Page 83 of Prisoner of War
As it was possible to read minds in dream worlds, she knew that Duardo was thinking of Serrano and Zalaya.
The reminder of Serrano and Zalaya fractured the dream and she knew she was waking. She reached frantically for Duardo, for a last touch, before the real world intruded...
* * * * *
Minnie woke with a jerk. Adrenaline surged within her as ifshe had survived a close call. She lay awake and fully alert in the darkness. She was facing the window and saw the night was about to end. There were angry red streaks in the sky as there had been yesterday. These were bigger and seemed to pulse with menace.
Duardo lay behind her, one arm over her waist, the hand tucked under her breast, his chest against her shoulder.
She tried to calm herself,but the dream was vividly clear in her mind and impossible to dismiss. As the sky lightened, she grappled with the dream, trying to dredge up ancient lessons from college about dream images and symbols. She pushed all the dry, formal terms aside and listened to her gut and her heart.
Was this a prophetic dream? She didn’t believe in them but could intellectually accept that dreams were the wayher subconscious might choose to communicate with her conscious mind. What was it trying to tell her? If she was right, she already knew the answers and merely had to acknowledge them.
She had been a precocious thirteen when her father had called a family ban on watching movies with Minnie in the room. That had lasted a year, until they had hit upon a way for Minnie to have both the first andthe last say. When she had figured out the twists and turns of the plot, she could write them down, along with the elapsed time. Once the movie was over, they would all read her notes and tabulate her score.
Her score had risen higher as she had matured.
Her father had scratched his head once. “I don’t know, Minnie—it’s as though you’ve got a divining rod in that brain of yours.”
Calli, whohad been visiting on that occasion, had disagreed. “That’s not it at all, Uncle Josh. She’s just good at people.”
“At people?”
“Yes, as I’m good at economics. People are Minnie’s gift.”
If people were her gift, if she was so good at reading them, shouldn’t she be using that gift now? She was right next to Serrano. She could do something for Nick, for Calli, her father and the others in thebig house.
If she stayed, though, Serrano would use her as a bargaining chip, fending Nick away from Vistaria forever.
There was the answer, the reply Duardo had given her in the dream—she had to escape from here. She had to get away somehow and she must read Zalaya and Serrano and everyone around her to do it. She must get it right first time, too. There would be no second chances. Not withSerrano.
She had to outflank everyone.
Duardo stirred against her shoulder and the hand beneath her breast was slowly extracted. He was trying to avoid waking her. She held still, pretending she was asleep. She could feel his movements through the bed then heard the hateful rattle of the chain.
The cold cuff slid around her wrist and ratcheted shut. She suppressed her sigh.
Duardo grew still.“Then you are awake,” he murmured.
There was no point in hiding it. She couldn’t look at him though. “I was watching the sunrise,” she said, keeping her voice down. “There is much more red this morning than yesterday. Yesterday was bad, just as you said it would be.”
His hand on her shoulder made her lie back, looking up at him. The long fingers caressed her cheek. Her breath caught, for thehard lines had dropped from his expression. She could not see enough in the weak light, but it seemed he looked at her with almost open warmth.
Then he leaned down and kissed her. His lips were gentle against hers and her heart seemed to stop in its tracks. The kiss grew. His lips firmed and she became lost in the luxury of it, incapable of protesting. His tongue thrust inside her mouth and shemoaned against his lips, reverting to a creature of wants.
When he lifted himself away from her, she gave a shuddering gasp, reaching for him again and he caught her hands to his chest, holding them still. He moved his head to look over his shoulder.
The camera.
Then he nodded toward the window, to the angry welts scarring the dawn sky. “The storm will break today,” he said. “Be warned.”
He pushed her hands from him, slid from the bed and went into the bathroom and shut the door.
Minnie curled herself into a tight ball, shivers racking her. She closed her eyes as patterns, ideas and behaviors pummeled at her. The last of the dream elements locked into place, their message revealed. Her subconscious had found its voice.
