In Your Dreams (In Your Dreams #1)

Chapter 25

Kieran frowns, obviously disappointed. "Well, speaking of what we weren't doing at the river, all I told our parents was that we went to the boat launch to be alone. The rest...well, they kind of went there on their own. I hope you know I'd never disrespect you like that, especially to our parents. Like I'd ever talk about that with them anyway..."

I thank him by raising his hand to my lips. "Awesome of our parents to assume the worst about their own kids," I say, after dropping kisses along his knuckles. "I guess two teenagers going to the river to talk on Prom night is just too unbelievable for them."

"Yeah." Kieran grins. "Gutter minds. They should be ashamed of themselves."

"Although if Frank hadn't shown up at the farm, who knows what could have happened..." I match his grin with a flirty one of my own, and Kieran swallows up my wondering with a kiss that leaves my head swimming even more than it already is thanks to my concussion. After he pulls away, he reaches his hand up to my forehead to graze the skin near my bump. "How are you doing?"

"Better, after that kiss. Seriously, though, I've got a little headache and I'm sore everywhere. I probably won't be at school for a few days." I think I remember Mom saying something about my being checked for internal injuries from the seat belt, which brings up the memory of the beeping heart monitor I was hooked to last night. "Are you okay?" I ask, reaching out to touch his chest. He doesn't wince, but instead covers his hand with mine, his heart pounding against my palm.

"A little bruised up, but I'm fine," he says, shifting his eyes away from mine to the floor. "But, there's still some stuff about what happened last night I need to tell you, if you're up to it."

He's given me this opening, and I decide now's as good a time as any to reveal the dreams I don't think are coincidence anymore, especially after last night. "I have something to tell you, too," I whisper.

"Ladies first."

Breathing in, I start with "Okay. Um...I'm not even sure how to explain this, but I'm pretty sure I knew something bad was going to happen last night."

"What do you mean, you knew?"

"I...I dreamed all of it." Kieran stares at me and doesn't say anything, so I continue. "Right around our birthday, I started having these dreams about the two of us dancing at Prom and then all the lights went out. I mean, what I was seeing happened at school and not the Stanley Farm, but...and I kept having these dreams with sunbursts-"

"You know, I draw sunbursts a lot," he points out, apparently subscribing to Kayla's "coincidence" theory, which I quickly shoot down: "But when I dream them, they're in color, just like Frank's tattoo."

Kieran squeezes his eyelids shut. "I dream them like that, too-in color." He opens his eyes and leans in to cradle my face in his hands, confusion in his eyes. "This doesn't make any sense, though. How..." he begins, before he's struck with the answer. "Oh, God. Frank? You think...but how did he...?"

"Remind me to stop drinking so much diet soda. Apparently, it's not good for me."

Pressing his lips to my forehead, a safe distance from the bump, he whispers against my skin, "I can't believe...oh, God...I'm so, so sorry. If I'd had any idea hanging out with me would put you in danger of ending up...like me...I mean, Kayla has all these bat crap crazy theories about stuff, but I never ..."

"She told me-the poisoning and cults and stuff. So I brought up what I thought might be happening with me, but by the end of the conversation, she had me convinced I was just overreacting. Now, I'm not so sure."

Kieran lets out a ragged breath, and I take his hands in mine as best I can with a giant bandage around the fingers of my right hand. "Kieran, I'm fine," I say impulsively, more concerned with making him feel better than with whether what I'm saying is true or not.