Chapter 22
Igroan and open my eyes. I don’t even have the energy to move.
My stomach turns, but I must be getting used to the horrific nightmares. I no longer vomit every time, but that doesn’t mean the images don’t plague my waking hours too.
This one was a judge, and watching him have his entrails pulled out by a demon for the tenth time was not on this week’s bingo card. If the demon had been a pro wrestler that would have been his signature move—he certainly used it often enough.
God, I feel horrendous. I’m so bloody tired. I can’t sleep, just snatches here and there, interspersed with an ongoing reel of Cordelia Crawshanks stalking through London and exacting her revenge on all of Dr Whyte’s cohort.
And there were many of them.
The nightmares have been going on for months now, ever since Sam left for Yorkshire.
I have tried every single trick, folk remedy, spell, and incantation I can think of.
I’ve even resorted to sleeping pills, which I actively avoid because they make my magic sluggish and unpredictable, but no.
It makes zero difference. Cordelia is determined that I see her greatest hits, and I evidently have no choice in the matter.
At least, I assume it’s her forcing these memories on me. I don’t really have a clue why this is happening, and my brain is too tired and foggy to continue trying to puzzle it out. I’m running on automatic pilot now.
I roll over slowly and wince. My bladder is really not going to let me wallow in exhausted misery for long, so I drag myself out of bed and stumble into the bathroom like I’m drunk.
What I wouldn’t give for eight hours of blissful, uninterrupted, and dreamless sleep.
I pee, wash my hands, and brush my teeth, in that order, before dragging the duvet off my bed and heading into the living room.
It’s decorated with evergreens for Yule, which my dads came down to London to celebrate with me. Hence the new bright red pyjamas that are decorated with little sprigs of holly and mistletoe and clash terribly with my hair.
I’m beginning to wonder if one or possibly both of my dads are colour-blind or if they just do this on purpose.
Flopping onto the sofa, I pull the duvet over me and reach for the TV remote. Maybe some mindless TV will bore me into a deep sleep.
One can only hope.
Thankfully, I don’t have to work. I finished up my last orders a few days before Yule and won’t open again until the new year. Today is the day after Boxing Day… I think. I’ve lost track.
Sam and I have spoken every day since he’s been up north with his mum. In a way, it’s been nice to build a friendship without any pressure, although I’m pretty certain we’re veering into the more-than-friends category. Even if we haven’t done anything more than share some incredible kisses.
His mum’s recovery seems to be going well. She looks happy. Sam sent me a picture of the two of them on Christmas Day along with a picture of his mum and Trev laughing as they pulled a cracker.
It had been a lovely glimpse into their lives, and I couldn’t help but wish I’d been there with Sam.
I miss him.
It’s been so long that I’m beginning to wonder if he’s going to come back at all.
Which is selfish, I know. His mum needs him and he needs to make sure she’s okay.
But I can’t help that little voice at the back of my mind that keeps telling me he’s going to decide he doesn’t want to leave Leeds after all.
After all these months, his PI business is all but dead in the water, and it would take a lot of time to build it back up again.
He also mentioned that he’s only got a few months left on the lease for his bedsit.
It makes no sense to continue to pay rent on a property he’s not living in, and if he’s got nowhere to live and no business to come back to, why would he come back at all?
It’s not like he’d come back for me. Okay, yes, we’ve become friends, but it’s not like I’ve been exactly honest with him.
I may talk about my magic, my childhood, my dads, but I still haven’t told him about my mother, about the circumstances of my adoption and my ties to the Crawshanks family.
I haven’t told him about the nightmares.
He knows I’m struggling with my sleep and often have bad dreams, but I haven’t elaborated, and the more time that passes, the harder it is to tell him the truth.
What if he decides he doesn’t want to be friends anymore?
I hate my brain right now.
I want to sleep so bad I might just lie here and cry for a while. I’m just contemplating doing exactly that when the bell for the front door downstairs rings.
I’m intent on ignoring whoever it is and hoping they’ll go away, but the bell keeps ringing and ringing.
If I wasn’t so exhausted and my magic wasn’t on the fritz because of said exhaustion, I’d give serious consideration to turning the enthusiastic bell-ringer into a toad.
If I actually knew how to do that. I should look that up soon.
“Urgh,” I growl in annoyance. Can’t I just wallow in peace?
“Fine!” I yell, even though they won’t be able to hear me.
