Dreamfever (Fever #4)

by Karen Marie Moning

AVOID! AVOID! AVOID! I call on every ounce of speed and agility I got, because something major weird is happening and something’s sort of in my space with me, and I’m having a shit of a time avoiding it, and all the sudden I’m plucked from the air by my elbows

jammed into a stationary position on the floor, so hard my teeth rattle. Plucked. Me. Snatched straight out of superwhiz speed. Forced to stop. I can’t deal. I squeak. “Dani,” a man says. I gape. Mac never told me what he looked like. I can’t believe Mac never told me what he looked like. I can’t stop staring. “Barrons?” I breathe. It has to be him. It can’t be anybody else. This is what she lived with every day? How did she stand it? How did she ever say “no” to him about anything? How does he know who I am? Did Mac tell him about me? I hope she told him how awesome I am! I’m so embarrassed I could die. I squeaked in front of him. Mice squeak. He takes up too much space. He yanked me from midair. I scramble back, half-freeze-frame speed. I get the feeling he lets me. It chafes, bad. I look past him and nearly squeak again. Eight men fan in V formation behind him, packing weapons from head to toe, draped in ammo, toting what look like Uzis. Big men. Couple of ‘em seem more animal than human. One of ‘em looks like Death himself, with white hair, pale skin, and hot dark eyes that assess restlessly, incessantly.

They fix on me. I cringe. They all move sleek and strange. Ooze arrogance like Fae, but they’re not Fae. Sidhe-seers are plastered up against the walls, trying not to draw attention to themselves. Nobody dead that I can see. I think the gunshots I heard were warnings, sprayed into the air. Hope so. The energy rolling off these dudes is fierce. Whatever Barrons has got—I can’t put my finger on it, but on a raw-power graph it’s off the fecking charts—they’ve got, too. Watching this crew stalk down the hall of the abbey makes even me feel like peeling out of the way. One of the men has Ro banded by a forearm, knife at her throat. I should ...

“Where’s Mac?” Barrons says, soft, making my gaze dart back to him. Soft from him is a surgical knife poised above your jugular. “Has the bitch hurt her?” If looks could kill! Someday somebody’s gonna look at somebody about me like that. I’m not about to tell him I’m pretty sure Ro was gonna let her die. “No. She’s okay.” I clarify a little. “Well,...

cold, hard fact just got driven home for me with the doused torches and painted-over wards. I can’t keep Mac safe by myself. Even I have to sleep sometimes. With the exception of All Hallows’ Eve, Barrons has kept her safe. Still … there’s no way anything human plucked me out of the air like that. What is he? I don’t know how much Mac trusts him. “Promise me you won’t harm Ro,” I say. “We need her.” Something savage moves deep in his eyes. “I’ll decide that when I see Mac.” I feel savage all the sudden, too. “Well, where the feck were you when she needed you?” I snarl. “I was there.” Without another word, I freeze-frame out. Only two things I trust in these walls: me, and my sword. If my instincts are spot on—as they always are—Barrons isn’t the only thing headed Mac’s way right now. I’m gonna beat ‘em all there. I let that old, cold sidhe-seer place in my head swallow me. I become power, strength, speed, free! The door ...

right now. I don’t look straight at her. I haven’t since I got her out. I don’t know a lot about sex, but I do know what’s happening to her is no way to learn it. I been doing a little research. It’s got me worried. There’s not a single case of a person turned Pri-ya coming back from it. Not one. They’re mindless animals that do whatever they’re told until they die. And those were the cases of people turned by Seelie. Never been anyone turned by Unseelie, and Mac got the whammy from thr...

