Yes.
Because you are absent your protector? The Thing sounded attitudinal, like she was a recalcitrant kid it had to put up with. Open your eyes, Dream Bearer.
When she didn’t bother complying, the Thing pried them open for her. No surprise there. She expected to see white, or a body, or something gory and frightening and horrifying.
Her eyes took in the image, but her brain had trouble with the translation.
Lying next to her, mere inches away, and looking so breathtakingly alive was Lathan. He wiped at the tears wetting her cheeks. His touch was electric, jump-starting her dead heart.
She settled her hand over his tattoo. Underneath her fingers, the scratch of his whiskers, the warmth of his skin, the suppleness of his flesh teamed up and tried to convince her that he was real. “Am I dreaming inside this dream?” she whispered around the stone of grief choking her throat.
“I don’t know.” His hand wandered into her hair and settled over her temple, the source of the constant ache in her head. Warmth and comfort and safety flowed from him into her. The pain eased.
“Are you…”—she struggled to say the word—“dead?”
“Honey, I don’t know.” Sincerity and sadness shone in his silver eyes. “All I know is I’m here with you right now, in this moment, the only moment that matters.”
Her chin trembled, and a fresh flow of tears fell from her eyes. “I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay here with you. Forever.”
She placed her hand on his heart, over the gunshot wound she refused to look at. She couldn’t bear the confirmation that he was as dead as everyone else she’d ever seen in the White Place. “I’m sorry. So sorry. It’s all my fault. All of it.”
He gathered her tight into him and draped his leg over her hips, encasing her body with his. They didn’t speak. Words weren’t needed. They fulfilled each other in such a way that they were one united entity, not requiring speech because they were inside each other’s thoughts and feelings.
He witnessed her guilt and grief and absolved her of it. He saw inside her soul to the damage Junior had done and healed her with his understanding. He showed her an image of herself, one reflected through his eyes, and what she saw filled her with awe. Her soul was a beautiful tangle of fragility and tenacity and bravery.
She reached into Lathan’s mind. Felt his fear. Fear of a world overlaid with images—memories—that weren’t his own. Fear of being attacked again. Fear of her rejecting him. She banished his fear and allowed him to see himself as she saw him. As a man of courage, strength, and kindness, with a little bit of superhero tossed in.
Chapter 16
James sat next to the bed, watching her, vigilant for any indication of distress. Sleep for her was continually fitful.
Behind her closed eyelids, her eyes darted. REM sleep. Dreaming. Was she having a nightmare? Could she possibly be dreaming of the person who’d been taking such tender care of her? It was too soon for him to be having such thoughts, yet his mind wandered in sentimental circles around her. He couldn’t help it.
The past days of caring for her had endeared her to him in a way he never would have suspected possible. On a fundamental level, she appealed to him because of her total dependence on him for shelter, food, cleanliness. She even needed him for her mental acumen. If he let her, she’d slip off the slope of sanity into suicide. The desperate sadness around her told him as much. But he held her in a firm, unwavering grip, and he didn’t intend to let go. He planned to heal her. Put her back together in such a way as to make him her other half.
She flinched and cried out a small animal sound of pain. He grasped her hand and held it tightly in both of his. Instantly, she calmed and tightened her grip on him. Her hand might as well have been wrapped around his heart, the way the muscle contracted from her touch.
Because he couldn’t resist, he stroked her cheek with the back of his finger. Instinctively, she turned into his touch until he opened his hand, allowing her to nestle her face against his palm. She received comfort from him, and he gloried in the novel experience. So different from how people flinched and fought him. And why wouldn’t they? He specialized in ending life—Death had been his life.
As a naive, traumatized kid, he hadn’t seen any other option but to follow Death. Now the adult version of him saw a new path. Taking her pushed him over the finish line and through the starting gates of something new.
To her, he could be whatever he wanted to be. He could be her tormentor or her savior. He could make her need him or want him. He could make her hate him or love him. She changed all his rules.
Even the cold concrete walls of his bunker no longer seemed so drab. The utilitarian furniture not so sparse. The quiet of being underground no longer lonely.
In her sleep, she lurched, a full-body jerk so violent and unexpected that he startled. And he didn’t startle easy. This woman was full of surprises.
“Shh…” The left side of her face was a rainbow of painful bruises, and her eyes were puffed and pink. He contented himself with simply stroking her cheek with the back of his finger. “You’re here with me. Safe.”
Her tortured eyes locked with his. Guilt and sadness lived in the dark-blue irises, but something new had begun to grow—a fragile bud of trust in him. He expected her to ask about Lathaniel again, but she didn’t.
Finally, he’d taken the lead in the race against Lathaniel’s ghost. It’d only taken five days.
Victory pumped inside his chest, warming him like he’d just downed a shot of whiskey.