EverHeart

Chapter 12: Bad Dreams

MARCO

I woke with someone's hand around my throat.

For half a second, I couldn't breathe.

White light burned above me.

Something held my wrists.

Metal pressed cold against my spine.

Voices moved beyond the light.

“Again.”

Pain tore through my chest.

I tried to move.

Couldn't.

“His temperature's climbing.”

“Hold him.”

Hands.

Too many hands.

Something sharp entered my arm.

Then fire.

Not around me.

Inside.

It ripped through my ribs, my throat, behind my eyes. My body arched against restraints I couldn't see.

Someone shouted.

The light turned blue.

Gold.

Burned metal filled my mouth.

And beneath everything—

Water.

Black and endless.

I fell.

---

I hit the floor hard enough to wake twice.

Darkness.

For several seconds, that meant nothing.

I couldn't find the white light.

Couldn't find the restraints.

Couldn't—

A door opened.

“Marco?”

Lucy.

The room returned.

Guest room.

Cottage.

Moira.

I sat on the floor beside the bed, half the sheet tangled around my legs.

Lucy stood in the doorway.

Her hair was loose.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Not useful. Still noticed it.

“Don't turn on the light.”

Her hand stopped near the switch.

“Okay.”

I pushed myself upright. My back hit the bed.

My heart was trying to break something.

Lucy didn't come closer.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

My voice sounded wrong.

I cleared my throat.

“No.”

“Can you breathe?”

“Yes.”

Barely.

She waited.

Moonlight slipped through the shutters, enough to make out her sleep shirt and the dark fall of her hair.

I pressed my hands against my eyes.

“Dream.”

“I assumed.”

“Good deduction.”

Nothing.

Bad joke.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Waking you.”

“You fell out of bed.”

“Gracefully.”

“No.”

That almost helped.

I breathed again.

The air still tasted burned.

“Do you want water?”

“Yes.”

Lucy disappeared.

Immediately, the room became too large.

I stared at the doorway.

Ridiculous.

She'd gone ten steps.

Maybe twelve.

I counted anyway.

Cupboard.

Glass.

Tap.

Footsteps.

Lucy returned.

I stopped counting.

She held out the water but stayed beyond my reach.

It took me a second to understand.

“It's okay.”

Only then did she approach.

Our fingers brushed when I took the glass.

Cool.

Real.

Here.

I drank too quickly.

Lucy sat in the chair near the window instead of on the bed.

Still giving me space.

I hated how much I noticed that.

“Same memory?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

I looked at her.

Not What did you see?

Do you want to.

Lucy did that. Made everything a choice.

“White room.”

She waited.

“Restraints. A needle.”

Her posture didn't change.

I'd gotten better at her.

Enough to see her fingers tighten once around the chair.

“Someone said my temperature was climbing.”

“How high?”

“They didn't say.”

“Anything else?”

I hesitated.

“Fire.”

Her eyes stayed on me.

“What kind?”

“I don't know.”

“Was something burning?”

“No.”

I rubbed my chest.

“I was.”

Her gaze dropped to my hand.

“Inside?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

Then—

“Like the flame at the cottage?”

I looked at her.

“What flame?”

Silence.

Interesting.

“Lucy.”

She closed her eyes briefly.

“Your first night here. While you were asleep.”

I stared.

“You didn't tell me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I wasn't sure what I'd seen.”

“You saw me on fire.”

“A very small part of you.”

“That sentence doesn't improve it.”

“It wasn't hurting you.”

“How do you know?”

“You were asleep.”

“That is not how fire works.”

“Your fire apparently disagreed.”

My fire.

The words sat between us.

I looked at my hands.

Ordinary skin.

“What color?”

A pause.

“Blue.”

Something shifted behind my eyes.

Blue light.

Gold at the edges.

I looked up.

“And?”

Lucy's gaze sharpened.

“And what?”

“There was gold.”

She went still.

Not good.

“You remember that?”

“I think so.”

“From tonight?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That's not your normal nothing.”

“I have a normal nothing?”

“Several.”

Apparently I had categories too.

Lucy looked away.

I almost pushed.

Almost.

Then remembered the burned metal from Cala Verde.

All the questions she hadn't answered.

The ones I'd chosen not to ask.

Not because I didn't want answers.

Because I did.

Too much.

But Lucy had given me room to decide what I could handle from the moment I woke.

I could give her some too.

“Okay.”

Her eyes returned to mine.

After a while, she asked, “Anything else?”

“Someone said ‘again.’”

Her face changed.

Barely.

This time, I wished I hadn't learned how to see it.

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

I stared into the water.

“They were doing something to me.”

The words came out flat.

The room seemed quieter afterward.

“I think they did it more than once.”

Lucy didn't tell me I couldn't know that.

