CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CADI
Cadi collided with the solid glass door, pain ripping through her shoulder at the impact as she sprinted into the cold night air. Tears blurred her vision. Sobs tore at her chest. Bare feet pounded against the rain-soaked pavement, pushing as fast as she could to get anywhere but there.
She fumbled with her keys, the metal slipping from her numb fingers once—twice—before she finally managed a sliver of control, just enough to unlock her car and throw herself into the driver’s seat.
The engine roared to life.
Gripping the gear shift like a lifeline, she threw the car into drive, cranked the wheel, and smashed her foot down onto the accelerator.
Lights flared in her vision as a shrill warning screamed in her ears. Cadi slammed on the brakes just as a truck sped past, swerving into the next lane to avoid crashing into her.
Her knuckles bleached white where she clutched the steering wheel as she tore through the city streets. She pulled in panicked gulps, trying to breathe around the sobs that punched through her chest, but each one seemed to rob her lungs of oxygen.
The world around her was suddenly bathed in red. She braked hard. Rubber screeched against asphalt. The back end of her car pitched left, coming to a stop just shy of the intersection.
She looked around. The buildings around her were all the same, the street names jumbled and foreign in the adrenaline-soaked chaos of her mind.
She had no idea where she was, or where she was going.
All she knew was pain and fear. Her chest felt like it had been ripped open, leaving a gaping hole where her heart had been.
The light turned green. Cadi pulled into the intersection, cranking the wheel hard to the right. Her front tire jumped the curb before she lurched to a stop, and she dug through her purse with quivering hands, looking for her phone.
A raw, agonized sound tore from her throat when the screen illuminated, revealing the lockscreen photo of her and Elias.
Fresh agony seared at the glaring reminder that the one person she wanted to run to, the person who was her safety, her home, was the person she was running from.
She quickly opened her contacts and typed the only other name she could think of.
Sera answered on the second ring.
“Cadi? It’s three a.m., are you okay?”
Cadi shattered. Uncontrollable tears wracked her body, cutting off every word she tried to get out.
“Cadi, holy fuck, what happened?!”
Her breaths came in ragged bursts. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, couldn’t think. Burning spasms gripped her chest with each failed attempt, but she at last choked out the only three words she could manage. “I need you.”
“Send me your location. I’m on my way.”
The screen blurred. Cadi’s scattered thoughts refused to focus long enough to do what she needed. It felt like a lifetime before she found the app, and her shoulders sagged with the effort it took just to tap Share.
Her phone clattered against the console as she pressed her forehead into the smooth leather of her steering wheel.
She wrapped her arms around herself, holding tight against the brutal tremors that continued to course through her until her cries slowly shifted into a numb silence.
Her mind slowed, shutting off her ability to feel in an attempt to protect itself from the shredding pain.
Time slipped by, but she had no idea how long.
It might have been minutes, could have been hours.
She didn’t even move when light flooded her car, barely able to manage the strength needed to turn her head toward the frenzied tap of knuckles against her window.
At first she didn’t recognize the face she saw, though her battered mind slowly worked to solidify Sera’s horrified expression as she took in Cadi’s red, swollen eyes.
Sera wrenched the door open and reached in to pull her out.
She might have said something, asked a question, but Cadi couldn’t hear it.
All she could do was cling to Sera. Her legs refused to move on their own, so her friend bore her weight, gently helping her into the passenger seat of the four by four.
The smell of earth and incense clung to the exposed brick walls in Sera’s loft.
Her grip on Cadi never faltered as she guided her across the threshold and straight to the sofa in the middle of the room.
Something warm and heavy pressed against Cadi’s thighs the instant she sat down, then hot breath hit her face, followed by a damp tongue lapping at her cheek.
“Cuba! Come on girl, get down. Read the room,” Sera said, grabbing the massive black dog by the shoulders and dragging her from the couch.
Cadi sat in silence, staring at nothing. Feeling nothing. She didn’t even have the strength to wonder what had happened, what had gone wrong, why Elias would have done that. Something cold brushed against her fingers and she flinched, pulling her arm tight against her body.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Sera soothed as she crouched down beside her to take her hand and wrap it around a small glass.
Cadi looked down at the amber liquid, her arm still refusing to obey any command that wasn’t directly tied to survival.
Sera gently cupped her hand beneath Cadi’s to help her to guide the dead limb. “Drink.”
Harsh fumes burned Cadi’s nose, her stomach twisting in a silent threat that made her hesitate.
Sera gently pressed her fingers to the bottom of the glass and tipped it back just enough to send the cold liquid down Cadi’s throat.
She swallowed hard, coughing around the burn of alcohol that, surprisingly, felt almost welcome.
At least this pain she could control, unlike the clawing ache still raging in her chest.
Her body shuddered when a deep smolder settled into her gut while a familiar warm tingle spread to her arms. She angled the glass toward Sera in a silent yet clear demand for a refill. Liquid rang against crystal as Sera poured, and Cadi emptied her second glass with a quick toss of her head.
The cushion beside her dipped when Sera lowered herself down, placing the bottle of whiskey onto the wooden coffee table with a soft thunk. She turned to face Cadi, distress and concern carved into every inch of her face.
“Sweetie, what happened?”
Cadi squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. If only she knew. It still didn’t feel real. “I don’t know. He just … he woke me up and was standing there, staring, and he had …” Her voice shook as fresh tears bit at her eyes. “He had his gun. He grabbed me. Hard. Pulled me out of bed and—fuck.”
