Empath (The Secret Hotel #1)

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

I was in the dark. It was the kind of darkness that my eyes couldn't adjust to. What few shapes I could make out were comprised of static. Gray and fuzzy and indistinguishable. The stink in my nose was wet, musty, like decay, and it clung to everything. I hated that smell. It made me nauseous, until I could taste mildew, and the vomit that was almost on my tongue.

I felt so cramped, so claustrophobic that I couldn't breathe. I'd been screaming names, but they were all garbled and they never, ever came out right, which meant no one came for me. There was broken glass at my feet. My fingers were numb from the iciness in the air. I swore there was someone in here with me.

And they wanted me to do things that made me heave for air.

The heaves turned into sobs.

I didn't want to move. I didn't even want to look anymore.

Look for the light.

I remembered it so strongly, I swore I felt breath on my ear, as if those words had been whispered to me. I lifted my head and opened my eyes, and above me there were pinpoints of light. Tiny, flickering, and distant, but they were there.

Stars.

My breath caught. Trembling, I stood up straighter, and watched as more appeared. First they were above me, and then I noticed them all around me.

I twisted around, searching. And then I found him, the lone figure against the stars.

It was Sky.

The stardust of the Milky Way illuminated behind him, brightening him, brightening the entire sky above and around us. We were standing in the middle of space, and stars floated between us like fireflies, flickering on and off.

But there was something strange. Sometimes my vision blurred, unfocused. The stars would skitter and fade in and out. Even patches of Sky turned faint, unraveling, before I blinked him and everything back together.

His palm lifted under a few of the firefly stars, which floated up above our heads. "Your dream was different this time."

I approached him cautiously. I didn't know if I was afraid of him, or just afraid of what would happen when I touched him. I drifted closer at first, but when he didn't disappear, when he didn't turn into someone else, when it was just Sky, I dashed to him. "Are you...okay?"

His brow furrowed. When he focused on me, he seemed to have trouble, and I wondered if the stars around us were a projection of his vision. "I'm not sure. Still tired, I guess. Feels like I haven't fully pulled myself together yet like I do when I wake up."

My nerves tangled. I reached out, and I took his hand. The heat, the calluses, all of it felt so real. "Maybe you should get more rest."

"I will." His hand lifted mine to his mouth, and I felt the soft skin of his lips warm my knuckles. My heart swelled until I swore it was in my throat, and then I was choking. Relief, and fear, and a desperation that was almost unbearable, all of it choked me up until I couldn't take it.

Before I even know what I was doing, I fell forward and threw my arms around him in an embrace. His warmth covered me as his own arms collected around my shoulders. The pressure of his grip, the feel of his skin, all the signs that he was real, were everything that I couldn't have when I was awake.