Didn't tell me it was only a dream.

She leaned forward.

“I think so too.”

I looked at her.

The answer hurt less than comfort would have.

“That's a terrible thing to agree with.”

“Yes.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

I laughed once.

It didn't last.

---

I didn't want to sleep again.

I didn't say it.

Lucy knew anyway.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“Kitchen.”

“It's three in the morning.”

“Approximately.”

“You know the time?”

“I looked.”

“Of course you did.”

I followed.

The kitchen felt smaller at night.

Safer.

Lucy switched on the light above the stove instead of the overhead fixture, leaving the rest of the room in soft shadow.

I sat.

She opened a cupboard.

“What are you doing?”

“Making tea.”

“You don't drink tea.”

“I own tea.”

“That has never made sense.”

“It doesn't need to.”

She filled the kettle.

Bare feet.

Loose hair.

Sleep shirt.

Nothing about her looked like the woman who'd examined burned metal at Cala Verde as if it belonged to a language she almost understood.

This Lucy looked ordinary.

That word again.

I liked it too much.

“What do you do when you can't sleep?”

She stopped briefly.

“Read.”

“That's it?”

“Usually.”

“Bad dreams?”

Her back stayed toward me.

“Sometimes.”

I waited.

She reached for two mugs.

“What are yours about?”

“No.”

Calm.

Immediate.

I nodded.

“Okay.”

Her shoulders lowered.

Just a little.

She made tea.

Mine tasted like ginger.

Hers remained untouched.

“You made yourself one.”

“Yes.”

“You're not drinking it.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“So you wouldn't be drinking alone.”

I looked at her.

Lucy seemed to realize she'd answered too honestly.

She picked up the mug and took a sip.

Her face tightened.

I smiled.

“You hate it.”

“I don't hate it.”

“You absolutely hate it.”

“It's fine.”

“You looked betrayed.”

“The ginger is aggressive.”

“It's ginger.”

“It knows what it did.”

I laughed.

Actually laughed.

Something left over from the nightmare loosened inside me.

Lucy looked suspiciously pleased.

“Was that deliberate?”

“What?”

“The tea.”

“No.”

“You made terrible tea to distract me.”

“I made perfectly adequate tea.”

“You don't even like it.”

“That is irrelevant.”

She picked up a book.

“Drink.”

I did.

She sat opposite me and opened it.

Apparently conversation was over.

After a minute, she looked up.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Go back to bed.”

“No.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“I mean…” I rubbed my face. “I don't think I can sleep yet.”

Lucy closed the book.

“You can stay here.”

Something tightened beneath my ribs.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“I'm keeping you awake.”

“I can read here.”

“You could read in bed.”

“I could.”

She reopened the book.

That was the end of it.

No speech.

No promise.

She stayed.

---

At some point, I put my head on my arms.

I wasn't going to sleep.

That was important.

I remembered deciding it.

The table was cool beneath me.

Across from me, Lucy turned pages.

Every few minutes, the cottage made a sound.

Wood settling.

Leaves against the shutters.

The refrigerator humming.

Nothing white.

Nothing metal.

Nothing holding me down.

Another page turned.

Then another.

I woke to sunlight.

My neck hurt.

My arm was numb.

Someone had put a folded towel beneath my head.

Lucy was asleep on the sofa.

Her book rested open against her chest, her hair fallen across one cheek.

Seven seventeen.

I sat very still.

She'd stayed.

For four hours.

Because I'd said I couldn't sleep.

Something warm pressed beneath my ribs.

Not fire.

Something else.

I didn't have a name for it.

That was becoming common.

Quietly, I took the blanket from the chair and laid it over her.

Lucy shifted.

I froze.

“Marco.”

I nearly dropped it.

“You're awake?”

“No.”

I stared.

“That's not how this works.”

“Coffee.”

“You're asleep.”

“Still need coffee.”

I laughed under my breath.

“Go back to sleep.”

A pause.

“Bossy.”

“You started it.”

No answer.

Already asleep again.

I went into the kitchen.

Coffee was easy now.

Water.

Grounds.

Her cup.

Black.

No sugar.

Not too hot.

Ordinary things.

I could do ordinary things.

Outside, Puerto Espera was waking. A motorbike passed. Someone called to a neighbor. The sea was somewhere beyond the houses where I couldn't see it.

For the first time since waking on Moira, I'd remembered something terrible without feeling as though it had taken something from me.

The memory remained.

White room.

Restraints.

Fire.

Again.

But so did this.

A sleeping woman on the sofa.

A blanket.

Two mugs.

Coffee beginning to fill the kitchen with its smell.

I didn't know which parts of my life would come back.

I didn't know who had hurt me.

I didn't know what I was.

But when Lucy woke, she would want coffee.

That, at least, I knew.

For now, it was enough.