Wantneedsexdie blasts me. Hesitation ain’t me! I jab my sword into its gut. It looks down. Thing is stunned, disbelieving. We stare at each other. Unbearable perfection. My cheeks get wet like last time I looked at a prince, and I don’t have to wipe them to know it’s blood. If just looking at it makes my eyes bleed, how did Mac survive three of them touching her? Doing things to her? Even mortally wounded, it’s forcing me to my knees. I want to let it do anything it wants to me. I want to obey it. I want to call it Master. Ro says they’re the equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,...

pulling my sword out of it and turning it on myself. It’s fecking with me. Trying to take me with it. Its iridescent eyes blaze in what I’m pretty sure is its dying attempt to incinerate me. Then we’re both falling to our knees: it ‘cause it’s dead, and me—I’m so fecking embarrassed—’cause I think I just had my first ever o...

that now. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Then Barro...

Then there’s another Unseelie Prince sifting in behind me. The thing is so powerful, my sidhe-seer senses pick up on it before it becomes corporeal. I spin, lunge, but I don’t get the rush of killing it, be...

get that. I’m not stupid. It was more afraid of Barrons than of me and my sword. I whirl to face him, to demand answers, because I’m not letting him take Mac anywhere until he explains a few things, but the look in his eyes shuts me down. Way to go, Dani, the look says. You’re not a kid, say his eyes. You’re a warrior, and a bloody fine one at that. His look takes me in, measures me ...

hell of a woman. Barrons sees me. He really sees me! When he picks up Mac and turns away, I swallow a dreamy sigh. I’m gonna...

powerful. It is electric. It is lust. It is not one of my princes, but my body arches and steams. Yes, yes, yes, you are what I need! It touches me. I am on fire! I weep with relief. It holds me to its body, crushes me to its skin. We sizzle. It speaks, but I do not understand its language. I am in a place beyond words. There is only skin and flesh and need. I am an animal. I hunger without conscience, without qualm.

I have been given a gift to exceed all gifts—my masters must be pleased with me! Its language is gibberish to my ears, but the flesh recognizes its own. The creature that holds me now will do more than end my pain. It will fill all that is empty. It is an animal, too.

I am alive. I am so alive. I have never been more alive in my life. I sit, cross-legged, nude, in a tangle of silk sheets. Life is a sensual banquet and I am voracious. I glisten with sweat and satisfaction. But I need more. My lover is too far away. He is bringing me food. I do not know why he insists. I need nothing but his body, his electric touch, the primitive, intimate things he does to me. His hands on me, his teeth and tongue, and most especially what hangs heavy between his legs. Sometimes I kiss it. Lick it. Then he glistens with sweat and hunger and strains beneath my mouth. I hold down his hips and tease. It makes me feel powerful and alive. “You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” I tell him. “You are perfect.” He makes a strangled sound and mutters something about how I might seriously reconsider that at some point. I ignore it. He says many mystifying things. I ignore them all. I admire

the

preternatural grace of his body. Dark, strong, he pads like a great beast, muscles rippling. Black and crimson symbols cover much of his skin. It’s exotic, exciting. He is large. The first time I almost couldn’t take him. He fills me, sates me completely. Until he is no longer inside me and I am empty again. I push onto all fours and arch my rump invitingly. I know he cannot resist my ass. When he looks at it, he gets a funny look on his face. Savage, his mouth tightens, his eyes harden. Sometimes he looks away sharply. But he always looks back. Hard, fast, hungry like me. I believe he is divided in desire. I do not understand that. Desire is. There is no judgment between animals. No right or wrong. Lust is. Pleasure is the way of beasts. “More,” I say. “Come back to bed.” It took me a while to learn this exquisite thing’s language, but when I did, I learned rapidly, although parts of it elude me. He claims I knew it all along but had forgotten it. He says it took me weeks to re...

