Within These Walls

Chapter 21

I hold my breath, my heart hammering away. How did Marcus dream about Sam? What does this mean? I've seen some crazy things since we ended up in here, but this has to be the strangest, the most shocking. It hits too close to home.

Marcus tilts his head down and presses his thumb and middle finger against his closed eyelids. "The images are right there in my head, but they're fuzzy. I saw him wearing a fancy suit and sitting behind a shiny desk. I don't remember what he was saying to me. All I know is that I felt . . . younger. A lot younger."

"Are you sure it was a dream?"

He shrugs. "Hell if I know. I thought we already established I'm going crazy."

"I don't think you are." Crazy would mean seeing and hearing things that are not there, but that's not the problem here. Marcus saw Sam somewhere. In a magical dream or in a vision. Maybe even in reality. He did live in Philadelphia, after all. It wouldn't be too wild to imagine that Sam visited him when he was a kid.

That doesn't explain the fancy suit. Sam has never had one of those. He wouldn't spend his hard-earned money so frivolously. He was—is— frugal, through and through.

"Hmm."

I focus back on Marcus's features. "What?"

A lazy smile appears. "Crazy dreams aside, I'm trying to figure out how you could be standing in this bathroom with a half-naked guy and be so cool about it."

Now that he's called attention to it, it's starting to sink in how unwise this is. But I can't let him know how frazzled I feel. "I'm not doing anything wrong."

"Your tone is giving you away. You think hanging around me is wrong?"

"It's not like you've given me a reason to think otherwise."

"What can I say?" He leans one shoulder against the doorframe, which brings him closer to me. "It's fun getting under people's skin." The smile curves upward into a sexy, lopsided grin. "Especially yours. With you, I never know what I'll get. Sometimes you put up those walls of yours, and your eyes become the color of a frozen lake. But other times, like now, you look at me with your guard lowered and your cheeks flushed and . . ."

His voice trails away. He leans a fraction closer. I swallow when his gaze drifts down to my mouth. "And teasing you is the last thing on my mind," he finishes.

The bathroom feels too small. I want to slip out of the door so I don't have to listen to his low, husky voice, but I don't make a move. I can't move at all.

The decision is taken out of my hands when the lounge room light snaps on.

"What's going on here?" Janie asks.

I remember the silver case and the way she got in my head last night. I can't even look at her, which makes me angry at myself. You're such a coward.

"Rose was just making sure my arm wasn't infected," he says. "Might as well change the bandage now. You want to help me out, Janie?"

I exit the bathroom. Janie. It shouldn't bother me to hear him use her name when he still calls me a prickly flower, but I can't stop the anger—the hurt—from spreading through me.

Marcus can be as charming as Alec when he wants to be, but he seems to have a much more potent effect on me. I have to watch myself with him. Nothing good will come out of opening myself up to someone who, by his own admission, is an asshole.

It's only when I return to my bedroom that I realize he avoided all talk of Frankie.

The stress of being stuck in this place has been wearing us out, depleting our hope of ever being found, but the seizure kids are an exception. Even the ones who haven't developed a power have a telltale spring to their steps. By now they've heard about Marcus, Weasel, and Janie. The chance of becoming like them excites them. None of them consider they might end up like Harper, too.