Devil's Plaything

There She Is

Mira couldn't remember the last time she had been so exhausted. However, she doubted that she would be able to fall asleep after what she had been through that night. She surprised herself when she decided that she would try to go to bed anyway. She surprised herself even more when she lay next to Sam on her bed.

She watched him as she slept, looking him over to gauge his health. She didn't know how Noah had knocked him out, but he evidently hadn't done so by punching him. Mira tried to sync her breathing with Sam's so that she might calm herself enough to drift off. He looked angelic as he slept—his blonde hair was long enough that it was beginning to curl, his dark eyelashes fluttered with every exhale, and his thick lips parted slightly.

Mira remembered how Noah had stolen Sam's breath from him the night she had sold her soul. She hadn't been able to see the rise and fall of his chest, or feel the thumping of his pulse. Now, as she placed her ear on his chest, she could very clearly hear the steady beating of his heart. Despite herself, the sound made her smile.

One moment she was counting the number of breaths Sam took, and the next she was dreaming.

She recognized where her dream had taken her immediately. Not only because she had been here before in the waking world, but also because this setting was part of a reoccurring nightmare she had frequently. A few months after her twelfth birthday, Mira's uncle died in a motorcycle collision. His funeral haunted her for years later, because it had been an open-casket and she could barely recognize the man that lay in her uncle's coffin. While the funeral home had been able to make him look presentable for his wake, he certainly had not seemed at peace.

Her unconscious mind forced her to relive this scenario whenever she was distraught. She had talked to a psychologist about it, and been told that it was simply a manifestation of her fear of death. The argument was never convincing to Mira. It wasn't just the idea of death that frightened her, but the fact that she couldn't reconcile the man she knew with the one who lay in his grave. Perhaps it was selfish, but her primary concern was that she didn't want to become a different person when she died, as it seemed her uncle had.

The nightmare began very predictably, with Mira sitting next to her mother on a church pew. She held her mom's hand and was trying to think of something consoling to say when she abruptly found herself alone in the church.

Mira searched the room frantically, starting to panic. This part of the dream had never happened before. The church seemed to be caving in as she eyed the coffin that still lay ten feet from her at the front of the room. She could see the horrifying outline of a body, but was unable to tear her eyes away. She choked on a sob, feeling like her throat was constricting along with her surroundings.

"Please," she whispered to the empty room. It was getting more and more difficult to remember that this was a dream and not an inescapable reality. "Help—."

The words stilled on her tongue as she felt someone sit next to her on the pew. She didn't turn to him, she didn't have to. Her throat burned and she felt as if he were strangling her even now, while her physical body was safe in her bed.

"It's human nature to fear death," Aiden told her, his voice as neutral as that of a documentary narrator. She grimaced when he spoke. She wasn't ready to hear his voice or to see his face. But she could barely breathe, let alone walk away. He cleared his throat, seemingly offended that she wasn't acknowledging him. She saw his hand raise and she jerked her head to face him before he forced her to. If he touched her, she was sure she would be sick.

He smiled when she turned her attention to him, his bright eyes igniting with primal satisfaction. As many times as Mira repeated the words "get out, get out" in her head, she was rendered frozen to her seat. He was in control here, in Mira's own dream. And he was thriving off of every second of it.