He shoots me a look, and for a moment I think I have seen that look before. But I know I have not, because I could never have forgotten such a divine creature. “Eat,” he growls. “Don’t want food,” I growl back. I tire of him making me eat. I reach for him. I am strong. My body is sure. But this fine beast is stronger than me. I savor his power, when he lifts me on top of him, when he holds me down and fills me, when he’s behind me, driving deep. I want him there now. He knows no limits. Though I have drowsed, I have never seen him sleep. Though I demand incessantly, he is always able to please me. He is inexhaustible. “I want more. You. Come here. Now.” There goes my rump again. Up. He stares. He curses. “No, Mac,” he says. I do not know what “Mac” means. But I know what “no” means. And I do not like it. I pout. But it quickly curves into a smile. I know a secret. For a beast of such power, his self-control with me is weak. I have l...

cannot resist me. It bothers him. He is an odd animal. Lust is, I tell him, again and again. I try to make him understand. “There’s more to life than lust, Mac,” he says roughly, again and again. There is that word “Mac” again. So many words I do not understand. I weary of talk. I tune him out. He gives me what I want. Then forces me to eat—boring! I humor him. Belly full, I am sleepy. I tangle my body with his. But when I do, lust takes me again, and I cannot sleep. I roll on top of him, straddle him, breasts swaying over his face. His eyes glaze and I smile. He traps me beneath him in a smooth graceful roll, stretches my arms above my head, and stares into my eyes. I grind my hips up. He is hard and ready. He is always hard and ready. “Be still, Mac. Bloody hell, would you just be still?” “But you’re not in me,” I comp...

arch up against him. “And I am trying to help you help me,” I explain patiently. My beast is dense sometimes. He growls and drops his face in my neck. But he doesn’t kiss or nip it. I grunt my displeasure. When he lifts his head again, he wears a mask of impassivity that does not promise more of what I want. My hands are still trapped in his. I head-butt him. He laughs, and for a moment I think I have won, but then he stops and says, “Sleep,” in a strange voice that seems to echo with many voices. It pressures my skull. I know what it is. This beast has magic. I have magic, too, in a place in my head. I push back at him with it, hard, because I want what he has and he will not give it to me. It angers me that he resists, so I push into him, I try to make him do what I want him to do. With my beast magic, I search for his weakness to use it against him, like he’s trying to use mine. Then something gives way, and abruptly I am no longer snug between the pleasure of silk at my back and man...

sands...

blinding us to all but a few feet ahead, driving thousands of tiny, needlelike grains into our unprotected face, our eyes. But we make no move to shield ourselves. We welcome the pain. We become the pain, unresisting. We breathe grains of sand. They burn our lungs. Others flank us; still we are so alone. What have we done? What have we become? Have they gotten to her? Does she know? Will she denounce us? Turn her face away? She is our world. Our highest star, our brightest sun, and now we are dark as night. We were always dark, feared, above and beyond any law. But she loved us anyway. Will she love us now? We who have never known uncertainty or fear now know both in what is absurdly the moment of our greatest strength. We who have killed without conscience, taken without question, conquered without hesitation, now question it all. Undone by a single act. The mighty, whose stride has never faltered—we stumble. We fall to our knees, throw back our head, and, as our lungs fill with sand, roar our ou...

with sand. He stares down at me, his face white with fury. And more. This beast that does not rattle is rattled. “Who is she?” I ask. I am no longer inside his head. It was hard to stay there. He didn’t want me there. He is very strong and cast me out. “I don’t know how you did that, but you will never do it again,” he snarls, and shakes me again. “Do you understand?” He bares his teeth. It excites me. “You preferred her to all others. Why? Did she mate better?” It makes no sense. I am a fine beast. He should hold me above all others. I am here. Now. She is gone. I do not know how I know it, but she has been gone for a very, very long time. Far longer than his “weeks.” “Stay the fuck out of my head!” Fuck. There’s a word I understand. “Yes, please.” “Sleep,” he orders in that strange, mult...

