Sleep hadn’t wanted to come to me that night; no sprinkling of the sandman’s dust and no dreams to tide me over. Just thoughts that spun and danced, too quick or insubstantial to be caught by my sluggish mind.
But they were there, taunting and just out of reach.
Even so, my body was still. There was no tossing and turning, only the buzzing silence that kept me company as I squinted through the shadows to stare at the ceiling. My eyes throbbed, trailing along with the swirling patterns of the moulding.
“You’re playing with fire,” a voice whispered, deep and rasping one moment and then lilting the next. “You’re playing with fire there, Runner.”
What had O’Brien meant by that? Something about the words, the whispered voices, niggled at me but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Ye
