Chapter 25
REVERIE
The impenetrable cold sinking into my bones is the first sensation that alerts my subconscious to danger. Something is wrong—very fucking wrong.
The ominous feeling bubbles in the pit of my stomach, and instantly, my heart picks up speed while a cold sweat forms on the back of my neck.
My eyes fly open, but only pitch-blackness surrounds me. I can’t see a thing, but I can feel I’m in a confined space. The air is denser, making it harder to breathe.
Adrenaline floods my system, and my hands fly above me, slamming against cold metal. I realize now that I’m lying on it, too, the surface beneath me uncomfortably hard and unforgiving.
My first thought is that Dread put me back in a grave, but after flailing out my arms, there’s open space on either side of me. I’m not inside a coffin, but I’m inside something.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, the words breathless and cracking with panic.
Chest pumping, I feel around my body, only to let out a breath of relief when I feel my phone protruding from my sweatpants pocket. I don’t know if I fell asleep with it in there or what. I don’t even remember going to sleep.
With trembling fingers, I grapple with the device, fumbling around until the screen lights up and I manage to click on the flashlight.
I instantly regret it.
“No, no, what the fuck,” I whimper, my rounded eyes staring at the body on a metal pan next to me, a white cloth covering them.
My head snaps to the other side, confirming another body on that side.
I’m inside the fucking mortuary rack.
With another whimper, I set my phone on my stomach with the flashlight pointed up and then reach above my head and slam my hands against the door. It’s locked—obviously it’s fucking locked. There are no handles on the inside, because why would there be? The dead don’t get fucking claustrophobic.
“Stupid,” I mutter, grabbing my phone again and searching for Sable’s number.
Tremors rack my body, making it difficult to navigate the phone, but I finally click on her contact.
Except the phone doesn’t ring, and, with horror, it instantly dawns on me.
I look at the corner of the screen to find no signal.
My bottom lip trembles as tears rush to the surface of my eyes.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
With Rogue up my ass all day and staying outside the dorm at night, this has to be Dread’s doing.
After he stormed out of the room, I just sat there and cried, contemplating if I should go back to my own dorm or not.
Until, that is, I received a text from Rogue twenty minutes later, letting me know Dread’s staying in his room, and he'll be staying the night outside the door to watch over me.
I didn't even have the energy to argue or respond. I just went to bed.
Or, at least, I tried to.
I woke up in Dread’s bed earlier this morning, surrounded by his amber and sandalwood scent but feeling so empty and cold with him gone. I was groggy from tossing and turning all goddamn night and barely got a few hours of sleep.
There was another text from Rogue waiting for me, letting me know he’d be skipping his classes to shadow me all day, at Dread’s request.
Which turned out to be entirely annoying, but it was a fight to even keep my eyes open, so I stayed silent while Rogue followed me around. The entire day passed in a blur, ignoring Rogue's attempts at chitchat, moving like a zombie through each class, then later at work.
Sable let me help with some of her embalming duties to get my mind off things, though it didn’t help very much as she hovered around like a mother hen the entire time.
After work, I remember Rogue waiting in the parking lot to tail me the entire way back to Dread's dorm, muttering, “Good night,” before leaving him at his post outside the door, ordering takeout, brushing my teeth, and then… nothing.
My hands dive into my hair and squeeze tight, and I pinch my eyes shut as I rack my brain, attempting to recall if I ate or drank anything aside from my takeout before bed. Unfortunately, my mind is frustratingly erratic, unable to settle long enough to concentrate.
Wait…
Fuck!
I drank a fucking Gatorade, and I thought little of it at the time, but the motherfucker must’ve kept a bottle I tapped with melatonin and ensured it was the last one left in the fridge.
Thank God I only drank half of it, so I’m not too groggy.
It's after two a.m., so it’s Saturday now.
Thankfully, the funeral home is open every day, but Lord fucking knows how long it'll take before someone comes into the morgue so I can alert them I'm trapped in here.
At the very least, I'll be stuck in here for hours, and that has a cold sweat blooming across my entire body.
“Let me out!” I scream, banging on the door again. “Dread! Let me the fuck out!”
No answer.
My hysteria worsens with each passing second as I struggle to draw in a full breath, involuntary moans and whimpers leaking from my throat. Sweat coats my back and along my hairline, and my muscles tighten to the point of pain.
