Page 7 of Fanged Embrace
Jordan eyed Maxine’s untouched paperwork with a smirk before dragging her gaze back to me. “You? Unsure? I never thought I’d see the day.”
I ignored the jab and tapped my temple. “I keep hitting a blank when I try to glean more details. You know how it works. The glimpses come and go. This one points to something important, but the path is murky.”
Jordan shrugged one shoulder, leaning back in the seat. “Yeah, well, maybe the universe is trying to tell you to chill out. You act like the world’s about to end every time you get a snippet you can’t decipher immediately.” Her tone was part scolding, part affectionate as she eyed me. “You need a break.”
I snorted and the corner of my mouth quirked up. “I appreciate your professional diagnosis.”
Jordan steepled her fingers. “Look, if it’s crucial, you’ll see more. Right? That’s how your gift works. Or you’ll, I don’t know, get slapped in the face by fate eventually.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged, tracing wood grain patterns on the desk with one finger. “There’s this… person. I don’t know much about her, but I know she’s important somehow.”
Jordan cocked her head to the side. “And you can’t tell if she’s friend or foe?”
“It’s not that…” I speared a hand through my hair. Laurie’s dark, guarded eyes flickered in my mind. “It’s just… no matter how hard I try, how far I look…”
I closed my eyes, and dread was a sharp prickle in my veins. I was missing something. I had to be. Because regardless of the way I bent my body, or emptied my mind—no matter what I did…
“I can’t see her future. There’s nothing there at all.”
4
Laurie
I was back, in that place.
I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten there or how they’d found me, but I was back.
Walls, too white for comfort, blurred in and out of focus as I stumbled forward.No, not this again.My younger self—shorter by a head or two, shaky in the knees—moved hesitantly down the hallway where adults loomed like towering skyscrapers. Their voices were kind but their faces were warped, mouths revealing teeth that were far too pointed.
The figures in lab coats congregated around me, conferring in hushed tones over my head. They told me,It’s okay, we’re just making sure you’re healthy. You’re such a special kid.But when they reached for me, I felt the prick of needles, the tug of tubes, the cold bite of antiseptic.
Some part of me was aware that I was dreaming, but that didn’t halt the terror creeping up my spine. I wanted to go home, except there was no home, only this corridor thatstretched infinitely onward. I felt a prickling behind my eyes, but the tears wouldn’t come.
Then the dreamscape shifted. The overhead lights flickered, and suddenly I was flung to the far end of the hallway, the air thick and choking with black smoke, a siren blaring from somewhere unseen.Something’s gone wrong—again.I had been here before.
Smoke clogged my throat.Fire?My breathing came in panicked bursts, and I realized I was holding something tight to my chest. Something soft, warm, and infinitely precious—and I knew in my dream logic that I was about to lose it. The dreadful certainty weighed my arms like lead.
Don’t take it from me.My mind screamed the thought, though my lips refused to form the words. And still the alarms wailed, red emergency lights painting the corridor in hellish hues.
Then the dream cracked at the edges and the corridor dissolved into darkness.
I woke up with a start, my lungs clawing for air, the sheets twisted around my legs like they’d tried to tie me down while I slept. A layer of cold sweat clung like a second skin, and my heart pounded a war cry in my chest, hammering violently against my ribs.
Not again.I forced a breath, hiccupping through the motion, pressing a palm to my chest as if that could steady the galloping rhythm. I forced myself to lie still in the dark, staring at the popcorn ceiling with wide, unblinking eyes.
The nightmare still clung to the edges of my vision, lingered in my nostrils, and tainted my skin: the stench of antiseptic, the glare of fluorescent lights overhead, the cool metal of restraints digging into my wrists.That place.I swallowed, trying to push the memories back.
But like Pandora, I’d opened the box, and the nightmares were spilling out all over again.
I ran my hands up my forearms, palming goosebumps that prickled my skin. The sensation of cold needles sliding into my veins was a recurring fixture in my dreams, and it stuck around long after I woke, too.
All the bad memories—the horrifying memories—were there, always. I was out, I wasfree, and I had been for two whole years now. But I only had to close my eyes and I'd be right back in that facility all over again.
Worse than the flashes of clinical laboratories and sterile children's toys were the memories of that final day. The day I made my escape. I remembered fire, choking smoke, and alarms sounding all around me. I was running for the exit with a bundle in my arms. It was something precious. Something I couldn’t bear to let go?—
“Nope. That’s enough.” I sat up abruptly and clamped a lid on the tide of emotions surging up my throat. “We’re not doing this again.”
There was no chance I’d lie down again. I didn’t dare close my eyes. The nightmare would come roaring back the second I gave it the chance.