I weep in my dreams. Powerful arms band me. I shudder in them. I feel like I’m dying. There is something in my dream that wants me to die. Or at least cease living as far as I understand it. It makes me angry. I will not cease to exist. I will not die, no matter how much pain there is. I made a promise to someone. Someone who is my highest star, my brightest sun. Someone I want to be like. I wonder who it is. I push on through the cold, dark dreams. A man wearing red robes reaches for me. He is beautiful, seductive, and very angry with me. He calls to me, summons me. He has some kind of hold over me. I want to go to him. I need to go to him. I belong to him. He made me what I am. I will tell you of she for whom you grieve, he promises. I will tell you of her last days. You long to hear. Yes, yes, although I do not know of whom he speaks, I want desperately to hear about her. Did she have happy days, did she smile, was she brave at the end? Was it quick? Tell me it was quick. Tell me there was no pain. Find me the Book, he says, and I will tell you all. Give you

There was a hole. Now there is a hole where the hole was. You must live to get those memories back, another voice growls from a distance. I feel tickling on my skin and hear chanting. It drowns out the voice of the man in red robes. He is fury in crimson, melting into blood, then he recedes and I am safe from him for now. I am a kite in a tornado, but I have a long string. There is tension in my line. Somewhere, someone is holding on to the other end, and, although it cannot spare me this storm, it will not let me be lost while I regain my strength. It is enough. I will survive.

He plays music for me. I like it very much. I find something else to do with my body that gives me pleasure. He calls it dancing. He sprawls on the bed, arms folded behind his head, a mountain of dark muscle and tattoos against crimson silk sheets, watching me as I dance naked around

the room. His gaze is carnal, hot, and I know my dancing pleases him greatly. The beat is driving, intense. The lyrics apropos, for he has recently taught me that the moment of pleasure is called “orgasm” or “to come,” and the song is a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song by someone called Manfred Mann. Over and over it says, I came for you. I laugh as I sing it to him. I play it again and again. He watches me. I lose myself in the rhythm. Head back, neck arched. When I look back at him, he is singing: Girl, give me time to cover my tracks. I laugh. “Never,” I say. If my beast thinks to leave me, I will track him. He is mine. I tell him so. His eyes narrow. He lunges from the bed and is on me. I exhilarate him. I see it in his face, feel it in his body. He dances with me. I am struck again by how strong and powerful and sure of himself he is. On a predator scale of one to ten, I have enticed a ten. That means I, too, am a...

“Ah, Mac,” he says, and his laughter is as dark and cold as the place of which I dream, “one day you will wonder i...

My beast adores music. He has a pink thing he calls an eye-pod, although it does not look to me as if it was ever a pod for eyes, and with it he makes many sounds. He plays songs over and over and watches me carefully, even when I do not dance. Some of the songs make me angry and I do not like them. I try to make him stop playing them, but he holds the eye-pod over my head and I cannot reach it. I like hard, sexy songs, like “Pussy Liquor” and “Foxy, Foxy.” He likes to play peppy, happy songs, and I am beyond sick of “What a Wonderful World” and “Tubthumping.” He watches me, always watches me, when he plays them. They have stupid names and I hate them. Sometimes he shows me pictures. I hate those, too. They are of others, most often a woman he calls Alina. I do not know why he needs pictures of her when he has me! ...

Once he told me a story about Alina and said she died. I screamed at him and wept, and I do not know why. Today he showed me something new. Photos of a man he calls Jack Lane. I tore them up and threw the pieces at him. Now I have forgiven him because I have him inside me, and he’s got his big hands on my petunia—I do not know that word, or where it came from!—rump, and he’s doing that slow, erotic bump and grind so smooth and deep that makes me purr to the bottom of my toes and kissing me so hard I cannot breathe around it and I do not want to. He is in my soul and I am in his, and we are in bed but we are in a desert, and I do not know where he begins and I end, and I suppose if his peculiar madness is music and photos and stories that chafe, it is a small price to pay for such pleasure. He comes hard, shuddering. I match him, bucking with each shudder. When he comes, he makes a noise deep in his throat that is so raw and animal and sexual that I think if he merely looked at me...

