Page 15 of Haunted Prey

I turned and looked out the window. Past the trees, down the winding road were the flash of lights. Several cars were parked and security at the gate was turning people away. People with cameras. How had I not noticed them before?

Too occupied with the clouds, I guess.

I drew my knees up on the bed. “Yeah, guess I don’t want that kind of attention on me.”

“Screw all of them,” Lena said. “I’ll get my sister to dress you up, give you a disguise. You shouldn’t feel like a prisoner. Not again, not after what happened.”

A prisoner. I had been one. Even if I didn’t like thinking about it.

“We’ll figure something out. I just want you to be safe, that’s all, Eve,” Jamie told me.

“I appreciate it, I do.”

He blew out a breath. “I’m just glad this whole thing is over.”

A dull ache settled in my chest, but I tried not to show any pain.

“I brought some books from my library. I know you’ve wanted to borrow a few,” he continued when I didn’t respond. “They’re in the bag.”

“Great, thanks.”

“We have to get going. I’ve got work in an hour,” he said. “We’ll stay longer next time, promise.”

I tried to smile. “You know where to find me.”

He rose and took hold of the back of Lena’s wheelchair, starting to wheel her back toward the door.

“We’ll text you,” she said. “And call. We’ll make a date to go out real soon. We're so glad you're back, Eve.”

I waved them goodbye. As they left, I watched them disappear and silently told myself,The Eve you knew is gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

Five days.

Not even a week had passed, yet it felt like weeks longer. The days blurred together, somehow managing to be the slowest of my life. Maybe it was the lack of sleep—the hours spent staring out the window at night or wandering the halls. I barely got four hours of sleep a night before the nightmares woke me. And they were almost always the same: staring down into a deep, dark current and seeing Emery’s corpse staring back.

The dream would fade, leaving me with the suffocating sensation of being held down, a crushing weight on my chest, and then a sharp pain in my stomach. I’d wake sometime later, and the dripping shadow—some odd hallucination lingering in the corner of my room—would eventually unnerve me enough to force me out into the halls. I’d walk aimlessly until I could calm down again.

Sometimes, I would return to my room; other times, in the garden, sitting by the fountain, watching the morning light from the glass canopy.

The mornings were the worst. If the nights kept me up with my thoughts, the mornings had a choke hold on my emotions. I suspected it was when the pills wore off—Lulladex, the nursescalled it. I’d never heard of it but they assured me it was state approved, whatever that meant.

“It’s a unique type of medicine,” Jackie had said. “Only the doctors here can prescribe it.”

She’d mentioned that before.

I could feel myself becoming more reliant on it already. Every morning, I’d wake up shaky, the panic beginning to swell. Like a starving person, I anxiously waited for breakfast, knowing the little pill would be there. I could barely take a bite of food before popping the med into my mouth and chugging water to wash it down.

Afterward, I’d take a shower and come out feeling fucking spectacular—like I could actually come out of all this stronger, like I could conquer my fears. But as the hours passed, the daze would start to fade, and the tension would creep in, slow and insidious, like dripping poison. My thoughts would spiral late into the night until I finally collapsed into sleep, only to wake sometime later in a cold sweat.

And the cycle would continue.

“It takes time to get into a healthy routine,” Leo had said when I told him how everyday went at one of our sessions. “Eventually the meds will balance out and you’ll be able to focus on getting back to a more productive pattern. But if you want to speed the process, I can still prescribe you a sleeping agent.”

I almost took the offer. But something in me felt uncertain about taking more drugs to mask my symptoms.

I tried to take my mind off things and utilize Severfalls to the best of my ability. I’d take a walk after breakfast, then read a little from the books Jamie gave me, and sometimes those offered in the library. I tried to stay out of my room whenever I caught myself just staring at the wall, out the window, anywhere. I started going to the sunroom, where every wall was lined with windows and there were comfy chairs placed in all cornersalong with various plants. It was there I met the other women including Rebecca, the blonde-haired, brown-eyed girl who had smiled at me on that first day.

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