SCARLETT
MY NIGHTMARES MOCK ME
“Let’s go, Princess! Get up!”
I startle awake to my bedroom door swinging open with a boom. Like a gunshot in the darkness, the heavy wood bounces off the wall and swings back again. But Sebastion is faster, storming into my room and tearing my blankets off.
Tears fill my eyes and join those from my dreams.
“W-what’s happening?”
He wraps his meaty palm around my bicep and yanks me out of bed, jerking my shoulder painfully and setting me on my feet where I sway.
Fear skitters beneath my skin, like angry little vermin intent on driving me mad.
Releasing me, he turns on his heel and rips my closet open.
“S-Sebastion? What’s going on?”
“Jameson!”
I cry out at my brother’s voice and desperately search the shadows. “Linc?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Jameson? I told you I was coming to you.”
My nightmare-addled sleep makes way for consciousness. Alertness. My vision adjusts to the dark, and then my heart sinks when I realize Lincoln isn’t here at all. He’s in the phone clutched in Sebastion’s fist.
“Just wait there. Nova and I are at the airport now.”
“Not waiting.” Sebastion jerks my suitcase from the closet and lobs it across the room until it lands on my bed. Then he rips my clothes from the hangers and tosses them, too. “Pack, Scarlett. Now.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.” Terror leeches into my limbs.
It replaces the blood in my veins and supercharges every horrifying thought nestled deep in my brain.
It’s like I never escaped that scared girl from before, because Sebastion does what Roy has done in the past; tearing me out of my sleep and trashing my room, and just like back then, I let him.
I stare in frozen shock and gnaw on my nails.
“Just relax for a fuckin’ second,” Lincoln snarls. “We’re gonna buy our tickets now, then I’ll let you know what time we’re set to land.”
“You got another letter.” Sebastion empties my closet and piles everything onto my bed, then he charges across to the drawers and empties those, too. “It has this fucking address on it, Castro.”
My lungs seize in my chest. “What?”
“That’s a threat,” Sebastion snarls. “And we have no fucking clue if he’s there in Denver, or already on our side of the country. We gotta move.”
“You’re not taking my sister anywhere! Fuck, Jameson. Just stop for a second.”
“Keys and locks, dickhead. You keep them separate. That was the whole point of you and Nova jumping state lines. I still have the key, and you were supposed to locate the lock. Unfortunately for us, the lock just grew wings and is on its way here.”
“Jameson!”
“I’m moving her.” Sebastion swings back around, one arm overflowing with my clothes before he dumps the lot on my bed, then his eyes stop on mine in the dark and glitter with something I think translates to you need to trust me.
“Get dressed. Go to the bathroom. Pack your bag. We’re in the truck in fifteen minutes. ”
“No, you’re fucking not!” Lincoln roars. “Scarlett, honey. Don’t go with him. Get in your car and drive into town. Book a room at the hotel, lock the doors, and hunker down. I just need a few hours, then I’ll be right there with you.”
“I don’t know, Linc.” Nova’s voice crackles with an ache I know in my soul. A fear I’ve felt too many times. “I think we should let him move her, and when we land, we can follow them wherever they go.”
“He’s not taking her anywhere!”
“You trusted me to stay with her,” Sebastion sneers. “But now that trust is gone? Am I suddenly less capable of protecting her?”
“No, I—”
“Was I her fucking soldier, Castro, or her babysitter?” He grabs my trembling hand and drags me toward the door.
“Go to the bathroom. You have five minutes to search the house for whatever you wanna take, then I need you dressed, with shoes on, your bag packed, and your ass in my truck.” He holds my gaze for a beat.
He nods. Then he slingshots me into the hall so I’m forced to catch myself against the wall, or ram face-first through the plaster. “Go, Scarlett. Now!”
A terrified sob bounces through my chest and knocks the oxygen from my lungs, but I push off the wall and scramble into the bathroom.
I switch the light on and blind myself with the bright glow of the bulb.
Tearing my shorts down and sprinting past the mirror, I catch sight of my bare torso and remember the sports bra I wore to bed. And shorts.
That’s it.
I pee, even when I didn’t really need to, then I bound up again, yank my shorts up, race to the sink, and wash my hands. Snagging a hair elastic on the fly, I charge back into the hall.
