Page 16 of In Her Dreams
Jenna nodded.“Can I see Jill?”
“Of course.She’s in room 35.”
The private room was dimly lit.The steady beep of the heart monitor provided a rhythmic counterpoint to the woman’s shallow breathing.
Jenna approached the bed slowly.With her face relaxed in unconsciousness, the woman looked younger than she had in the mine.Her skin, now clean of the grime that had covered it when they found her, was pale and drawn tight over pronounced cheekbones.Her hair, revealed as a dull blonde now that the dirt had been washed away, lay limp against the white hospital pillowcase.
“Hello, Jill,” Jenna said softly, settling into the chair beside the bed.“I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves.You recognized me earlier today.I need to know why.”
There was no response, only the continued beep of the monitors and the soft hiss of the oxygen being delivered through the nasal cannula.
Jenna leaned forward, studying the woman’s face for any signs of recognition, any clue that might explain her earlier words.
“Where did you know me from?”Jenna whispered.“Was it me you recognized, or was it my sister?Did you know Piper?Piper Graves?”
The questions went unanswered.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Jenna promised the unconscious woman.“And the day after that, if necessary.If you know anything about my sister, I need to hear it.”
The drive home passed in a blur of streetlights and familiar landmarks.When Jenna finally pulled into her driveway, the house was unlit and quiet, just as she’d left it early that morning—though it felt like a lifetime ago.
Inside, she moved through her evening routine mechanically—checking that doors were locked, blinds drawn, her service weapon secured.She heated leftover soup in the microwave, too exhausted to prepare anything more substantial, and ate standing at the kitchen counter, her mind still cycling through the day’s events.
The Harvesters’ underground prison.Richard Winters’ inexplicable death.Agent Cody’s suspicious questions.The mysterious Jill’s recognition and subsequent collapse.All parts of different puzzles without clues to answers.As she finally climbed into bed, Jenna found herself hoping that tonight, her dreams might provide some answers.
But even as she yearned for clarity, a part of her dreaded what those dreams might reveal.
CHAPTER SIX
The colors of midnight and blood and bone twisted into impossible patterns around Jenna, while feathers—some delicate as whispers, others sharp as harsh accusations—floated on currents of air she couldn’t feel.She pushed forward, her dream body moving with that familiar underwater-like slowness, while her instincts screamed that something was terribly wrong in this place where the laws of reality bent like the willow branches woven through the canopy above her head.
Jenna recognized the lucid dream state immediately.After twenty years of these visitations, the heightened awareness was unmistakable—the colors so vibrant, sensations so precise, the world so responsive to her thoughts.She was both a participant and observer in this strange terrain.
“Hello?”she called, her voice swallowed by the dense thicket of vines and feathered fronds.“Is anyone here?”
The landscape shifted in response, threads unraveling and reweaving themselves into new configurations.But then the colors faded until she was surrounded by dull browns.What had been a narrow path moments before became a barrier of knotted strings, forcing her to change direction.The scene was familiar somehow, reminding her of something …
The dreamcatcher.Richard Winters’ bedroom.The ugly web with its chaotic design and dull feathers.
A woman’s cry cut through her realization, distant but desperate.The sound twisted through the jungle of threads, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere.
“Help me!Please, someone, help!”
The voice was accompanied by a flutter of wings—first just a few, then dozens, then hundreds.The sound built from gentle rustling to deafening chaos, a storm of feathers and fear.
Jenna pushed harder against the barrier of threads, which parted reluctantly, making a small opening she could just step through before snapping back behind her like a closing jaw.
“Where are you?”Jenna shouted, fighting against the thickening tangle.Threads wrapped around her wrists and ankles, slowing her progress.“Keep calling!I’ll find you!”
The woman’s voice was closer now, edged with panic.“Oh God, they’re coming back!”
The flapping grew louder.Shadows darted between the fabric trees—wings and beaks and talons in flashes of movement too quick to track properly.Jenna tore through a curtain of black feathers, their edges unnaturally sharp against her skin.
Then she stumbled into a clearing and saw her.
A woman stood in the center.She was in her twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair, and her face was a mask of terror.
“Please,” the woman gasped, seeing Jenna.“Help me.They attacked before …”
