Page 530 of Fated to be Enemies

I hate that voice.

I wish I weren't so tired.

I wish I weren’t so weak.

I wish I would sleep and see nothing.

My sanity is frayed, unraveling swiftly with each vision, and I don’t have the strength to re-braid the ropes.

“This is the fourth time you’ve woken up tonight,” Rhys reminds me, “and it’s only midnight. You’re not even asleep for more than twenty minutes before the next vision starts. If a pill helps, you need to take it.”

His eyes are weary, his dark-brown hair disheveled from his restless night. I’m hurting him—whether it’s from my lack of sleep or my fingers ripping into the flesh of my hands.

I’m hurting him. And I don’t want to.

“I’m scared,” I mutter, my voice wobbling. “What if I get stuck?”

Fucking tears. They slip and slide down my face in pitiful little rivulets. When did I get so weak?

“Let’s just try it once,” he offers, “and if you hate it or if it doesn’t work, then we can stop. But we have to do something. I can’t watch you in agony and not do something, Gorgeous.”

I have to do this. I have to try. For him.

“I’m sorry you’re in pain, too. I’ll take the pill.” I sigh, twisting the sheets in my fingers. “You’ll stay with me, though, right?”

“Where else would I want to be?” he replies before dropping a gentle kiss to my shoulder.

“Okay.” I nod, taking the tall glass of water and a tiny pink pill.

Here goes nothing.

A young boy—no bigger than five—jumps in puddles on a sidewalk. The gray sky beyond him threatens more rain, but the boy is enjoying his reprieve, bouncing from one tiny puddle to the next.

His mother watches him from under the cover of a porch awning—her curly black hair pulled into a messy bun atop her head. She’s dressed plainly in jeans and a T-shirt—the pale-gray cardigan covering her slim shoulders matching the overcast sky. The house is modest but not shabby, the lawn groomed, the shutters freshly painted. The window boxes are blooming with summer flowers, trailing pink and purple blossoms over the sides.

The neighborhood is situated at the base of a mountain range—the verdant hills broken up with jutting bedrock, nearly blotting out the light from the cloudy sky.

She’s sitting on the first step, waiting for the boy to get his fill of the outdoors. She has a thick book on her lap, and she is shuffling index cards in her hands, furiously studying. She glances up every few seconds, though, checking on her son.

His little face is screwed up in concentration as he considers the next jump. He counts to three, and away he goes, his bright-yellow rain boots splashing in the water. The vinyl of his raincoat squeaks as he flaps his arms, making boom and zoom noises with his loud little boy mouth.

It has rained so much in the last few weeks. Almost every single day has been filled with constant deluges of falling water.

The boy doesn’t feel the rumble, but the mother does. She tosses aside her book and notes, the white index cards fluttering about the lawn like leaves until they’re swept away by the roaring tide of a flash flood.

She makes it to her son, but she’s too late to save him.

She’s too late to save herself.

He clings to her, and she works so hard, kicking her legs and clawing the water with her free hand to try and keep their heads above the surface.

She tires quickly and then fails in her endeavor altogether when they’re slammed into a parked SUV. The torrent rushes up and over the vehicle, but the mother and son are pinned beneath the surface, fighting, and clawing for air in the freezing flood.

A young woman walks alone down a darkened street, shivering in rapidly falling temperatures of a summer night in the mountains.

Slight and blonde, she strides with purpose, her shoulders tensed. She’s wearing an old diner waitress uniform—said diner is fading in the background as she makes her way to the lit bus stop ahead. The diner’s pale-yellow sign is now off, but the blue lettering still reads “Sunflower Café.”

She stops and removes the heavy backpack from her shoulders, pulling a lime-green hoodie from the pack. Her bag is stuffed full of clothes and books, a key chain mace canister attached to the zipper.

---