9. Lorraine
Chapter Nine
Lorraine
T he forest was alive around me. The trees moved and swayed as I ran, watching me. I screamed. Something was chasing me, but they wouldn’t help me. Why were they just watching?
“I told you magic is real,” Cat said.
I snapped my head around as I ran. She was sitting on the couch, watching me run.
“It’s not real,” I panted. “Those are just stories they made up.”
“They’re not just stories,” Cat said. “If you don’t believe in it, why are you running?”
My steps faltered. Why was I running? I looked over my shoulder, but there was nothing but darkness behind me. A moment ago, that darkness had been alive, an entity in its own right, ready to devour me. Now, the darkness was nothing more than the absence of light.
“Cat?” I asked.
But my sister was gone.
I spun around, looking in every direction. I was stuck in the forest, the trees tall around me, so tall that I couldn’t see their leaves in the darkness above. The forest grew thicker and thicker around me until I was trapped.
The trees looked down at me. The sound of metal on metal sounded somewhere in the distance. What was going on?
“Lorraine?” my mom’s voice said.
“Mom?” I cried out and spun around, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
“Hey, sugar pie,” my dad said. “Why don’t you come with us?”
“Where are you?” I asked. Their voices seemed to come from all around me, and I didn’t know where to go to find them. “Mom? Dad?”
The sound of a crash again. I knew what it was this time. It was a car, ripping into another car. Glass shattered, bones broken.
“Mom!” I screamed.
The darkness grew thicker again, and I struggled to breathe. My chest was tight, and my breath rasped in and out of my lungs. I breathed faster and faster, trying to get air, but my lungs wouldn’t use the oxygen I gave them.
Feeling lightheaded, I pressed the heel of my hand against my temple. My head throbbed painfully. The sound of the accident died away. My parents’ voices were nothing more than a memory now.
I stood alone in the forest, and the silence grew so loud, it was deafening.
The trees looked down on me.
“What?” I demanded.
They were all judging me. I didn’t know how I knew; I just did.
“Don’t you dare!” I screamed. “You don’t know me, you don’t know what my story is! You can’t tell me I made mistakes if you don’t know the full story!”
“Lorraine,” a clear voice came from right in front of me.
I looked up, and Ash stood before me.
“You’re okay,” he said.
“I’m not,” I said. “None of this is okay. I just… I want to go home.”
Ash lifted his hand and touched my shoulder. Warmth radiated from his touch, but there was more to him than just the warmth of a live body. Something else flowed into me when he touched me.
“I told you magic was real,” Cat said.
I spun around to look for her, but there was nothing but darkness.
When I turned back to Ash, he was gone, too.
I jerked up in bed, breathing hard. My breath came in ragged gasps, and my skin was slick with a sheen of sweat.
The cabin was dark. Moonlight fell through the murky glass window in my room, drawing strange shapes on the quilt I lay under.
I looked around and swallowed hard. It had just been a dream—a nightmare. None of it was real, just the panic catching up to me. It had all been so much to take in. Oscar letting those men take me, the escape, meeting Ash, this cabin, my attraction to him… it was just a lot to deal with right now.
“You’re overwhelmed. You’re exhausted. Your mind doesn’t know what to make of it all.” I tried to tell myself everything was okay, but it didn’t work.
I wasn’t sure everything was okay. Right now, after the nightmare, it felt like everything I thought I knew had crumbled around me.
The front door creaked open, and my blood ran cold. Dread settled in my stomach, and I tasted my heart in my throat.
Someone was here for me. Someone had come to get me.
Footsteps came closer and closer to my door. The fear grew stronger, threatening to overthrow me like a tidal wave. My breath caught in my throat, and I couldn’t breathe, completely paralyzed by my fear.
The door to my room swung slowly open, and I thought I might pass out from terror.
“You’re awake,” Ash’s velvety voice said softly.
Swallowing hard, I gasped in relief, trying to compose myself. The fear was still there, and my skin tingled with fright, but I wasn’t in danger.
