Chapter 266

I dreamt of the Lunar Festival.

Noah and I walked hand-in-hand through the stalls, enjoying the sparkling lights and the company of our new pack mates. Yet something was off. I could feel a chill in the air, a foreboding that I could not quite shake off.

“We should get out of here,” I said, trying to pull Noah towards the entrance.

“What? But we just got here,” Noah replied. He started tugging me towards the churro stand. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

My stomach twisted as uneasiness settled in.

“No, I really think—”

A scream ripped through the air.

My grip on Noah’s hand tightened. I yanked on his arm and ran towards the entrance. This time, he did not resist.

Each time our feet fell to the pavement, my heart pounded hard against my ribs. Blood rushed in my ears. I breathed in and out rapidly.

Faster, I had to run faster. Still, it seemed that no matter how quickly I ran, the entrance did not get any closer.

Darkness enveloped us. I could no longer see the entrance in front of us or the stalls behind us. I stumbled as I tried and failed to get my bearings.

Two pairs of cold hands reached out of the darkness and grasped at Noah and me. They ripped us apart, though we tried to hang on until only our fingertips touched. The stench of earth and death filled my nostrils as I was pulled against a torso, and my breath caught in my chest.

Vampires.

“You won’t get away from us this time,” Gregory hissed in my ear.

His fangs punctured my jugular. My scream echoed through the void, soon joined by Noah’s. My awareness began to fade as the burning pain overtook me.

I awoke to Noah’s panicked voice.

“Crystal? Crystal, are you all right?” he asked, shaking my shoulder slightly.

“Huh…what?” I asked groggily, searching the room for unseen threats. “What’s going on?”

“You were thrashing and screaming in your sleep.” Noah sounded more than a little disturbed. “I think you were having a nightmare.”

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and nodded.

“Yeah, I was. I…I dreamt about the vampire attack. They got us again, and they…they…”

I covered my eyes with my hands and started to weep.

Noah hesitated, then placed his hand on my back and rubbed it in a circular motion in an attempt to soothe me.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Andrew captured the vampires. They can’t get us—you—anymore.”

“I know that logically,” I replied, sniffling, “but my brain, it just can’t accept that the danger is gone.”

“Well, I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

A part of me wanted to snap at him, to tell him that he already had let something happen to me and to himself. The other part of me, though, cautioned that it wasn’t his fault and that starting an argument now wouldn’t do either of us any good. The latter part won.

“Let’s just go back to sleep.” I flipped over onto my side and pulled the quilt up over my shoulder. “I’ll be fine now.”

“Are you sure?” Noah asked. “Do you want to talk more about your nightmare or—”

“No. I would just like to get some sleep.”

“Oh, okay.”

Noah sounded crestfallen, but I did not care to tend to his wounded pride at the moment. I just wanted to sleep without any nightmares. If only Andrew had been there…

I buried my face in my pillow. That was impossible. I just needed to get that idea out of my head.

And my heart.

I did not know I had fallen back asleep until I found myself in the middle of a dark forest. Everywhere I turned, all I could see were identical towering trees with the letter “V” carved onto their trunks. The only light came from the twinkling stars and the waning moon above me.

I could smell it everywhere, the earth-and-death scent of the vampires. I spun around myself, trying to pin down their location, but I could not see them. It was as though they were everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

I could feel my blood pumping in every inch of my body. I tried to breathe in and out slowly to keep myself calm, but it came out more ragged and desperate, like hyperventilation. I clenched and unclenched my fists so rapidly that they should have started to cramp.

Out of the corner of my eye, a figure flashed among the trees. I turned around to face it, only for it to appear on the other end of the clearing. I tried to catch sight of it again, but it was gone once more.

A pair of cold arms wrapped around me, pinioning my arms to my side.

“Hello, mutt,” Gregory whispered in my ear. “I have waited so long for this.”

“We both have,” Louise said from across the clearing.

Louise was in front of me in a flash, her fangs flashing in the moonlight.

“I didn’t get to taste you last time,” she purred, stroking my cheek, “but I plan on remedying that now.”

I squirmed to get out of Gregory’s grasp, but it was pointless. The vampire’s strength was far greater than my own. I couldn’t even get my arms freed.

My heart raced as the two vampires lowered their heads towards either side of my neck. My ears rang with the hissing sound of their fangs descending. Their breath tickled my skin as they got closer and closer…

I awoke with a gasp. My eyes snapped open and darted about the room. Nothing had changed, except that it now seemed to be about 3 in the morning.

Noah slept soundly beside me, so I must not have been screaming or thrashing enough to have woken him up. I contemplated if I should try and get him up anyway, to talk to him about this second nightmare, but I shook my head and decided against it. His comfort had left me hollow the first time; why should I expect any different now?

I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could and grabbed my cell phone. I then walked out into the living room and settled down on the couch. I opened an e-book on my phone, scrunched down, and started where I had left off after we had returned from the hospital.

Sapphire didn’t know how she was going to live without Raphael. He had left no note, no voicemail, no explanation whatsoever.

Perhaps he had returned to Heaven, she reasoned with herself. At least then, she wouldn’t feel guilty about having torn him away from the only home he had ever had, from the only family he had ever known. Deep down, though, she had a feeling that something was not right about this, and she needed to find out what.

Hopefully, reading would keep the nightmares at bay. If nothing else, staying up the rest of the night would keep me from the opportunity to have any more. I could not avoid sleeping forever, but…I would cross that bridge when I came to it.