Page 62 of Haunted Prey

“Yes,” I said, my voice cracking.

She dropped her hand. “They’ve tested on her.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “By now though, I’d suspect they would have improved the drug to have less of those side effects. But with Eve, after everything she’d been through, she was already susceptible to seeing things that severe trauma might produce. The drug likely heightened that.”

“And now she’s having a mental break.” I took a deep breath, trying not to have one myself. I straightened, glaring at her. “Micheal said Severfalls was testing on women who were…expecting.” I tried not to shake as I said it. “Do you think that Eve might be…”

“I’ll find out for sure.”

The urge to sink down and drop to my knees was strong but I kept myself upright. “I need you to help me help her. Will you do that?”

She studied me closely. I could see she was finally starting to get what was really going on between me and Eve. “How long?”she asked, as realization finally hit her. “How long have you been in love with her?”

I exhaled slowly. “Would you believe me if I said the moment I saw her?”

For a moment, I actually thought she might cry. Another one to add to the list. “Yes,” she said. “I can believe that. Does she…”

“She said she did once, in a paper she was writing about me. I hadn’t believed her at the time, too fucked up in my own head. But that had changed. Now? I don’t know and that scares the shit out of me.” I actually trembled, feeling sick. “I can’t tell if it’s the break in reality or if she really still does. She was willing to hurt herself because a fake version of me told her to. And she can’t distinguish between us. I don’t know if that’s love or just the trauma. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.”

Andrea closed the distance between us, placing her hand on my arm. I forced myself not to flinch. “I’ll do whatever I can,” she said, “to help you and her. So you can know for sure. I mean that, Emery. If you really mean what you say, we’ll work together and make her better.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Who thefuckwent in my room?” someone shouted.

My eyes shot open, a small gasp slipping between my teeth as if I’d just woken from a nightmare. I raised my head and locked eyes with Lena in the darkened room, a room I needed a few seconds to remember why we were in.

A dim light filtered through a small shuttered window above my head, just enough to see her sitting upright on the couch. My first thought was how difficult it must have been for her to pull herself up without using her legs. Her chair sat in the corner of the room, and I remembered waking up a few hours ago to find her lying beside me. We stared at each other for a long moment as we listened to some woman shouting up and down the hall beyond the room. I could see the fear in Lena’s eyes as she glanced at the door.

I went to her, sitting close beside her. She took my hand in response, squeezing gently.

“You okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “You?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t sleep.”

We listened again as other voices argued. One I recognized was close to the door.

Emery’s.

Hearing his voice jolted me. And the memories of last night flooded in.

He was here. A part of me still couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a trick, that it wasn’t my ghost playing games, making me see him now as I remembered him, not a corpse out of the water but real and so painfully beautiful before me.

I remembered how I woke sometime in the night to my name being called, how dark everything was, how I followed Emery’s shadow over to the kitchen, then back down the hall to another room.

It will end, he had said, a hiss of breath in my ear as I stood watching him in the mirror.If you don’t become what you need to, Evee. This dream will end. Come with me, baby.

I felt a searing pain across my cheek. The next thing I knew the knife was being wrenched away and the Emery I knew was standing before me. His hands were holding my face, my blood trailing along his fingers.

I would never ask you to hurt yourself for me.Never.

That’s what he said.

My Emery.

I released Lena’s hand to trail my fingers across my cheek, sucking in a breath when I felt a bandage there.

Wasn’t a dream.

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