Page 78 of Santiago's Conquest (Four Dark Horsemen 1)

My head goes dizzy. Everything around me spins while I feel so bad I wonder if I’m dying. I haven’t ever been in this much pain, even when I fell from the garden wall and broke my arm.

Mommy and Daddy took care of me then, baking cookies and going to the parks with me.

Where are they now?

Where is my father?

“Papá,” I whisper, desperately wanting him to show up and punish all these awful men who hurt me, even if they exist only in my imagination, but nothing of the sort happens.

They continue to talk, and my eyelids slowly drop, my breathing evening out, yet I’m still holding on, unable to fall asleep again.

Or rather wake up in my reality.

“He’s Lucian’s son.”

“What?” Peter shrieks, and he runs his fingers through his hair, pacing the room—or maybe it’s a basement—back and forth. “Lucian as in Lucian Cortez? That fucking Lucian?”

The door behind them finally opens, the bright light streaming inside the darkness, and my heart pangs, my vision blurring as I slowly go back to sleep, relaxed.

Daddy came.

He would save me now.

That’s the last thought flashing in my mind before I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and the world around me vanishes.

* * *

The beeping sound disturbs my ears, my nose twitching a little, and I groan painfully when a sting travels across my face.

Putting my hand on my nose, I feel something under my fingers, and my eyes pop open, zeroing in on my bandage-covered nose and some machine wires attached to my wrists.

I lie in a huge bed with the softest mattress; it practically swallows me whole while my head rests on a pillow this time and no chains hold me.

A sigh of relief escapes me, because the nightmare is over, and Daddy probably brought me back to their bed so I wouldn’t get scared again and…

My nose.

Why is my nose still hurting even after I woke up? I shouldn’t feel any pain.

Blinking a few times in confusion, I sit up quickly, ripping a wire attached to me in the process, and groan into my palm, my nose throbbing so hard I can’t even breathe through it.

“Daddy,” I whisper brokenly, looking around, because the nightmare hasn’t ended and continues to play in a different dimension now. Is that possible? To stay for this long in a nightmare? “Papá!”

Finally, someone answers.

The calm and rough tone doesn’t belong to my father though.

“Santiago, you’re awake.”

I swing my head toward the sound and notice a man sitting on a nearby chair with a book in his hand. He scans me from head to toe with his eyes. They remind me of a snake; that’s how focused on me they are.

Shaking my head once again, I ignore the pain and almost slap myself to finally wake up in my bed, because Daddy doesn’t hear my cries for help, but the environment doesn’t change.

“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up,” I will myself, wanting to go to the land where pain and suffering don’t exist, because everyone loves and protects me.

I want to go home.

“You’re not sleeping, boy.” Displeasure laces his voice, and I look at him again, fear enveloping me so hard it squeezes my lungs, not allowing me to breathe while I try to understand what’s going on.

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