Chapter 31 #2
“This is me being precise. There are several possible things you could be apologizing for. I want to make sure we’re addressing the same one.”
“Anyway.” She takes a breath. “I went to sleep with the intention of seeing you while being lucid. And here I am.”
“Here you are,” I echo, but my thoughts are already running ahead.
Nobody has ever dream shared into my space before.
I was always the one stepping into Paul’s dreams. He could never do the reverse.
I thought it was just me being able to do something special, but Tessa did it, too, didn’t she?
Stepped into Lennon’s dreams. And Lennon stepped into hers.
So maybe it’s a skill after all, a learnable thing.
Boo.
I stand and reach out a hand to pull her to her feet. She takes it, and I don’t let go once she’s standing. Instead, I look around the forest, testing the edges of the dream while keeping my fingers laced with hers.
Maybe I can build in my space, too, while holding her hand.
I try to summon a lollipop or a fucking exit sign, but nothing happens.
“Try something,” I encourage, squeezing her hand. “Build something. Anything.”
She scrunches up her nose in concentration, and a second later, a muffin floats past us, smiling that ridiculously iced smile and waving with one edge of its paper cup.
I groan, watching the muffin do a lazy loop before disappearing into the canopy above us.
At least this one isn’t harassing me.
“What?” She’s actually chuckling at what I know is the most disgusted expression currently on my face.
“Your subconscious is ridiculous.” I drag a hand through my hair, trying not to snap at her when none of this is her fault, but I hate this dreamscape, hate being here, and hate what just happened.
I need out.
“Let’s get to your dreamscape,” I say, already pulling her closer.
“Okay.” She smiles at me, open and trusting.
Na?ve little thing.
“Well, you have to have one first,” I clarify. “So we can step into it. Right now you don’t… because you’re in mine.”
“And how do I do that?”
I’m still holding her hand, her fingers warm in mine, grounding me even as the forest presses in at the edges of my vision.
“You know how to daydream, right? Do that. Think about where you want to be, what you want to have.” I squeeze her hand. “But think about me there too. Stay with me.”
She closes her eyes, and I watch her face. Her long hair falls in waves around her shoulders, illuminated by light that shouldn’t exist in this perpetual twilight forest. When I glance down at our joined hands, I notice that her nails are still a peach color.
I liked the yellow ones more, but this is still pretty.
Jesus Christ, Ridge. Get it together.
I’m about to scoff at my ridiculous thoughts when she scrunches up her nose again, and then there’s a pull, as if being yanked through a closing door.
We’re not standing in the forest anymore.
We’re in the kitchen. The bright, white, absurdly cheerful kitchen that is apparently her space. Sunlight pours through massive windows, and there’s flour dust hanging in the air like snow.
At least there aren’t any singing muffins this time.
Or a naked Shaw boy.
“What are you?” I scoff. “A baker?”
She opens her eyes and looks around, then back at me. “A chef.”
“I would have never guessed,” I deadpan.
“Hey, it’s easier to dream up stuff you know.”
“Yeah, that’s what people call your comfort zone in dreams. Your own spot.”
“Is the forest yours?” she asks, and there’s genuine curiosity in her voice.
“Fuck no.”
She waits, like she’s expecting me to elaborate, to tell her what my actual comfort zone is, but I’m done with fucking talking.
I need my outlet before I crawl out of my own skin.
“You remember our deal?”
“Of course I do.” She starts to ramble immediately. “I think maybe it would be good to try talking to Tessa while she’s awake, you know? So when—”
“Yeah, yeah.” I cut her off, summoning a lollipop out of the air between us.
It appears in my palm, wrapped in yellow cellophane, and fuck yes.
I unwrap it with my teeth, blow the cellophane away, and shove it between my lips, letting the sour burn hit my tongue.
“First, I get my part of the deal. I fucking need it.”
I step closer, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look at me. “Do you trust me?”
She shivers, her breath catching, but her voice is steady when she answers. “Yes.”
A dark chuckle escapes me. “Rookie mistake.”
I let the lollipop roll to the other side of my mouth, and her eyes track the movement before coming back to mine.
“Close your eyes if it gets too much,” I murmur, already reaching for the shadows pooling in the corners. “But don’t let go of my hand.”
They peel off the walls like living things, dripping down onto the white tiles. I build a creature in the corner and give it too many joints and eyes that blink out of sync, its jaw unhinging to reveal rows of needle-like teeth that click-click-click as it crawls forward.
“Ridge…” Lennon’s voice wavers, and I can taste her fear starting to curl through the air.
But I don’t stop.
Can’t stop.
The release feels too good after months of blockage, after being trapped in that forest.
This is mine, and I’ve been starving for it.
I summon more figures, emerging from the shadows with their faces peeling away in strips, their mouths opening to scream in frequencies that shouldn’t exist.
“Ridge,” Lennon pleads again, louder, stepping back from the blood that starts seeping from the ceiling, dripping onto the white counters awfully close to her feet.
Her fear spikes when the kitchen island cracks down the middle, fingers pressing up from underneath, dozens of them clawing their way into existence.
Lennon tries to pull her hand from mine, but I yank her back to me, my free hand coming up to cover her eyes.
“Shh, don’t look,” I murmur around the lollipop, and there’s a laugh bubbling up from somewhere dark in my chest. “You’re fine. I’ve got you.”
I feel her pressing her eyes shut beneath my palm as I make the walls breathe, bulging inward with each inhale. The shadows form faces, dozens of them, hundreds, all shrieking in harmony.
Make it worse.
Make it real.
Make it exactly what’s been clawing at the inside of my skull for a hundred fucking days.
When there’s another long scream from a creature, Blondie turns and presses her face into me, her free hand coming up to cover her ear, trusting me to keep her safe even while I’m the one terrifying her.
Later. Think about that later. Not now.
Now we build the new protagonist of my next bestseller.
It emerges from the sink, something that was human once, maybe, before someone decided to peel away every layer of skin and leave only the screaming underneath. A figure made entirely of exposed nerves and pulsing veins, muscles twitching with every phantom heartbeat.
It reaches toward us with hands that end in surgical instruments, dripping with rust and worse. The thing’s mouth opens wider, and the sound that comes out isn’t a scream. It’s wet, as if drowning from the inside out.
Lennon turns at the foreign sound, pushes my hand away, opens her eyes, and screams—
I’m yanked out of the dreamscape so violently it feels as though I am being torn through broken glass. Suddenly, I’m sitting in my bed with heaving breaths, the phantom taste of lemon lollipop still on my tongue, and Lennon’s scream still piercing the air.
I check my fingers. Five. Reality.
She’s still screaming, a raw sound clawing its way through drywall and straight into my skull.
“Fuck.” I shove myself upright, and the guilt and horror slam into me with the realization of what I’ve just done. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
I made her comfort zone, the safe space in her own subconscious, a nightmare.
My stomach twists hard.
For one horrible second, all I can think about is spiders crawling across white walls and Paul Bennett looking at me like I’d broken something I couldn’t put back.
She’s never going to forgive me for this.