Page 47 of Macon

I tighten my arms around his neck, giving him a sense of comfort.

He starts talking.

“The visions and my dream…” pausing, he breaks eye contact, “it’s all too much.” Mac grips my body like he’s making sure I’m real.

I lift his face to look at me before asking, “You mean your sister? Those dreams.”

Mac’s eyes widened like he’d seen a ghost, releasing me like he couldn’t believe it.

I take that opportunity to move off of him, sitting beside him on the bed. I explain, “Shy was in the room last night. We thought you were having a nightmare. He said it was about your dead sister.”

Mac’s face softens. “Both our sisters have been haunting me. I see Ray and Faith.”

Hearing his words surprises me, and I sit up straight, dropping my hands.

“What? My sister?” I ask, making sure I heard him right.

Mac gets up from the bed, running his hand through his wild head of hair, then down his face, rubbing his beard.

I wait for him to get his thoughts together as he paces around the room. As he takes his cut off, I scan the huge room, taking it all in.

“You girls have got me all fucked up. Faith, Raydene, you, and…” He pauses, stopping, he turns to look at me. “Your fucking red hair.”

I reach for my hair, pulling on a strand from behind my ear to cover my scar. It’s a habit. Sometimes, I don’t even know I’m doing it.

Mac’s face tightens. “Don’t.”

I let go of my hair. He’s told me more than once to stop covering my face.

He sits down at a small table. Bending, he places his elbows on his knees and clenches his head in his hands.

I want to go to him, but I don’t. He’s dealing with something, and I want him to talk to me.

As he’s looking at his feet, he begins talking. “After my sister Faith died in a car crash with my auntie, I’ve had visions and dreams. At first, I always tried to save her, but I couldn’t. Then she would say, ‘Find us’ or ‘Her’ or some shit about me saving ‘Her.’ I always thought the ‘Her’ was my sister. It was confusing.” He shakes his head. “Through the years, they would come and go. I’d have visions of a redhead walking toward me. Hence, the reason for my fixation with redheads. Always have, so I thought it was just my conscience fucking with me.”

He pauses, unlacing his boots.

I still stay silent.

He chuckles. “Your sister tried to wake me from a dream once.”

“Wait. What?” I blurt out without thinking. My mind instantly thinks, so she has slept with him. My heart drops.

Mac looks up, realizing what he said, and moves to the bed, but I scoot away from him until I’m against the headboard. He stops and sits on the edge of the bed.

“It wasn’t like that. Your sister and I never had sex. We were partying pretty hard, and we crashed in a room downstairs. I had a nightmare, and she couldn’t wake me up. She slapped me so hard it hurt for a day.”

I feel my body relax and fold my knees to my chest.

Mac continues, “Look, I’m not going to say that I wasn’t attracted to her or that we didn’t mess around, but it was all innocent shit. She had a boyfriend. Remember, she picked him.”

We both sit there in silence for a minute, staring at each other, until he blurts out, “My sister told me to find the girl with two faces. She told me to help her—to find her. Like it was one person.”

I inhale a big breath.

“About two years ago, my sister’s messages started coming more frequently and more cryptic. I ignored them. Instead, I got more high or drunk to escape them.” He pauses, getting back up again to pace the room.

His body fills the massive room with his broad shoulders, enormous chest, and lumberjack legs. I gulp, trying to control my hormones as he continues talking.

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