Red Moon Rising

51. nightmare

Chapter Song: Firefighter - Cigarettes After Sex

XX

It's dark when the creak of the bed forces my eyes wide open, heart sputtering while shadows crawl across the ceiling. I can feel the mattress sinking down by my feet, shifting and groaning beneath some new weight. Or an old one, a silhouette I'd know anywhere. I can't move, whether from fear or sleep I'm not sure, and so I lie here and try to force a sound from my throat as Isaac leans in closer, breath fanning across my collarbone, hands slipping up my legs.

It was only a matter of time. In the haze of sleep I try to piece together the situation I am in. It's dark and the house is asleep, and Isaac is hovering silent and forbidding above me, only his breath breaking the stillness of the air.

"Found you," he says finally, and the weight of him pins me to the mattress. I wait for him to lash out at me, to close his hands around my throat, but he just seems to stare at me. A finger brushes up my jaw and across the dark bruises on my cheek. "What did you think was going to happen, Layla?"

"I don't know." The words are barely managed, barely more than a whisper. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"You're going to be."

"Please, Isaac, please."

But his hand finds its way to my throat and pushes down, harder and harder until my fingers feel hot and full of needles and my chest aches to collapse. I try to beg, to offer an explanation that he'll buy. But Isaac doesn't listen, or even seem to hear me.

And then I'm gasping in a breath, pushing up hard from the pillows as the weight around me releases. I tumble toward the bedside table and catch the lampswitch, sending something hard clattering against the ground. As light floods the room, I am alone, the only evidence of a visitor strewn across the floor in a mess of peas, mashed potatoes, and cracked ceramic. The hall outside is still dark, and I listen for signs that I disturbed someone else in the house, but there is nothing, only the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.

I could feel him. I could sense the heat from his body. I knew the way his hand held my throat, the exact pressure of his weight on top of me. Shoving the blankets aside, I try to ignore the pain that radiates through my body, particularly along my collarbone. When I'm healed, will my memory of him fade? Maybe I remember his body so well for what it did to mine.

All I'm wearing are a pair of worn sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. It smells like Jack, I realize; that fucker really thought I'd want to wake up in his clothes. Clothes or no clothes, I can't stay in this room any longer. It feels like Isaac. When I hold my breathe, I can catch his scent in my hair. I was his for long enough our own unique scents were beginning to blend. It's a nauseating, hopeless thought, and I leave it behind as I step into the hallway.

In earlier days, I would shift to wolf and run during the night to try to clear my thoughts. But if I shift now I'm sure I'll rip the stitches running over my shoulder, and maybe I'd begin to bleed all over again. Instead, I fumble along the hall until I reach the door. There are several pairs of boots on a thin rug, and I choose a pair at random to borrow.

It doesn't matter that I'm barely clothed; the night is freeing. It's cold and sharp, but the air is calm, a pleasant oak aroma still bearing the warmth of the day. I focus on the crunch of snow beneath my feet as I walk into the yard. The moonlight drops through a clear sky to illuminate a stand of trees where open water is still trickling, and I make my way toward the sound. These are noises to focus on—boots breaking through the crust of the snow, water running along soft ice, bare branches scraping softly along one another. What if he's already here?

It would be a bold move to invade St. Croix by night. But Isaac isn't very subtle, especially where anger is involved. If he were here, though, he wouldn't be waiting beneath these trees in the hopes that I can't sleep. If he sees me again, will he bother to take me, or will he just kill me and be done with it?

My breath catches at the sound of boots in snow, and I press in deeper to the trees, leaning against the broad base of an oak as if to become one with it. Isaac wouldn't make it past the wolves of St. Croix. But Paul might. And after all, wasn't Paul a piece in all of this to begin with, a reason for Isaac to fight so desperately to keep me? Maybe Isaac wouldn't be bold enough to collect me. But I have no doubt that if Paul decides he finally wants that conversation, he'll come to me when I'm at my weakest.

When did you become such a coward? If I were whole again, I'd stand my ground and fight. If all the blood in my veins was my own, I'd be the first to step into the moonlight. Maybe it isn't who I am anymore. Maybe I don't know who I am anymore. I hold my breath as a shadow stretches long and twisted against the glowing snow beyond the dark of the trees. I try to catch a scent on the wind, but the air is so perfectly still that I can sense nothing, only the presence waiting just beyond the trees.

"Layla?"

I let go of a breath and lean my head against the bark. "I'm here."

The boots crunch toward me in the snow, and suddenly Jack is standing bathed in moonlight, fog rolling from his lips when he breathes a laugh. "What are you doing?"

"I wasn't sure that it was you."

"Oh." The smile falls and he looks back toward the house. "You should get inside. You'll freeze to death out here."

"I can't go back to sleep."

"Nightmare?"

I nod, unsure if he can even seen the motion. But Jack doesn't press. Instead, he shrugs out of his thick jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. "We'll find better clothes for you tomorrow. And some winter gear."

It all sounds too permanent, but I don't argue. And when Jack begins to walk deeper into the trees, I follow.

"Did I wake you up?"

"I heard you leave."

"From upstairs?"

He looks up at the stars and sighs. "I slept on the couch."

"Are you a guard dog now?"

"This isn't a prison, Layla."

And there's something in his voice, a quiet, tired hurt, that makes me fall silent. We walk beneath the starlight for awhile until we come to the source of the trickling noise, a creek pushing over a pebbled bed and rising along iced walls on either side. Jack brushes snow away from a boulder near the creek and takes my elbow. There's something different about him tonight, like he's a little lost in his own mind too, that makes me comply and settle onto the rock even while he stays standing. And truthfully, I'm beginning to feel weak already. I'm not used to being laid low by illness or injury, and the knowledge that I'll be broken for a long while is sobering. "You were worried about him showing up, weren't you."

He looks at me, finally, choosing his words during the silence between us as he always does. "You were right; there wasn't a wolf on the whole territory by the time the council showed up. There were a couple small fires in the school, like they burned evidence in a hurry."

"You think he'll come here?" I don't know why I'm asking him. There are no answers he can give me that I'll believe, or that will comfort me.

"I don't know."

"Has there been any sign of him?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," I whisper. "I don't want to be left in the dark."

He nods slowly before looking back at the way we'd come. "Do you want to go for a drive?"

"To where?"

"Wherever you want to go. Seems like you're determined to run away if I don't get you out of here anyway."

"I wasn't—"

"Whatever, Layla. So?"

"Okay."

I don't know if I can trust him, or if I even have a choice in the matter. Maybe he had his chat with Paul, and maybe he's getting ready to deliver me to him now. But I still follow him, matching his footsteps in the snow. No, I don't trust him. But I am weak enough that it won't matter what I want; I've been at Jack's mercy enough times over the past two days that I just have to hope he's telling me the truth.

It's the same kind of faux trust I put in Isaac once. Because I felt I didn't have another choice. Hell, maybe I'm bound to repeat the same horrible history again and again. Maybe that's my fate.