I drag myself off the sofa, still wrapped up in my duvet like a burrito, and head downstairs.
It better not be Tristan and Danny. I do like them, but only in small doses when I’m feeling this way.
Although now that I think about it, Tristan had messaged that they were going to some hotel in Yorkshire.
What’s so bloody special about Yorkshire? Not only is it really cold, but they call cakes, buns…
I reach the door and open it, preparing my best glare.
“Whatever it is, I don’t want–”
I stop mid-sentence, and all my thoughts scramble as my gaze falls on Sam standing on my doorstep, looking perfect and sexy as hell. I look like I’ve been scraped off the bottom of someone’s broomstick.
“Hello, Prickles, I missed you too.”
“You’re in Yorkshire,” I blurt out.
“Well, clearly I’m not.” He grins.
“Buns are cakes and your rent is a lease.” I frown. “Wait, what just came out of my mouth?”
“I have no idea,” he murmurs, his smile fading as he looks at me intently. “Are you okay, Prickles? You don’t look too good.”
“Rude.”
His mouth twitches. “Can I come in?”
“If you don’t, I may just fall over on the doorstep,” I reply, and sway on the spot with the effort of holding myself upright.
He reaches out to steady me, and the moment his hands are on me, a strange feeling washes over me. It reminds me of when we were at Tris and Danny’s flat-warming party, and his touch drowned out the emotions of everyone else that I was feeling.
It’s similar now. A blanket of pure contentment and peace steals over me, and I sag against him, my eyelids heavy.
“Prickles?” he rumbles. He backs me up, kicking the door closed so he doesn’t have to let go of me. “What’s wrong?”
“So tired,” I whine in misery.
With one arm banded around me to hold me upright, he settles his other in my hair and gently massages the back of my skull the way he did when I had that excruciating psychic headache. Maybe this is similar; after all, the headache and the sleeplessness were both caused by the dreams.
For a moment, we don’t move. He just continues to flex those clever fingers against my scalp, and I wonder if I’m drooling on his shoulder. If I am, I’m too shattered to even be embarrassed by it.
If I were a cat, I’d be purring.
As it is, I let out an unintentional and pathetically needy moan, which is possibly the human equivalent of a purr.
I feel him chuckle against me.
“Come on, Prickles. Let’s get you into bed.”
“This is not the scenario I envisaged when I thought about you saying those words to me,” I murmur. Apparently, I now have no filter either.
“Good to know.”
Again, too drained to be mortified.
“And don’t think we won’t be revisiting that comment when you’re more coherent,” Sam says as he helps me back up the stairs.
“Where are we going?” I mumble.
“To your bedroom.”
“This is not how that sentence was supposed to go either.”
“You need sleep, baby,” he croons to me.
“This is really a very disappointing fantasy.”
When we reach my bedroom, he steers me to the bed and peels me out of the duvet. I fall gracelessly onto the mattress, then he settles the covers over me.
“Don’t stop touching, isss nice,” I slur sleepily. “Makes it all stop.”
“Makes what stop?” He strips out of his coat and kicks off his shoes before climbing onto the bed beside me.
“Everything,” I sigh, my eyes drifting closed. “Is your mum okay?”
“We’ll talk about that later.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.
“Will you stay with me?” I mumble. “Don’t want them to come back.”
“Who?”
“The dreams.” I yawn. He says something else, but I can’t make it out as I’m already slipping down into sleep.
When I wake, the room is empty and dark. I slide my hand over the other side of the bed and feel only cold sheets.
I guess I dreamt Sam coming back and holding me.
Rolling onto my back, I sigh, disappointment coursing through me.
I should be grateful I managed to finally sleep.
A dream about Sam coming home–I mean, coming back to London—is infinitely preferable to the usual Cordelia ones filled with vivisected corpses and rivers of blood.
I reach for the bedside table, patting the surface in the dark for my phone so I can check the time, but it doesn’t seem to be there.
Maybe I left it in the lounge earlier. Pushing the duvet off my legs, I head out of the bedroom.
I feel much better now that I’ve actually slept, but I’m really thirsty.
I pad quietly into the living room and stop dead to find Sam, in jeans and a T-shirt, sat comfortably on my sofa with a coffee in one hand, his sock-covered feet propped on my coffee table while he watches TV.
He turns to me and smiles. “Hey, you’re awake.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes, I am.” He winks. “Did you think I was another fantasy?”
Shit. What did I actually say to him while my brain was glitching?