I need to get control over myself and calm the fuck down, but the second I open my eyes again, I glimpse at the dead body next to me. My chest squeezes, feeling as if my lungs only shrink further.
Normally, the bodies don’t bother me, but being trapped in the mortuary rack with them?
My mind gets the better of me, imagining their heads slowly turning to the side to stare at me.
Even with the cloth covering their faces, I can vividly imagine their milky white eyes locked on me, a terrifying grin curling their lips.
I move the heel of my palms over my eyes and press tightly, attempting to banish the images from my head.
Calm down, Reverie. Just calm the fuck down. They’re dead. They won’t come alive and fucking eat you.
I repeat that mantra over and over, and while it’s not necessarily relaxing, it gets the creepy image out of my head, which is just enough to keep me from vomiting everywhere.
As the tears begin to bubble out of my eyes and past my palms, I hear a metallic squeak before the door suddenly swings open.
I move blindly and scramble off the metal pan as he slides it out.
I fall off it and land painfully on my hands and knees while my phone skids across the cement floor.
I feel nothing but stark relief, my head bowed as sobs overtake the staggered breaths sawing in and out of my throat.
Dread’s presence is suffocating as he stands over me, his shoes just in my field of vision, eyes peeking through the curtain of hair falling around my face.
“Didn’t take you long to become an asshole again,” I rasp, my entire body trembling from the lingering anxiety.
“Didn’t take you long to give me a reason to be,” he retorts coldly.
I huff out a humorless laugh and straighten to rest my ass on the back of my heels. The pain in my knees flares, demanding my attention now that my adrenaline has depleted.
Dread stares down at me, his expression stoic and devoid of emotion.
However, there’s a dark glimmer in his eyes, prompting my heart to sink into the pit of my stomach.
I recognize that look—it’s the same one from the night in the pool, when he gave me an impossible ultimatum after learning my father was being released from prison.
He’s furious.
He’s hurting.
And he’s spiraling.
Which means he’s really fucking irrational.
“Kell—”
He’s lunging toward me, hauling me to my feet by my arm before I can blink.
“You want to say my name, darling?” he bites out. “Then let me give you a reason to.”
I gasp, instinctively resisting him. However, it doesn’t faze him, and he’s dragging me out of the small room down the familiar hallway in the funeral home.
I open my mouth to question how the hell he got us in here until I remember I have a spare key on my car keys. Which I left on his desk.
“Dread, stop,” I snap, yanking on my arm uselessly. He ignores me as I fight to keep up with his long strides, stumbling over my feet.
We reach the door at the end of the hallway, and he pushes it open before swinging me inside, releasing me so I trip and fall flat on my ass.
For the second time, the fresh wave of adrenaline keeps me from feeling the pain shooting up my spine.
Instead, my attention is on the massive metal structure in the middle of the room, with its square door wide open.
Beyond it is the inside of the retort—where they burn the bodies to ash.
He brought me to the crematorium, and I don’t need to be a goddamn mind reader to know exactly what he intends to do.
With wide eyes and a heaving chest, I slowly turn back to Dread.
He grins, and I’m staring at the pearly white teeth of the fucking devil.
“Don’t you fucking dar—”
Again, he lunges for me, and I scream as he grabs me, forcing me toward the retort.
I thrash in his arms wildly, clawing at whatever part of his body my hands reach first.
“No, no, no! Let me go!”
He doesn’t, and despite all my kicking, he shoves me inside the brick chamber, leftover ash sticking to my hands and arms. It’s still very warm to the touch, having not completely cooled down yet.
Thankfully, we hadn’t used it for the past few days.
Otherwise, my clothes would’ve caught fire by now while my skin bubbles and melts.
It's a high-capacity retort, which means the chamber opening is much larger than average, granting me about six inches of space above my head sitting upright and a little less than a foot of space on either side of me, allowing me to twist onto my hands and knees and quickly crawl toward the opening.
Except he stands at the end, blocking me from getting out.
Panicking, I sit on my butt and bring my knees to my chest, prepared to kick the fuck out of him if I need to. He was nice enough to put my coat and boots on for me, and now, I'll thank him by shoving one of them up his ass.
“Dread, let me out,” I demand, my voice trembling.