Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
After she leaves, I head to the communal showers and let the hot water soothe away the tension of travel and new beginnings.
As I dry off, I catch my reflection in the steamy mirror—pale skin, copper hair, and eyes the color of emeralds.
My mother’s eyes were brown, but other than that, I look like her, a resemblance that had once been a source of pride but now feels like a warning.
If I stare long enough, I can almost see her face superimposed over mine, wearing the same expression of haunted exhaustion she’d carried in the weeks before she died.
The weeks when she’d been so strangely distracted, as if she knew Death was coming for her.
No.
That may have been Mom, but it’s not me. Death may be knocking, but I am damn sure not opening that door.
With a firm nod, I pull on my sleep shirt and shorts and slide into bed. Just a quick nap so that maybe Uncle Finn won’t see my exhaustion and insist I get some sleep before he feeds me.
I put my headphones in, then go to the phone app that supposedly uses NASA technology so astronauts can stay fresh and sharp on very little sleep.
Then I do what the app tells me—I focus on my surroundings and let myself drift, using the app’s tones and the ambient sounds as anchors to keep me just shy of deep sleep.
The thrum of the soundwaves.
The echo of footsteps on the stairs.
The soft brush of the tree limbs against the window.
I focus on each, letting relaxation come, but not giving in to the pull of sleep. Not succumbing. Fighting it. Focusing on the footsteps. Focusing on the leaves. Focusing on the waves that tease my ankles, the cool wind that whips my hair into my face.
I mutter a curse, realizing I’d forgotten to bring a hair tie.
Then again, considering I don’t remember how I got to the beach in the first place, forgetting a hair tie is small potatoes.
I stop and turn slowly in a circle, frowning. Not a soul in sight. Weird. I haven’t been to this beach in years. And why would I want to come back without my mom? This was our special place, and just being here makes my throat go thick with tears.
Still, I’m glad I’m here. It feels strangely right to come one last time before I officially start college.
A green beachball bounces across my path and into the water. I look to the left and see a little boy with a mop of dark hair, big brown eyes, and the pudgy cheeks of a toddler. He blinks as he points to the ball, tears clinging to his long lashes.
“I’ll get it,” I tell him, then wade to where the ball is bouncing knee deep in the surf.
I grab it, then walk back and put it in the boy’s outstretched hands. He smiles. One of those sweet, babyish smiles full of innocence and laughter.
Then the smile spreads, wider and wider and wider until he’s all teeth and gums, and it looks as if I could grab the corners of his mouth and peel the skin right off his skull.
For a moment—one tiny, millisecond of a moment—that’s exactly what I see, and I stumble backward, my heart racing. This isn’t right. And yet it’s somehow so damn familiar.
A dream.
I know this dream.
But I can’t wake up.
He takes a step toward me, that perverted mouth now moving as he speaks in a low, gravelly voice that sounds like it was piped straight from hell. “She’s here. The tricky bitch is here.”
“Who?” I have to force the word out past the fear clogging my throat as I look to the sky, vaguely remembering a woman with long, dark hair.
I get no answer. Instead, his chubby baby hands squeeze the sides of the beach ball, causing the top and bottom to bulge, filling with way more air than he could be pushing out of the middle.
I want to run, but the sand has turned to wet cement. My feet are buried up to my ankles. I tug, but I don’t have the strength to pull them free.
The beachball explodes, and I recoil from the sickly-sweet scent of death as a spout of blood and bile paints the sky red.
The little monster boy races past me into the now-boiling ocean, and steam rises as his body jerks and expands, morphing into some sort of prehistoric monster covered in thick scales and a dark gray hide.
I try to yank my feet from the cement-like sand. Not. Happening.
Cold panic sweeps over me, and I hear my own voice—It’s just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream…
But the words aren’t soothing. How could they be for someone like me who knows the danger that hides in dreams?
“No,” I whisper, then raise my voice to a scream. “No, no, no, no, no!”
Yes, Cora. Yes.
The words appear in my head, spoken in the same gravelly voice. I twist at the waist, feet still stuck fast. The toddler’s now-reptilian body plows through the water as dozens of similar mares rise behind him.
I squat down, frantically shoving at the sand, but it’s futile, and I watch in horror as the creatures creep toward me, pincers twitching, as more and more burst from the sand, and my heart pounds so hard my ribs ache.
The largest monster snarls, teeth bared and eyes glinting like a starving man facing Thanksgiving.
I guess I’m the meal.
I push and punch and wriggle backward, but I have no leverage. I can only watch as the monster’s wide mouth stretches even wider and the sharp teeth gleam in the light of the setting sun.
I’m trapped. Stuck fast. And I haven’t got a clue how to get the hell out of here.
Mother.
Oh, god. This is what my mother warned me against. Worse, this is how she died, writhing in bed as I tried but failed to wake her, horrified and tear-soaked and useless, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that one day, that would be me.
But not today, Satan. Not today.
They’re all around me now, and I spew out curses as I twist to look behind me, certain I’ll see more monsters ready to attack.
Instead, I feel a rush of wind and turn back around to see a gorgeous golden-eyed man in black jeans and a black tee astride a massive golden dragon swooping down from the clouds.
The giant wings kick up sand as they race toward me, Golden Eyes’ stern expression exacerbated by the scar on his right cheek.
I know him. I’ve seen him over and over in my nightmares.
Even so, at the moment I can’t remember a thing about him, not even if he’s friend or foe.
And all I can do is stand there, trapped and hoping that he’s the fucking cavalry.
Because I really need some rescuing right now.
The dragon’s wings spread wide as it swoops closer, and all the while Golden Eyes is pulling something from a holster at his hip.
It’s only when those eyes meet mine—and he sends the thing flying straight toward me—that I remember my mother’s warning about the golden-eyed man.
That’s when I realize that the thing hurtling toward me is a knife.
And that, once again, I’m completely and totally screwed.