Sweat coated my neck and trickled through my hair. In my semi-conscious state, I could feel dampness coating my skin. My mind warred with a nightmare, begging me to wake, yet trapping me in a chase I couldn’t escape. My legs thrashed at the sheets begging for fresh air. The short silk negligee, suffocating.
My eyes opened, and I found myself staring out the window. A soft, warm breeze floated through causing the thin curtain to move in an almost ghostly manner. I needed a cold shower and one of Peter’s sleeping pills, but the red digits on the alarm told me I only had another four hours before I had to be up and ready for work.
Sleep had evaded me for one reason.
My stomach churned.
My sweat-soaked skin tingled with unease.
My nightmare had followed me into reality.
I sat up against the headboard, and as my eyes adjusted to the soft glow of the streetlamp filtering in, I looked into the eyes of another.
I went to scream but made no sound, sweet spice filling my airways. The lingering scent was one which catapulted me back into a world I longed to escape. Back to a man I tried so desperately to run from.
The ominous figure stood motionless at the end of the bed, but despite being shrouded in shadows, I knew who he was.
Mason Carter had found me.
He watched, observing my fear, caught in a silent standoff with a girl he’d relished in traumatizing for so long.
“Mason?” I whispered, hoarsely. He wouldn’t have heard. A flicker of light pulled my eyes from his face to his hand.
A knife. Its blade glinted with his slightest movement.
He wasn’t going to do this. Not again.
Lunging into action, I reached for the lamp to my right, fumbling desperately for the switch. The light cut through the darkness in a heartbeat, but by the time I turned back, the dark figure was non-existent. Mason had gone. His cologne remained, the only real evidence to prove I wasn’t going mad. Leaping from the bed and with courage barely mustered, I ran down the hall flicking any and every switch possible until the whole apartment was illuminated. And there in the living room, I stared at the one thing that proved I was, in fact, going stark raving mad—the waist-high bookshelf was still in place covering the door.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered, still feeling the anxiety gripping my stomach and only slightly foolish.
Relieved it was only my senses playing a cruel trick on my sanity, I headed to the bathroom switching the lights off as I passed. Entering the bedroom with a moment of foreboding, I glanced at the end of the bed where Mason’s apparition stood only minutes ago, to see nothing but empty space. Rounding the corner of the bathroom, I caught my reflection in the mirror, but it wasn’t the dark circles under my eyes that stopped me in my tracks. It was the mirror itself. There, in large bold letters with what appeared to be blood, was a message well and truly meant for me.
It was a message to prove that I wasn’t going mad after all.
A message left by Mason Carter.
Little Wren
Chapter 9
THEN
“Truth or dare?”
I smiled and so did Lucas. He knew I would always choose truth because when you were in the company of two boys, the dares were physical and often impossible for me to accomplish. We paused at a stream before I could answer and watched the heavy flow of water gush down from the nearby mountain. It had been raining fairly consistently at night, and the creek bed was now swelling. The water was now a good yard deep, and the current was strong.
“Here,” Lucas offered his hand, and I accepted. He took the lead and the three of us, with Mason behind me, felt our way carefully over the raised boulders that acted as stepping stones.
“Be careful, Gem, the next one is—”
“Shit!” I squealed feeling my foot slide right over the moss-covered rock. My ankle twisted and Lucas’s grip loosened while my free arm flailed, desperately searching for something. Anything. Behind me, Mason cursed, his arms hooking under mine, cheeks grazing as he attempted to steady me. I inhaled his heady scent. Mason was the only teenager I knew who wore cologne and there wasn’t a time I hadn’t smelled it before I saw him coming. It was sweet, yet masculine.
“Jesus, Gem,” Mason grunted. “Watch your step.”
“She knows,” Lucas interjected before I could respond.
“If she knew, she wouldn’t have almost cracked her head open on the boulder.”
I was hoisted upright, Lucas pulling while Mason heaved. We all stared down at the angry gushing water surrounding us.
“Sorry,” was all I could offer.
“We’re not far away,” Lucas said, eager to change the subject. “We need to keep going before…” he pointed skyward, “… it gets dark.”
Taking greater care, we conquered the last few boulders and continued the journey through the thick woods.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Mason reminded us of the game.
“I choose truth.”
“I don’t think we could handle giving you a dare. It’s too far to carry your clumsy ass home.” For the typically hostile brother, Mason was considerably more relaxed. More so than I’d ever seen him, especially considering everything that had been happening at home. He almost made it easy to like him. When he was in a sociable mood, it was fun to be in his company. When he snapped, and that fun turned to spite? I couldn’t get far enough away.
“Who was your first kiss?” Lucas, who was still leading up front, asked without turning around.
Despite no one being able to see my face, my cheeks heated. The Carter brothers had never, at any stage, attended the same school as me, so there was a portion of my life they’d never seen, and that included possible boyfriends.
“Pick another question,” I said, keeping my tone light.
“Nah ah,” Mason refused.
“Please.”
Lucas turned for a brief moment to catch my eyes before turning back. “What’s wrong, Gem?”
“Nothing… I just can’t answer that.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Mason baited.
I heaved in frustration. “I can’t answer it because I’ve never kissed anyone.”
Lucas came to an abrupt standstill causing me to collide with his back.
Behind me, Mason laughed.
Inwardly, I cringed.
Lucas turned and gave a small smile. “That’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Gem,” he said quietly, eyes softening, fingers gently touching mine.
“I’m not embarrassed,” I lied.
“Keep that up, and you’ll be sweet sixteen and never been kissed,” Mason continued the jibe, shaking his head in amusement, and by-passing us to take the lead.
“Don’t listen to him,” Lucas assured, loud enough for his brother to hear. He smiled his lop-sided smile I’d always found endearing and wondered for the millionth time what it would be like to kiss those lips. Many times I’d seen Lucas look at me the same way I did him. Like he wanted to close the space between us and take our friendship to that ‘something’ more. But there was always hesitation. I hesitated. He hesitated.
The intensity in Lucas’s eyes tingled my skin. Nervously, my tongue slid over my bottom lip, and my best friend’s eyes followed the movement, his fingers reaching for mine once more. Before they could touch, another pair of eyes watched from over Lucas’s shoulder. Mason’s narrowed, concentrated gaze told a story that turned the pleasurable tingles from only moments ago to something more spine-tingling. Two brothers with the same genes, yet they couldn’t be more different. One looked at me with the kindest, most endearing tenderness, while the other had a heart of malice waiting for the perfect time to hurt me.