Toy Soldiers (Helford #1)

(4) Dreaming

Gunshots. Six consecutive gunshots.

And crying.

A girl, off to the side, five paces away to the left. Screaming. Yelling so loud that her lungs had to be about to burst and her throat sore as the sound ripped through her. Such a big sound from a small body.

And then there is me, in the middle of it all. Watching it, frozen to the spot like a tree is anchored to the ground. My eyes were wide and my mind was spinning, and I didn’t realize it at first but my mouth was open in a silent scream.

Blood.

Blood was everywhere.

Two bodies lay in the blood, wounds gushing. One of their hands twitched, and the little girl screamed louder, like even her screams would be enough to wake the dead. I looked over at her but she wasn’t looking at me, her eyes locked, horrified, on the bodies several feet away. The blood was making its way across the tile flooring and was touching at the little girl’s toes, but I don’t even think she noticed her skin being stained red.

I staggered forward a step but the world tilted around me. Like I was standing on the desk of a ship in choppy water. I sunk to the side, my left foot hitting the ground awkwardly and slipping in the blood. I sprawled into it, shaking hard.

Blood.

There was blood all over my hands.

I looked down at myself, and my gown that I once thought was so beautiful and so grown up was stained with blood. My hands were shaking and they were painted with the sin of the murder that had occurred here. My throat felt closed off to air and sound, but there was a whimpering underneath of the screaming, and I was left to wonder if it was me. I touched my face, stained it with red, and it came away with blood and tears.

I looked down, and I looked into the forever-staring eyes of my mother.

~*~

I shocked myself awake, gasping.

I woke up from a nightmare most of my nights, and the resulting scene was something that came to me naturally by now. I forced my eyes to stay open even when they wanted to blink and I took a series of deep breaths, counting my heartbeats. I waited like that until my heart had slowed to a reasonable rhythm before I allowed myself to blink, slowly and cautiously at first. If there wasn’t red behind my eyelids, then I would slowly come back to life, like an automaton being powered on for the first time in months. I would move my arms and then my legs, and then I would shift my body and remind myself that I was alive. I would remind myself that it was all in the past.

I would tell myself that nothing like that would ever happen to me again. That I would never again watch someone that I cared for with all of my heart fall to a relentless finger, pulling the trigger.

I opened my eyes and blinked twice, and it was that moment that I realized that Rian Blackwell was leaning closer in his seat, staring at me.