Page 42 of Fanged Embrace
The truth snapped into place with an almost audible click. It wasn’t my nightmare. This flavor of fear was different, threaded with muffled screams I’d never utter. But it pulsed in a ragged tempo I’d come to recognize.
“Laurie.”
Before my lips had fully formed her name, the stormy flare of her aura sparked to life on the edge of my awareness—ricocheting around the room, impossible to ignore. Her nightmare had bled straight through the walls, wailing down the empathic link between us, tearing me out of dreamland with violent urgency.
I swung my legs over the mattress and found the floor, catapulting out of bed without hesitation.
I didn’t bother with slippers or a robe, my sparse underwearwould have to do. The only thing that mattered was closing the space between us. Laurie’s aura blazed ahead of me, vibrating through my senses. Every pulse of that psychic distress beacon stabbed behind my eyes.
My own panic made the hallways stretch and the house loomed vast and spiraling, but I could take every turn blindfolded. I vaulted over the koi pond, took a corner skidding, and finally thudded against the door to the guest room in a tumbled rush.
The handle refused to budge.
I rattled it once more for good measure—no give. Laurie must have locked it from the inside. Cursing under my breath, I flattened a palm to the wood; the nightmare inside vibrated straight into my bones.
Kick it down?One splintering crash and she’d wake convinced the monsters had finally found her. No.
“Secret tunnel, secret tunnel.” I turned my attention to the bookcase beside the door, skimming through first editions on the hunt for some kind of lever I was sure was hidden somewhere around here.
“Where the fuck are you… wait—” I pivoted to the wardrobe further down the hallway, flung the doors open, and burrowed past rows of powdered wigs and a flapper dress still reeking of gin. The back panel rattled loose. “Bingo.”
Under some light pressure the false backing popped open, revealing a crawl space barely wider than my shoulders. I wedged myself in and groaned when my foot kicked over a crate of old tobacco pipes. One frantic sideways shuffle later—and far too many cobwebs catching in my hair—I found the hidden hatch that opened directly into the guest-room closet.
I wriggled past a wall of soft coats and stepped out, proud grin buffering—only to catch my foot on something and pitch face-first onto the carpet.
“What the—?” I rolled onto my back and looked up at aweb of makeshift trip lines: bath towels, nightgowns, and bedsheets, all knotted together and strung crisscross from bed-leg to desk chair.
The crash jolted Laurie upright and her banshee shriek had me jumping to my feet. “It’s okay–It’s okay! It’s just me!” I edged closer, stepping gingerly over the spiderweb traps. “Laurie?”
Her eyes were wide open, but she didn’t seem to register my presence at all. She sat rigid in bed, hands up to fend off the new threat, but she was looking right past me, locked in REM horror. The aura around her whipped into a frenzied maelstrom, pronged bolts of pure terror lodging in my chest.
I scrambled onto the bed and gripped her shoulders. “Laurie—it’s River. You’re dreaming.”
The moment my hands touched her a surge of panic seared through the link. I heard alarms blaring, doors slamming, felt heat like a furnace breath blasting my face. The memories were vivid, violent and all-encompassing. There was no time to wonder how orwhyI was able to access her memories like this—Laurie was thrashing wildly in my grip, clocking my chin with an elbow and snapping my head to the side.
“Laurie!” I hissed through the sharp flicker of pain. I tightened my hold on her bony shoulders and forced my own aura outward to meet hers. Calm and chaos clashed like waves in a stormy sea. “It’s not real. You’re safe.”
Her eyes were vacant, an uncomfortable emptiness in her hollow pupils like two black holes waiting to swallow me whole. Her legs were jerking up and down, kicking at the bedsheets and creaking the mattress springs.
“Hey, look at me.” I lowered my voice to the tempo of a lullaby and thumbed small circles into her clammy skin. “Feel the sheets, hear my voice—nothing here can hurt you.”
Laurie whimpered, breath stuttering out in abrupt bursts, but the flailing stopped and she seemed to finally register that someone was speaking to her.
I had no clue if my next move would soothe her spiking terror or make it ten times worse, but I gave it a try anyway. I loosened my grip and rolled onto my back, guiding her down with me until she lay slumped across my chest, ear pressed over the faint drum of my heartbeat.
“You’re okay.” I kept one hand splayed between her shoulder blades, protruding like jagged ice caps under her T-shirt and twice as cold. The other combed damp strands of choppy hair from her forehead. “Can you breathe with me?”
She gave no response aside from a hiccupped gasp. Her eyes were still distant, fixed on a faraway point. Her aura slammed against mine—fear, disorientation—so I pushed calm back like a tide, letting it lap at the edges of her panic without forcing entry.
I inhaled, long and measured, letting my chest expand under her cheek. “In…” I held it for two counts, then released. “Out…”
Laurie’s breaths were shaky at first, dissonant against my sternum, but I kept the rhythm unwavering. She clutched a fistful of my thin vest, the tremor in her fingers rattling on my collarbone as she gulped in a breath.
“Again,” I murmured, breathing deep. “In… Out.”
Laurie mimicked the motion. Calm rippled out from the point where our bodies met, my aura folding over hers. The jagged spikes softened, waves of terror reduced to light ripples like a low tide drawing back from the shore.
After a few minutes of quiet breathing, her quivering limbs stilled and she curled closer, forehead nudging against my chin. I felt damp lashes brush my throat as she blinked, consciousness clearing as her breaths evened out.
