Page 24 of Second Chance Serenity

I hate that I want him to touch my face. Just a trace of his finger over my jaw like he used to do. So even though I don’t actually want him to leave, I say nothing as silent tears begin to fall. I’ve cried so much over Michael Anderson. The day he left. The weeks that followed. Whenever I think about him, there’s this gut-wrenching pain that follows.

Why can’t I get over him?

It’s dark.

Rain hammers down on me. The parking lot is empty, except for a single truck. It’s a deep olive-green, large, and I’m drawn toward it because I know that he’s waiting for me inside.

Lightning flashes and I jump back as a masked man lunges toward me. I scream, falling back on the pavement, but he jumps on top of me, pinning me to the ground.

I scream again but no sound comes out.

I fight, but my fists do nothing.

He laughs at me.

“Keep fighting,” he tells me. “I enjoy the struggle. I’m coming for you, Reyna Acker.”

“Reyna!”

I’m ripped from sleep, but I keep fighting as hands grip my shoulders. “No! Let me go.”

“Okay!” He releases me and steps back. As I fully come out of sleep, I stare up at Michael and Elijah. Both men look utterly terrified, their faces pale, eyes wide.

I crumble, sobbing. Michael crosses over and reaches for me, but I slap his hands away. “No! Leave me alone! You’re making everything worse!” I rush into the bathroom, doing my best to breathe through the panic. It claws at me though, suffocating me.

The door opens, and my brother rushes in.

“I can’t breathe,” I tell him. “I can’t breathe.” I cry, suffocating beneath the weight of my panic.

“Easy, little sister, you can breathe,” he tells me calmly as he sits beside me and pulls me toward him. “Five things,” he says. “Five things you can see.”

I don’t speak.

“Five things, Reyna.”

“You.”

“Good. What else?”

I scan the room, focusing on the things around me that are tangible. The things that are real. “The blue and white towels.”

“Good. Give me another.”

“The black tile outline,” I say, focusing on the one tile that ended up twisted before it dried. We go through the motions, and I give him four things I can feel and three things I can hear.

By the time we’ve finished going through the list, I’m grounded in reality once more. I know that there is no man in my room. I’m not in the parking lot of the school. And I’ve got full control over my surroundings.

Still, Carter and I sit on the floor of the bathroom while he wraps an arm around my shoulders. “God, please be with Reyna. Please strengthen and protect her. Amen.”

“Amen,” I whisper and lean against him.

When I was young, I started having night terrors. Horrifying nightmares that would have me screaming for help in the middle of the night. They started from nothing and came out of nowhere. But it’s been a long, long time since I had one.

I think the last one I had was when I was eleven, maybe?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Why?”

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