“I… couldn’t sleep.” I wasn’t going to tell him I had a nightmare.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His eyes glowed like sapphires in the night, and his features seemed ethereal. I blinked a few times, but Ash still looked like an apparition.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He didn’t look like he believed me. I wasn’t okay at all, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Ash didn’t look like anything scared him, and to tell him about my dream… I couldn’t do it.
“I’m going to make you a cup of tea,” Ash said. “Herbal tea. It will help you relax.”
“Okay,” I said in a strained voice. “Are you staying?”
He hesitated a moment before he said, “I won’t leave.”
I nodded and swallowed again. Ash turned away from the door, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. I took a moment to pull myself together. It was just the dream. It had terrified me, and now everything felt scary, but there was no need to worry. Ash was here, and I was okay.
I was okay.
I was okay.
I got out of bed and walked across the creaky floor. I stepped out of the bedroom and crept toward the kitchen.
Ash hadn’t lit any candles, only stoked a fire in the stove. The crackling behind me made me turn, and I realized he’d lit the fire, too.
He’d told me how to do it when he’d built that fire, but when I’d come back at nightfall, I hadn’t known what to do, so I’d left it. The warmth that radiated from the fireplace now was soothing.
I watched Ash move around the small kitchen as he put water on the stove to boil. He prepared two cups with tea leaves.
“What kind of tea is that?” I asked.
“It’s nothing you’ll know,” he said. “It’s an herbal mix that helps for nerves, for panic. The drya—some of my friends use it and it helps a lot.”
I nodded. “My sister and I always have a cup of tea together when I get home from work.”
“Are you and your sister close?” Ash asked.
“Yeah. We’ve always been close, but since my parents died, we’ve been closer than ever. It’s just the two of us, so we stick together, you know?”
Ash didn’t answer me. He leaned his large form against the counter, powerful arms crossed over his broad chest. He watched me with his eyes that seemed to glow from the fire beneath the stove. Or was it just what his eyes looked like?
I shook off the thought. No one’s eyes glowed like that. It was a trick of the light, or my nightmare was making me see things that weren’t real.
When the water boiled, Ash poured the hot water into two cups and stirred it with a wooden spoon. He scooped out the leaves again instead of using a strainer, and finally, he offered me one cup.
“Come,” he said.
He led me to the living area. I perched on the edge of one of the crude couches. They were nothing more than log squares with cushions on them that seemed to be stuffed with straw.
Ash didn’t sit on a couch. Instead, he folded himself and sat on the floor. A fur rug had been laid out in front of the fire. He sipped his tea.
I followed his lead and sat down on the floor, too. It was closer to the fire, warmer and more comfortable. There were no formalities.
I sipped my tea. It tasted strange, but it wasn’t altogether horrible. The warmth flowed through my body, defrosting me from the inside, and after a couple of sips, I felt the tension in my body bleed out, the remnants of fear retreat. I took a deep, shuddering breath.
“You’re okay,” Ash said.
I nodded. “I am.” This time, I meant it. I didn’t know what kind of tea this was, but it had made me feel better. I felt like the claws of the nightmare had finally let go of me.
“Everything feels so surreal out here,” I said. “It feels like I’m stuck in a dream.”
“A dream?” Ash asked.
I nodded. “It just feels like I’m stuck in a different reality.” I shook my head. “It sounds silly.”
Ash didn’t answer me. He only watched me with his deep blue eyes. I glanced at him, and something inside me twisted and turned. I was drawn to Ash in a way I’d never been drawn to anyone, and if I wasn’t careful, I could fall into those eyes.
And once I fell, I knew I would fall forever.
I sipped my tea, and the world seemed to dim all around me. It faded until I felt like we were caught in a bubble. We didn’t talk much, but we didn’t have to. It was good just to sit together. I felt safe with Ash. Nothing would get me as long as he was here.
The night around us stretched thin, and the dreamlike feeling intensified.
When I blinked my eyes open, I was back in bed, the sun falling through the window. I sat up with a frown and looked around.
I didn’t know how much of last night had been a dream.
I didn’t know if any of it had been real.