” Professor Valdez turns back to the whiteboard, continuing her lecture on perception thresholds and reality testing.
The irony isn’t lost on me. Reality testing is exactly what I’m struggling with—the blurred line between what’s objectively real and what exists only in my nightmares.
I try to focus on her words about cognitive distortions and the all-too-relevant topic of sleep deprivation, but my eyelids are getting heavy.
Apparently, my elaborate ritual for stealing bits of sleep isn’t cutting it anymore.
And even though I tell myself I need to stand up and get out of this room, my body has another plan.
My limbs go slack. My breathing slows.
I tell myself to focus. To stay alert. So what if I close my eyes? I can be awake enough to listen, but not asleep enough to be pulled under.
Just drifting. Not sleeping.
Not sleeping at all…
The sand is all wrong.
Instead of white, it’s black as coal, and it burns against my bare feet. Above me, the sky churns red and orange, like the inside of a furnace, and the air tastes of copper and ash.
This isn’t the beach from my other dreams. This is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere horrible and terrifying.
A child’s laughter echoes from behind me, high and wrong. I turn to see one of the lava creatures from my nightmares, but it’s different now. Bigger. More formed. It’s molten skin now cooled into jagged obsidian armor, and when it smiles, its teeth are like volcanic glass.
“She’s ready,” it says in a voice like grinding stone. “She dreams of him now.”
More laughter, from all sides now. I spin around to see dozens of sand monsters and scorpions emerging from the black sand, both gleaming in the hellish light.
But they’re not attacking.
They’re waiting.
And somehow, that’s even more terrifying.
The air shimmers, and suddenly he’s there.
Adric.
The king who kissed me. His silver eyes. His left cheek scarred like Dream Chase’s right.
He’s even more beautiful than I remembered, and infinitely more terrifying.
“Soon,” he says, his voice a caress that makes me want to melt into his embrace—even though I know I should run far, far away. “Very soon now, my bride.”
Bride.
My body goes cold from the word, then hot with terror as the creatures surge forward, their voices chittering, their eyes hungry. And as they rush toward me, I open my mouth to scream and scream and—
“NO!”
I jolt awake with a shriek that echoes through the lecture hall. Every head turns toward me, at least thirty pairs of eyes staring as I sit there trembling, sweat-soaked and gasping.
Professor Valdez has stopped mid-sentence, her face a mask of professional concern. “Miss Lyte? Are you all right?”
The silence stretches, broken only by my ragged breathing and the scratch of pens as students pretend to mark up their notes while actually gawking at the girl who just had a public freak out.
“I—” My voice comes out as a croak. “I’m sorry. I need to—”
I grab my bag and flee, pushing past wide-eyed classmates and out into the hallway. The whispers follow me—
“Did you see her face?”
“Holy shit. She like totally went off the rails.”
I pretty much sprint to the nearest restroom, intending to hide there for at least half an hour so the halls will be clear when I head back to the dorm to hide under the covers.
Except I can’t.
I can’t hide anymore. I can’t keep pretending that I know how to handle it.
So I do the only thing I can think of—I force myself to leave the stall, then walk fast, making absolutely zero eye contact, my body still burning with mortification as I hurry to the Admin building to find Uncle Finn.
His office door is closed, but I storm past the reception desk and barge in anyway, needing to see him. Needing to shake off both the dream and the creepy sensation I’d felt during the short walk here—that I was being watched. Followed.
“Cora?” He pushes out of his chair and hurries around his desk, waving away his assistant who’d hurried in after me. “What the hell happened? Are you okay?”
I must look as bad as I feel because in seconds, he’s guiding me to the leather chair across from his desk and pressing a glass of water into my hands.
“I had a nightmare,” I say, my voice shaking as hot tears streak down my cheeks. “In class. In front of everyone.” I shudder. “I screamed and woke up, and everyone was staring at me.”
His brow creases. “I thought you had them under control.”
I shrug.
He sighs, nods slowly, then crouches in front of me, his hands on my knees. “How long has this been going on, kiddo?” he asks, his voice gentle.
“Since Mom died.”
“What?” His voice rises with shock. “You said they stopped at school. The principal should have told me.”
I shrug. “I bribed my roommate to not tell anyone. I was afraid you’d send me someplace worse, and that place was plenty bad.”
I snap the words out, then immediately regret my temper. I hate that he did that to me, but at the same time, I get that he didn’t know what to do with me. He still doesn’t. And what fresh hell will I find myself in if I break down and tell him the full truth?
“Mostly they’ve stopped now,” I lie. “This was the first time in forever.” Another lie. “I mean, I guess that’s why it freaked me out so much. One time after so long without the dreams, and then it happens in class and everyone’s staring at me, and—”
But I can’t get the words out, because now I’m crying again.
“Oh, sweetie.” He moves to lean against his desk, worry etched in every line of his face as I pull myself together. His concern is so intense I feel a little twist in my gut and wonder if I should tell him the truth.