must care, Mac.” “I am so sick of that word! I do not know ‘Mac.’ I do not like your pictures. I hate your stories!” “Mac is your name. You are MacKayla Lane. Mac for short. It is who you are. You are a sidhe-seer. It is what you are. You were raised by Jack and Rainey Lane. They are your parents and love you. They need you very much. Alina was your sister. She was murdered.” “Stop talking! I will not listen.” I clamp my hands to my ears. He pries them away. “You love pink.” “I despise pink! I love red and black.” The colors of blood and death. The colors of the tattoos on his beautiful body that cover his legs, his abdomen, half his chest, and twine up one side of his neck. He rolls me over beneath him and traps my face between his hands. “Look at me. Who am I?” There is something I have forgotten. I do not want to remember. “You are my lover.” “I was not always, Mac. There was a time when you didn’t even like me. You have never truste...

even recognize and make you feel ashamed, so ashamed. There is only pleasure here, endless pleasure. “I trust you,” I say. “We are the same.” His smile is sharp as knives. “We are not. I’ve told you that before. Never make that mistake. We meet in lust. But we are not the same. Never will be.” “You worry about things of no importance. And you talk too much.” “You got me a birthday cake. It was pink. I smashed it into the ceiling.” I do not know “birthdays” or “cakes,” so I say nothing. “You like cars. I let you drive my Viper.” Cars! I remember those. Sleek, sexy, fast, and powerful, all the things I like. Something nags at me. “Why did you smash this ‘birthday cake’ into the ceiling?” I wait for his answer and am struck by a violent sense of déjà vu—that I have waited for many answers from my beast, and have gotten few, if any. He stares down at me. He seems startled that I have asked s...

want his answer very much and feel oddly deflated when he does not give me one. “I am Jericho Barrons. Say my name.” I try to turn my face away, but his hands clamp like a vise on my skull and hold it immobile, preventing me from looking away. I close my eyes. He shakes me. “Say my name.” “No.” “Damn it, would you just cooperate?” “I do not know that word, ‘cooperate.’ “ “Obviously,” he growls. “I think you make up words.” “I do not make up words.” “Do, too.” “Do not.” “Too.” “Not.” I laugh. “Woman, you make me crazed,” he mutters. We do this often. Get into childish arguments. He i...

pop open. “Jericho Barrons,” I ...

He makes a pained sound. “Bloody hell, woman, I think a part of me wants to keep you this way.” I touch his face. “I like how I am. I like how you are, too. When you are … What is that word you used? Cooperating.” “Tell me to fuck you.” I smile and comply. We’re back in territory I understand. “You didn’t say my name. Say my name when you tell me to fuck you.” “Fuck me, Jericho Barrons.” “From now on, you will call me Jericho Barrons every time you speak to me.” He is a strange beast. But he gives me what I want. I suppose it will not kill me to do...

He watches me in silence. I think it must be sex. I go to him. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me to stand between his legs. My hands hurt from hitting things. He kisses them. “Revenge,” he says softly. “They took too much. You give up and die, or learn how to take back. Revenge, Mac.” I cock my head. I try the word on my tongue. “Revenge.” Yes. That is what I want. He is gone when I wake, and I have a bad moment, but then he is there and has brought many boxes and some of them smell good. I no longer resist when he offers me food. I anticipate it. Food is pleasure. Sometimes I put things on his body and lick them off, and he watches me with dark eyes and shudders as he comes. He leaves and returns with more boxes. I sit on the bed, eat, and watch him.