Instead of turning left, I dash right and sweep up my pencil case and books. Hugging them to my chest, I spin again and run into the living room.
What do I take?
What do I need?
“Scarlett?”
“Yeah,” I cry out and dart into the hall. “I’m coming.” I slide into my room and almost crash into Sebastion on his way out, but we pass with barely a touch, then he’s gone again, while Lincoln’s furious shouts echo back to me.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” I dump my book and markers on the bed and whip my gaze to my vibrating phone. Pouncing on the device, I spy Nova’s name flashing on the screen.
Tears dribble from my eyes, soaking my cheeks and dripping off the edge of my jaw, but I swipe and slam the phone to my ear. “Yeah? Nova?”
“I think you should go with Tank.” Her voice is a rushed whisper, while my brother’s snapping tone fills the background of our call. “Did you hear me, Scar? Go with Tank.”
“But Linc—”
“Lacks the ability to think clearly when you’re involved. The new note scared the hell out of us, so he’s spiraling. Now Tank wants to take you away. You know Linc isn’t capable of hearing that and not overreacting.”
“But what if Sebastion is wrong? What if—”
“What if Lincoln’s wrong? We don’t know what time that note arrived on your door, so we don’t know if we’re two hours behind him, or twelve hours.
If it’s the latter, he could already be where you are.
If Tank is wrong, then there’s no harm. You’ve just been moved.
But if Lincoln is wrong, then the consequences could be way worse. ”
“But—”
“Take your phone. Stay in contact. We’re gonna figure this out.”
“We don’t know if the lock is here in Mount Gaines,” Sebastion booms. “Or there in Denver. You rushing back here is stupid.”
“No, stupid is me being anywhere except where my sister is,” Lincoln bites right back, his voice first coming through the call I share with Nova, then again through Sebastion’s phone speaker. “I’m not staying away!”
“You are the worst fucking soldier I’ve ever worked with!
There’s no room for emotion in war, Castro.
Stay where you are, keep hunting your man.
I’ll move your sister, and then I’ll put eyes on this house, in case he turns up.
Until we know where he is, we need our net to stay wide.
You running back here is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. ”
“Just go with him,” Nova whispers. “The sooner you leave and Lincoln realizes everything is still okay, the sooner we can figure out our next step. But this in-between, right now,” she presses, “when he thinks he can control a situation he can’t, it needs to end.”
“O-okay.” I draw a shuddering breath and glance at my mountain of clothes, then setting our call on speaker, I toss it onto my bed and go to work flattening my things.
I stuff bits and pieces into available gaps and get most of it zippered away, then I grab a pair of jeans from my floor and, casting a look back to the hall, I tear my shorts down and trade them for denim.
I select the first sweater my fingers touch and whip it over my head, and while I work the fabric down my torso, I stride back to my closet and snag my overnight bag.
It’s a dark-brown, faux-leather cross-body bag, larger than a purse, but smaller than a carry-on suitcase.
Tearing the zipper open and setting it on my bed, I toss my pyjama shorts inside, then my pencil case and books.
I turn to my bedside table and whip the phone charger from the wall, tossing that in, too, then I peel the hair elastic from my wrist and push my long locks into a ponytail.
“Scarlett?” Nova whispers. “You’re going?”
“Yeah.” Finishing with my hair, I snatch up a rolled pair of socks and plop onto my bed so I can tug them on.
The waistband of my jeans digs into my belly, especially when I lean forward and snag a pair of sneakers from under the bed, but I slip my feet inside and keep moving. “Where do you think he’ll take me?”
“I don’t know. But I’m gonna trust that it’s the right decision. We’ll catch up soon.”
The house remains dark, like Sebastion prefers to work in the shadows, but that darkness makes it impossible to miss the beams of a car’s lights on the road outside.
“Scarlett?”
“Shh.” I hold my breath and stare at the wall, waiting, waiting, waiting to see if the car will keep going, then I choke out an impossibly quiet sob when Sebastion ducks into my doorway, a finger pressed to his lips and a long-barreled handgun clasped in his hand.
“Hang up.” He darts across my room and takes my phone before I get the chance. “We’ll call you when we’re on the road. Keep Lincoln under control until we make contact again.”