But I can’t. What if he sends me away again? What if he insists I enroll in some sort of program so that he can satisfy himself that he’s doing his uncle-ish duty, when really he’s just stepping aside so someone can yank me into a new cage, this one shared with a bunch of other mice?
I want to believe he won’t. I’m an adult now, after all. But Finn got me my scholarship. And until I graduate and get a job, he has control, dammit. Something I seem to be losing faster and faster, if the lava monsters, king, and golden-eyed warrior are any indication.
I stifle a little sob. I’m so damn tired of things happening to me. I want to fight back. But I don’t know how.
“Cora?”
“I’m fine,” I sniffle, forcing myself back to the moment. “Really, this was just a one-off. I’ve been doing great. Almost completely nightmare-free. That’s why the one in class was extra horrible.”
“Are you sure?”
I force a perky smile. Honestly, it’s a wonder my nose isn’t growing. I know I should shift topics entirely, but instead I hear myself asking, “How did Mom cope with them?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t think she did. Not really. I mean, she tried different things. Sleeping pills, meditation.” He meets my eyes, and I see the sadness reflected in his. “I’m not sure any of it really helped.”
“Did she ever tell you what the dreams were about?”
“Cora, sweetheart, everyone has nightmares, and everyone’s nightmares are different.” He moves to crouch in front of me again. “They’re the mind working something out. It wasn’t a nightmare that killed your mother. It was her heart.”
“I know,” I say, though part of me wants to scream that he’s wrong. So very, very wrong. “I just want to know more about what she was going through.”
He runs a hand through his graying hair. “I never wanted you to see your mom that way. She was—let’s just say she was very stressed. A single mom, unemployed for those last few years. It got to her.”
I tilt my head, studying his face. “You thought she was losing it.”
He spreads his hands in a helpless gesture.
“I thought the stress was getting to her. She talked about her dreams like they were real. Like she’d actually traveled somewhere in her sleep.
Once she told me that our family was the root of some Imperial bloodline, and she was destined for great things.
Oh, but not here,” he adds with a sideways grin.
“In some other realm.” He says the last word with finger-quotes.
“Oh, god,” I whisper. Realm. Bloodline. Imperial. I think of King Adric with the shadowy cloak. The creatures lined up like an honor guard.
The Shadow King, ruling over a kingdom full of nightmares.
And me and my mom right in the middle of it all.
“She was spinning out, sweetie,” Finn says, as if in answer to my thoughts. “I was seriously worried about her mental health. That’s why I wanted the two of you to move here.”
“You did?”
“Yup. I think she was going to take me up on it too. But then her heart gave out.” He draws a shaky breath. “Just like your grandmother. She died in her sleep that way too. Some damned heart ailment in the maternal line that no doctor has ever managed to diagnose.”
I fight the urge to hug myself, knowing perfectly well why there’s no diagnosis.
Uncle Finn rubs his temples and sighs. “I won’t lie. I worried a bit about Cassie’s mental health, so I worried about yours too. But you’re fine, kiddo. And your heart is as sturdy as an ox.”
“Right,” I say. “I know.” I don’t bother to tell him that just because his cardiologist checked me out before the term, that doesn’t mean I’ll get a free pass when the nightmares decide to claim me.
“Everyone has nightmares,” he continues.
“If they get so bad that you’re losing sleep, you let me know and we’ll see what kind of solution Professor Valdez might suggest. But you’re just a few days into college, kiddo.
And I’d lay odds that at least a quarter of the freshman class is having some badass nightmares too. ”
I laugh. He’s probably right about that. “Thanks,” I say, reaching for my backpack.
“What’s on your agenda tonight? Hours and hours of studying?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “That’s what all the cool kids do on Friday nights.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “And you’re really going to…?”
“Heading to a party with Tia. Whitehall House.”
He frowns.
“What?”
“Whitehall isn’t on campus, and it’s not a legitimate fraternity.”
“Does that matter?”
“I think so,” he says. “Most people think it’s a fraternity house because it borders the college grounds. And because it’s owned by a group with a Greek name—the Oneiroi Society—but they’re not connected to the college, which means we have no oversight at all.”
“So?”
“Well, from what I understand, those parties get pretty wild.”
“Unlike every other frat party in the history of time?” I don’t point out that just being invited is supposed to be a big deal—and I’m not sure why I was invited to a party like that at all. And I especially don’t know why a party notorious for being wild might give me a clue about my dreams.
Dreams.
My mind latches onto one word—Oneiroi. I used to consume mythology like candy, and that one is pinging on me. There’s something about that word…
“Promise me you won’t go,” Uncle Finn says. “Hit a movie in town or go explore the nightlife in the city.”
Dreams! The Oneiroi were the Greek gods of dreams!
“Cora?”
“What? Oh! Right. I promise,” I say. “We won’t go to Whitehall tonight.”
And then I give him a hug and hurry out of his office, one more lie lingering between us.