It all seems quite stupid to me. He hands me the first of many boxes. In them are shiny, pretty things. I get the point. I roll my eyes. My stomach is full and I would rather have sex. He refuses to comply. We have one of our spats. He wins because he has what I want and can withhold it. We decorate the tree while happy, idiotic songs play. When we are finished, he does something that makes a million tiny bright lights glow red

pink and green and blue, and I lose my breath like someone has kicked me in the stomach. I drop to my knees. I sit cross-legged on the floor and stare at the tree for a long time. I get more new words. They come slowly, but they come. Christmas. Presents. Mom. Dad. Home. School. Brickyard. Cell phone. Pool. Trinity. Dublin. One word disturbs me more than all the rest of them combined. Sister.

makes me put on “clothes.” I hate them. They are tight and chafe my skin. I take them off, throw them on the floor, and stomp on them. He dresses me again, in rainbow colors that are bright and hurt my eyes. I like black. It is the color of secrets and silence. I like red. It is the color of lust and power. “You wear black and red.” I am angry. “You e...

“I’m different, Mac. And I get to make up the rules because I’m bigger and stronger.” He laughs. There is power even in such a simple sound. Everything about him is power. It thrills me. It makes me want him all the time. Even when he is dense and troublesome. “You are not so different. Do you not wish me to be like you?” I yank the tight pink shirt over my head. My breasts pop out, bouncing. He stares hard, then looks away. I wait for him to look back. He always looks back. He doesn’t this time. “I have no business looking forward to pink cakes, isn’t that what you said?” I am angry. “You should be happy that I want black!” His head whips back around. “What did you just say, Mac? When did I tell you that? Tell me about it!” I do not know. I do not understand what I just said. I do not remember such a time. I frown. My head hurts. I hate these clothes. I strip off my skirt but leave on my heels. Nude, I can breathe. I like the heels. Th...

“I don’t give a rat’s petunia about pink cakes!” I shout. I want him to look at my body. I am confused. I am afraid. “I don’t even know what a rat’s petunia is!” “Your mother didn’t like you and your sister to cuss. ‘Petunia’ is the word you say instead of saying ‘ass,’ Mac.” “I do not know that word, ‘sister,’ either!” I lie. I hate the word. “Oh, yes, you do. She was your world. She was killed. And she needs you to fight for her. She needs you to come back. Come back and fight, Mac. Bloody hell, fight! If you’d just fight like you fuck, you’d’ve walked out of this room the day I carried you in!” “I do not want to walk out of this room! I like this room!” I will show him fight. I launch myself at him, a volley of fists and teeth and nails. I am ineffectual. He is as obdurate as a mountain. He prevents me from damaging him or myself. We stumble and fall to the floor. Abruptly I am no longer angry. I sprawl on top of him. I ...

me that nothing fills.” There is something else inside me, too, besides that hole. Something so awful that I will not look at it. I am weary. I do not want to feel anymore. No pain, no loss, no failure. Only the colors of black and red. Death, silence, lust, power. Those things give me peace. “I understand.” I draw back and look at him. His eyes are deep with shadows. I know those shadows. He does understand. “Then why do you push me?” “Because if you don’t find something to fill that hole, Mac, someone else will. And if someone else fills it, they own you. Forever. You’ll never get yourself back.” “You are a confusing man.” “What’s this?” He smiles faintly. “I am a man now? I am no longer a beast?” It is all I have called him until now. My lover, my beast. But I have found another new word: “man.” I look at him. His face seems to shimmer and change, and for ...

and shelves and cases of trink...

His hands close tight on my waist, hurting me. “What? What did you see?” “You. Books. Lots of them. You … I … know you. You are …” I trail off. A sign creaking on a pole in the wind. Amber sconces. A fireplace. Rain. Eternal rain. A bell rings. I like the sound. I shake my head. There was no such place or time. I shake my head harder. He surprises me. He does not push me with words I do not like to hear. He does not shout at me or call me Mac or insist I talk more. In fact, when I open my mouth to speak again, he kisses me, hard. He shuts me up with his tongue, deep. He kisses me until I cannot speak or even breathe, until I do not even care if I ever breathe again. Until I have forgotten that for a moment he was not a beast but a man. Until the images that so disturbed me are singed to ash by the heat of our lust and gone. He carries me to the bed and tosses me on it. I feel anger in his body, although I do not know why. I stre...

