Interlude II
AN INTERLUDE
Brett jolted awake with a hoarse gasp, clutching his chest. His shirt clung to him, soaked through with sweat, and the sheets twisted tight around his legs like binding ropes.
He swore he could still feel the tearing, the sharp rake of beaks puncturing his skin, tugging strips of him away while the voices jeered—liar, thief, predator.
The worst part wasn’t the pain. It was the laughter.
High, cruel, feminine laughter that curled through his ears even now, as the dream dissolved.
It would fade eventually, with the light of day.
It wasn’t the first time he’d had the dream and, as the weeks passed, he’d learned that it wouldn’t be the last.
He staggered into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, but when he dared to look in the mirror, the shadows of wings still seemed to flutter at the edges of his reflection. Black feathers drifting just out of sight.
“Not real,” he muttered, gripping the sink until his knuckles whitened. “It’s not real. Just dreams. Just dreams.”
But he knew better. These weren’t dreams. They were attacks and there was only one explanation.
Casie.
Her pale little face, all startled eyes and trembling hands, flashed in his mind. Pretending to be scared of him, pretending she didn’t like the way he touched her. But he had seen through it. The way she stiffened, the way she looked at him—it wasn’t disgust. It was fear. And fear was power.
She was using him. Smug little cunt. Always taunting, always teasing. Always needing to be in charge, to be the one to call the shots.
That bookstore bitch had cursed him, had set her shadows on him because he had seen her, wanted her, because he had dared to reach for what should have been his. What was his.
He rubbed at his arms, half-expecting to find fresh welts where the crows had ripped into him. The skin was unbroken, but the phantom ache lingered like acid beneath his flesh. He wondered, briefly, if he should peel away this flesh. Would he find open, weeping wounds?
“You think you can play me,” he whispered, staring at his reflection. His own bloodshot eyes stared back, wide and wild. “You think you can make me crawl. But I know what you are.”
He couldn’t even go out in public now. The people he used to know, who would nod respectfully when they passed him on the street, now judged him.
They noticed his outbursts, his shaking hands.
He’d been fired from the company his father had built after he had exploded on a female customer.
But none of that mattered. Not the bills, which his father would pay anyway.
Not the isolation, not the ruin. None of it mattered except her.
Casie had done this.
He began keeping a notebook on his nightstand, scribbling down every detail of the dreams, every crow, every word spoken in those taunting, venomous voices.
Sometimes, when he looked back at the pages in daylight, he didn’t recognize his own handwriting.
Jagged, frantic scrawls filled the margins: witch. demon. liar. Mine.
And still, the dreams came, night after night. The crows always won.
But he was done being prey.
Soon, he promised himself, he’d make her confess. He’d make her admit what she’d done to him, and then he’d end this curse. End her, if he had to.
A sharp sound echoed around the room, making him flinch so hard he nearly toppled over. It sounded like laughter.
And for a moment, he swore he heard wings, brushing against the wood of his door.