The pendulum swung, rendering power back to the doctor – or, at least, it should have with that one weighted question.
"I think he did. He just wasn't able to take care of us. I paid my way through college and racked up a healthy pile of student loans in the process." She laughed, an honest laugh that she hadn't heard in God knew how long. "I bet those have all gone to hell because I can't remember ever paying them."
"Your father, Alice," the doctor redirected her back to the topic at hand. "Your father and you."
Her head hurt with the truth that threatened to tear from her scalp just so it could look her in the eyes and dare her to acknowledge it. "I hate my father," she admitted. "As soon as I was legal age, I got out of the house and I never looked back. He was an arrogant man, a strict authoritarian, abusive both physically and mentally, and I couldn't stand a person treating me that way or telling me what to do when he couldn't even take care of himself."
The cap of the doctor's pen tapped twice, the tip turning to press against paper, two bold lines drawn to underscore words Alice couldn't read from her position.
Pulling the pen up to his mouth he pressed the cap against his lips, his dark eyes appraising her shrewdly. "Do you think it's possible, Alice, that these dreams you're having aren't about your sister at all, but about yourself?"
Her eyes flared open, rage coursing through her at the audacity of his suggestion. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Remaining firm, the doctor didn't immediately recant or flinch away, he just stared at her like she was a lab rat fresh on the first dose of some new experimental medication. "Hear me out before you get angry."
"I already am angry, Doc! I'm here for my sister, not to discuss some ridiculous theory you have about my non-existent daddy issues."
"When did the sleep disorders start, Alice? What is the first memory you have of them?" Effectively cutting off her tirade, he leaned forward in his chair, the leather groaning at his movement. He stared at her like she'd disappear if he released her locked gaze. "When, Alice?"
Frustration a driving force inside her, she leaned forward to meet his unspoken challenge. "When I was eight. Okay? Does that answer your question?"
"And when did your issues with your father begin?"
Alice visibly flinched, his words a verbal slap that rattled something loose in her thoughts. The truth had always been there, lingering and festering beneath the surface, the connection never made until it had been forced.
"When I was eight," she answered softly. Her body relaxed back against the couch slowly, until she'd pulled her legs up and curled into her protective ball. Not so much talking to him, but to herself, she sat in stunned shock and said, "The nightmares and the problems with my father both started when I was eight."
The brush of pen against paper, the knowing nod of a head, the doctor appeared pleased to have made his point clearly. After scribbling down whatever thoughts were so important they couldn't become lost, his eyes flicked between Alice and the clock ticking down the seconds on the wall.
"I'm a man of my word, Alice, and we're halfway through our session, do you still want to discuss the next dream?"
Although her voice was lost to a void the realization had opened for her, she nodded her head yes to his question.
"Very well, then, tell me the next dream."
His steps were a warning in themselves. This was a fact Alice had quickly learned, each heavy, booted thud a reminder that she was not alone. That he was coming for her.
He'd taken eighteen of those warning steps as he climbed the stairs towards her.
Eighteen beats that counted down her future.
Eighteen beats that cried out in their slow, foreboding tone, beware the monsters.
Her hair hung down at the sides of her face where she sat waiting on the soft luxury of his bed, a bed so large it took up nearly half of the room. From behind that curtain of tangled, limp blonde silk, Alice peered at the man standing in the doorway, his shoulders as wide as the frame, his eyes as cold and deep as an arctic lake.