“Who does what?” “The Fae. Turn women Pri-ya.” I do not like those words. They terrify me. I am lust. He is my world. I tell him so. He laughs, and his eyes glitter like night sky pierced by a million stars. “What am I, Mac?” He pours his sleek, powerful body over mine, laces our fingers together, and stretches my hands above my head. “You are my world.” “And what do you want from me? Say my name.” “I want you inside me, Jericho. Now.” Our sex is savage, as if we are punishing each other. I feel something changing. In me. In him. In this room. I do not like it. I try to stop it with my body, drive it back. I do not look at this room in which we exist. I do not let my mind wander beyond the walls. I am here and he is, too, most of the time, and that is enough. Later, when I am drifting like...

grunts and punches his pillow. He is divided, this strange man, as if he both wants to speak and wants not to. Finally, he says tightly, “What did you wear to your senior prom, Mac?” “Pink dress,” I mumble. “Tiffany bought the same one. Totally ruined my prom. But my shoes were Betsey Johnson. Hers were Stuart Weitzman. My shoes were better.” I laugh. It is the sound of someone I do not recognize, young and without care. It is the laugh of a woman who knows no pain, never did. I wish I knew her. He touches my face. There is something different in his touch. It feels like he’s saying good-bye, and I know a moment of panic. But my dream sky darkens and sleep’s moon fills the horizon. “Don’t leave me....

We’re “Tubthumping” again. He makes me dance around the room, shouting: I get knocked down but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down. He dances with me. We shout the lyrics at each other. Something about seeing this man, this big, sexual, powerful—and, some part of me knows, highly dangerous and unpredictable—man, dancing nude, shouting that he’s never going to be kept down, completely undoes me. I feel as if I am seeing something forbidden. I know without knowing how I know that the circumstances under which he would behave in such a fashion are incalculably few. Suddenly I am laughing and cannot stop. I laugh so hard I cannot breathe. “Oh, God, Barrons,” I finally gasp. “I never knew you could dance. Or have fun, for that matter.” He freezes. “Ms. Lane?” he says slowly. “Huh? Who’s she?”

He stares at me, hard. “Who am I?” I stare back. There is danger here, in this moment. I do not like it. I want more “Tubthumping” and tell him so, but he turns off the music. “What happened on Halloween, Ms. Lane?” He fires the question at me, and I now have the strangest feeling he has been asking me this question over and over for a long time but I block it every time he asks it. Refuse to even hear it. And that perhaps there are dozens of questions he’s been asking me that I have been refusing to hear. Why is he calling me that new name? I am not she. He repeats the question. Halloween. The word gives me chills. Something dark tries to bubble up in my mind, to break the surface I keep placid and still with sex, sex, sex, and suddenly I am no longer laughing but my body is trembling and my bones are so soft I fall to my knees. I clutch my head in my hands and shake it violently. No, no, no. I do not want to know! Images bombard me: A mob shouting, surging out of control. Rain-slicked, shiny dark streets. Shadows moving hungrily in the darkness. A red Ferrari. Glass breaking. Fires burning. People being driven, herded into hell. A place of books and lights that falls to the enemy. It mattered to me, that place. I’d lost so much, but at least I had that place.

gruesome meal. A weapon I both need and fear. People rioting. Trampling one another. A city burning. A belfry. A closet. Darkness and fear. Finally, dawn. Holy water splashing, hissing on steel. A church. I shut down. Walls slam in my heart, my mind. I will not go there. There is/was/will never be a church in my existence. I look up at him. I know him. I do not trust him. Or is it me I do not trust? “You are my lover,” I say. He sighs and rubs his jaw. “Mac, we have to leave this room. It’s bad out there. It’s been months. I need you back.” “I am right here.” “What happened at the”—he breaks off, his nostrils flare, and a muscle works in his jaw—”church?” It seems he does not want to hear about what happened at this church ...

raped...