Tightness gripped her throat, cutting off her words. She couldn’t say them; saying them made it real. Warmth found her shoulders, Sera’s hand tracing a gentle path across her back. She pulled in a quivering breath and pushed forward.
“He pointed it at me and told me to move,” Cadi continued, “I didn’t know what to do, so I just did what he said. I was so fucking scared.”
She pulled her thumbnail between her teeth and wrapped her other arm tight around her middle, still barely holding herself together.
“Shit,” Sera’s voice cracked, rougher than Cadi had ever heard. “What the actual fuck.”
Cadi shook her head and reached for the bottle. “And the way he just stared at me. I begged him to stop, but he just—” Her breath caught. “His eyes were—why would he do that?”
Sera watched her, pain burning in her stare as she shook her head.
“I don’t know, sweetie. It doesn’t make any sense. Elias would never …”
Her hand stilled against Cadi’s back as her voice trailed off into a thick silence. Cadi turned to look at her, a pit forming in her stomach at the look of dread she found on Sera’s face.
“What is it?” she asked, confident she didn’t actually want to know the answer.
Her friend hesitated, as if she were carefully considering the consequences of each word she was about to speak. “You said his eyes were different,” Sera said, the slightest shake to her voice. “How?”
Cadi closed her eyes. The image was seared into her mind: Elias staring at her in the mirror, his arm locked against her chest so tightly she could barely breathe, the barrel of his gun pressed to her temple.
She pushed out a slow breath and forced the words past the growing lump in her throat.
“They were hollow. Empty. Like staring into a bottomless pit.”
Sera swore and pushed off the couch, knitting her fingers behind her head.
“What?” Cadi asked.
Sera paced the living room, eyes wild as her lips formed silent words. Cadi’s stomach dipped at the look of terror on her friend’s face. Whatever Sera had just realized, it was bad. Really bad.
“Sera, what is going on?” she demanded.
Sera froze and turned to look at her with an expression that sent a chill running over her skin. In a few steps, she was back on the couch, gripping Cadi’s hand so firmly she hissed through her teeth at the pain that lanced through her joints.
“Sweetie, what you just went through is fucking awful. I won’t even pretend to know what you’re feeling … but I need you to hear me.”
Cadi’s pulse hammered.
“That wasn’t Elias.”
Cadi froze, a tight breath pulling itself from her lungs. “What the fuck are you talking about? I just told you—”
“I know what you told me.” Sera said, squeezing Cadi’s hand harder, pulling her close. “And everything you saw was real. That was his body … but he wasn’t pulling the strings.”
Cadi scoffed, her body and mind physically rejecting what she was hearing. “What, like he was fucking possessed?”
Sera’s hands took her face and forced her to focus only on her. There was no doubt in her eyes. No question. Only a single, burning truth. “Yes.”
Bile threatened to crest Cadi’s throat as she stared into the certainty reflecting back at her. Fresh tears traced a path down her cheeks, her voice barely a whisper as she asked, “What?”
Sera released her, moving her hands to Cadi’s shoulders with a steadying pressure, mooring her against the shock that was trying to drag her under.
“Everything you just told me, the way his eyes looked hollow, empty … that’s exactly how I would expect them to look if someone else had fully taken control of him.
Forced him to do those things to you. I just don’t understand how … he’s never been able to …”
Sera’s words faded out and her eyes went distant. Something pricked against the base of Cadi’s spine, something sinister. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. “When you say ‘someone else’ … ”
Sera’s focus returned to her, and she nodded, her expression grave. “Oneirios.”
Cadi pulled in a breath, shrugging free of Sera’s grip. Everything felt too close, her skin too hot beneath the fabric of her sweatshirt. “How … ?” she asked, the air in her lungs barely able to hold the question.
Sera shook her head, and Cadi could see the wheels turning as she tried to make sense of everything that had transpired.
“I don’t know,” she said, her tone thick with defeat.
“His power is over dreams. He’s their custodian, their caretaker.
He’s always been able to enter them, alter them, manifest them, but to reach through them into the waking world …
that violates the rules of the dream itself. ”
Cuba appeared at Sera’s side, drawn from her plush bed in the corner of the living room by her mistress’s distress and nudged her fingers with a velvety nose.
Cadi squeezed the delicate glass in her hands, twisting it between her fingers, anything to distract herself from the thickness roiling in her gut. This time it had been Elias, but next time … oh gods …
“Could he … could he do it again?”
Sera looked up and reached forward to grip the back of Cadi’s neck. “I won’t let that happen. We’ll figure this out. Until then, you stay here.”
Cadi nodded, though Sera’s steadfastness barely made a dent in her fear.
“I’ll be right back,” Sera said, her fingers tightening against Cadi’s neck before she turned to Cuba. “Stay with her.”
Cuba hopped onto the couch to take Sera’s spot and let out a deep sigh as she rested her head in Cadi’s lap.
Cadi sank back against the cushion, the movement shifting the fabric of her hoodie. Her pulse spiked violently when a wave of pine and sea air washed over her.
A strangled sob tore from her throat. She ripped the hoodie over her head and hurled it across the room before pulling her knees to her chest, grief seeping into every atom.
The lingering trace of Elias in the fibers of his sweatshirt, the home she had found in his arms …
It had all been twisted into a nightmare.