SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 41

Chapter Forty One

It began with the song... there was darkness, but within it was a strange melody.

Beautiful, haunting... but above all, frightening.

No... terrifying.

It was as though the melody was calling me, reaching out to me with glowing arms... feeling a strange yearning, I approached the purple light with outstretched hands, wishing for nothing but to become part of the sad, haunting melody ringing out like the toll of a funeral bell. Slowly, I wrapped my arms around the lavender light and —

—a violent shock jolted through my head.

My eyes flew open wide.

Light stung my eyes—real light, and real eyes, too—and I blinked up at the shadows flying across my face before squeezing them shut again to protect them from the harshness of the glare.

Damn it, I thought without really knowing why, and then I remembered why I should feel that way—why did Sebastian always pick the weirdest moments to get affectionate?—and added: Damn Cassidy, too. Damn them both! Damn Cassidy for abandoning me to die alone and damn Sebastian for being such a confusing mother-fu—

Something cold, wet, and a little bit scratchy brushed along the side of my face, swiping gently from my injured temple down to just under my right eye, and then my jaw, cutting off my train of thought. The sensation completely brought me back to the land of the living.

The wet thing floated away when my eyes fluttered open again.

When my vision adjusted, I found myself looking at a very blurry ceiling fan circling overhead and my eyebrows knit together since I remembered quite clearly that the room Sebastian had given me didn't have a ceiling fan. I turned my head slightly to see several blurry, swimming figures looming over me and I squinted, making out a familiar tangled blonde beard, and then a shock of fiery red hair, and then a blonde with dark tan skin.

I heard nothing but a thin ringing in my ears, but they weren't moving much so maybe they weren't saying much, either, I had no idea. I blinked, trying to clear away the fog coating my eyes, and blinked again, and again, until everything finally came into focus. I was in the kitchen, lying flat on the long dining table.

"Aerin?" a familiar voice tentatively called. "Can you hear me? Are you conscious?"

Tiffany, I realized, staring at her face in confusion; she seemed worried so I managed a nod, but the movement caused pain to spike through my skull and I flinched, hands shaking.

"Thank God he's finally conscious," Kyle sighed, sounding thoroughly relieved. "I was worried there for a second."

His voice made my thoughts flee and become replaced by confusion; my temples felt fuzzy, like my brain was made of cotton.

"Wuzzappenin'?" I mumbled, putting a hand over my eyes. A snort I recognized as Leo's sounded out like cannon fire, breaking my attention.

"Simple, we're getting down to business," he informed me. "Letting you fall asleep with that head injury wasn't smart of Bash. You wouldn't wake up when we finally got back and it's been a full two days since Woody brought you here."

I tried to process that, gummy though my brain felt, and I noticed that there was in fact a familiar dry itch burning the back of my throat. I started to sit up until I realized everything hurt... my shoulder, my wrist, my chest, my head, all of it. I groaned and gave up, letting my body sink back down on the wooden table. Tiffany leaned down and patted my cheek with a wet rag.