Page 127 of Shadow Blind

This was the first time he’d even admitted to having nightmares.

“You’ve never wanted to talk about your nightmares. What about these dreams? Do you want to talk about them?”

He cocked his head, his gaze sharpening on her face. “It’s not that I didn’t want to tell you about the nightmares…it’s…” He broke off and scooted up until his back was against the headboard. “I didn’t want to infect you with the ugliness inside my head.”

She sat up and scooted back, too, mirroring his position. “Ugliness?”

“Yeah, ugliness. Ugly images. Ugly memories.” He shifted to face her. “I replay all the fucked-up missions in my nightmares. Chopper crashes. Ambushes. Insertions gone wrong. Executions.” He lifted his hands and stared at them. “Blood.” He shook his head. “So much damn blood.”

His face looked hollow, even haunted. She knew soldiers often returned from deployments with PTSD. But other than the nightmares, Aiden had exhibited none of the common symptoms. No flashbacks. No hallucinations. No reactions to loud noises. No trouble sleeping. No difficulty distinguishing dreams from reality.

Still, he’d obviously been affected by his time in the field.

“I never told you about my nightmares for the same reason I never told you about my deployments.” He grimaced, then pressed her hand against his cheek. “You’re everything pure, Demi. Pure light and joy and innocence. You sparkle like sunlight against the snow. I hate the thought of my experiences, my darkness, extinguishing your shine.” His face hardened in resolve. “I’ll never share my nightmares or missions with you. I need to keep you separate, unaware of the ugliness I’ve seen, the ugly things I’ve done.”

Demi thought about that. If he needed her light to balance his darkness, she could do that for him.

“Okay.” She smiled slightly as his face relaxed. She scooted over and leaned against his side until they were pressed together—shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. “But what of this new dream? You said it was different from the nightmares?”

“Yeah.” His voice was slow, absent. He stared straight ahead, his gaze narrow and thoughtful. “It wasn’t about a mission, or any of the brothers I’ve lost. It was…” he shook his head. “…odd.”

“How so?” She kept the question soft, non-intrusive. She could almost feel the puzzlement radiating off him.

“It’s just…strange. Full of mist and shadows and weird, stretchy people that don’t talk but give plenty of attitude.”

Demi’s eyebrows rose. “Stretchy people?”

Aiden grimaced. “Yeah, stretchy. Elongated. Completely white, like plaster. Vaguely human limbs and torsos. But their faces—” he broke off, his frown digging deeper into his forehead. “They remind me of that Ghostface mask in the Scream movies, the one with the stretched-out mouth and eyes. All warped and creepy.”

His description was interesting. “Have you watched any of the Scream movies recently?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Fuck, no, not since I was a kid.”

She laid her cheek on his bare shoulder and snuggled into his hot torso, her personal furnace to repel the cold. “Well, dreams can be weird. You probably saw or heard something that didn’t register consciously, but your subconscious latched onto it and stuffed it into your dreams.”

“That’s the thing.” His voice was quiet, reflective. “It didn’t feel like a dream.” He shook his head. “It felt like I knew that shadowy place, and those weird stretchy people. It felt real, I guess.”

He glanced over at her and frowned, then bent to grab the sheet and blanket. Drawing them up, he tucked them around her shoulders.

“Is this the first time you’ve had this dream?” The chill was already giving way to warmth and lethargy.

“No.” His gaze narrowed. “I’ve had them as long as I can remember. But intermittently. Maybe once or twice a year. They started hitting more often six months ago. Since Karaveht, they’ve escalated to every night.” After a brief hesitation, he continued. “I spent the entire time I was unconscious in the ER in that shadowy, twisted world.”

Something about his description niggled at her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Do any of the people seem familiar to you? Do they talk to you?”

“They don’t say a damn word. And I only get fleeting glimpses of them. They’re wrapped in shadows and fog.” His voice held a baffled note. “But in the dream, I know they want something from me. They’re waiting for something, and their impatience is…palpable.”

That’s when it clicked. Demi straightened. Perhaps his subconscious had picked up on the Kalikoia motifs of shadows, realms, and gods. Weird, twisty people in a misty underworld could be his subconscious’s representation of the Kalikoia shadow gods. That would explain these dreams he was having—or at least the escalation of them.

Although it didn’t explain why he’d had them before arriving at Shadow Mountain.

“Have you talked to Wolf about these dreams?”

He snorted. “Hell, no. They have nothing to do with him.”

She suspected his resistance to the idea had more to do with perceived weaknesses. Wolf, after all, had final say on who joined, or didn’t join their missions. Aiden wanted to be first on the chopper when the Shadow Mountain forces went after the people responsible for killing his teammates. Maybe he was afraid that Wolf would see the dreams as a weakness and bump him from the team.

“You should talk to Benioko. Isn’t he supposed to be an expert on dreams?” Wasn’t deciphering dreams part of shamanism?

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