“Okay,” Nova responds quickly. “Be safe.”
He kills the call, locks the screen, then hands the phone back and grips my arm instead. Scanning my packing efforts, he nods his approval and drapes my cross-body bag over my shoulder, then he snags my suitcase and carries it back to the door.
The car outside passes us by, continuing along the road and away into oblivion.
Instead of relaxing, Sebastion tightens his grip on my wrist and leads me into the hall.
“Do you think they’re already here?”
“Don’t know.” He brings me to the end of the hall, where turning one way leads to the living room, and turning the other goes to the kitchen.
He sets my suitcase down and meets my eyes for a long, intense pause. Stay the fuck here, Princess. Without a word, he sprints into the living room and crosses to the front door. He doesn’t open it, and he doesn’t shift the heavy window blinds, either.
Instead, he takes out his phone and navigates to whatever app he’s looking for, then he studies it for a full minute.
My pulse thunders loudly in my ears. It’s like a cannon boom I swear the rest of the world can hear.
Satisfied, he locks his phone and slips it into his pocket. “Let’s go.” He re-holsters his gun and wraps one hand around the handle of my suitcase. The other, around my wrist. “Straight through. Out the back door, down the porch steps, and into my truck.”
“B-but your truck is out the front.” I attempt to twist back toward the living room. “Sebastion? It’s—”
“I bring it around before bed every night. Put it back in the mornings.” He drags me across the kitchen and pushes me against the wall by the door.
He’s rough. Handsy. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m smaller than him, or that my lungs refuse to work when I need them most of all.
He simply fists the door handle, slowly inches it open, and stares out into the darkness.
His broad body blocks my view, he robs me of a chance to get my bearings, and when he decides it’s time to move, he yanks the door wide and grabs my suitcase again.
He half-drags, half-carries me into the freezing cold, where snow drifts mercilessly from the sky, and just as he promised, his truck sits waiting for us.
It’s not just ‘out the back’. The driver’s side door sits perfectly aligned with the porch steps.
He tugs me toward it, his grip bruising and tight, then he beeps the truck unlocked, releases me just long enough to tear the door open, then he shoves me in so I have no choice but to crawl to the other side with tears in my eyes, snot running from my nostrils, and enough anxiety in my belly that I want to puke.
This truck is massive, one of those dual-cab kinds, so he lobs my suitcase onto the back seat and slides into the front, then we’re moving, skidding off of Nova’s property and onto the road.
“You can go back to sleep if you want.” His eyes jump from the rear-view mirror to the road ahead of us. To the side mirrors. To the rear again. Never stopping. Never relaxing. “We’re gonna be driving for a long time, so you may as well get comfortable.”
Sleep? Is he crazy?
“W-what if we just did exactly what the person wanted?” My hands tremble as I reach around and clip my seatbelt into place. “He left the note, and we reacted. Maybe he’s following us now.”
Sebastion’s eyes jump to the rear-view mirror again, even as he yanks his seatbelt on and plugs his phone into the cradle on his dash. “No one’s following us.”
“They know where I live,” I rasp. “They left the note, and they let me come home and discover it. Then they let me leave again and get on a plane.” I peel my cross-body bag up, over my head and down again until it sits in my lap.
“It’s clear they’re not interested in hurting me.
Scaring me seems to be the main objective. ”
I swallow a painful sob and study Sebastion’s phone screen as it lights up with an incoming call from Lincoln.
“I’m scared whoever left the note never wanted my attention at all. Maybe they want Linc’s, and they knew I’d run straight to him.”
“He knows how to take care of himself.” He reaches forward and declines the call with a cruel swipe of his finger. “And he’s visible, anyway. If they want him, they know where to find him.”
“So what then? Scare me to death… for fun?”
He shakes his head and meets my eyes. Dragging my hand down, my fingernail away from my teeth, though I didn’t even realize I was biting, he lays it back on my lap and returns to his determined study of the road. “I won’t let anyone kill you, Princess. I promise.”
“Unless the choice is between me and your mission…”
Silence fills the dark cab for a long beat; the only light is the orange emanating from his dash. The only sound, my racing, shuddering breath.
Finally, Sebastion’s eyes, midnight black in the darkness, come back to mine. “Hopefully I never have to choose.”