Beautiful Dreamer

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

“I knew seeing that woman was a bad idea,” Logan muttered, glancing at me sideways as we dragged ourselves into psych class the next morning. He'd been full of comments like that ever since we'd left Laury's place. Lack of sleep apparently hadn't made him any less crabby about the psychic medium situation. If anything, it probably intensified his annoyance.

“Would you quit it?” I snapped, flashing him a glare as I dropped heavily into a seat. “It's over; it's done. It already happened, so let's move on.”

Logan frowned, setting his things down on the table. We both clutched paper cups brimming with extra-strong coffee in our hands. “I don't know. There was just something about Laury that wasn't right.”

I threw up my hands. “Well, of course there is! The chick talks to ghosts, for Christ's sake! Do you really think she'd be normal?” My outburst drew several miffed from a few older kids, all of them studying silently at their seats. I shot glares in their directions that drove their eyes back to the textbooks in front of them.

“Does that mean you're sold on the whole 'ghost' deal?” Logan asked, obviously incredulous. “Parker, you've got to be kidding me.”

“Logan,” I said, quieter now. “My dog was dragged out of my room and attacked—while she was sleeping. I've been having dreams that don't make sense. And last night, a boy appeared in my bedroom out of thin air and kissed me. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that that kiss was real.”

My best friend shifted at that, his expression becoming uncomfortable at the word kiss. I knew he was trying not to think about it, but for him, this was a jealousy match. He wasn't understanding the full horror of seeing a stranger in your room, while I was having trouble forgetting it. It seemed like every time I blinked, I saw his eyes, felt the graze of his lips, and realized again and again that whatever was happening to me was not a dream.

“Maybe it was a dream, and you just didn't realize it,” Logan tried weakly, but even he knew that the argument was futile.

I raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe some kind of incubus is trying to kill me.”

He let out a low breath of air, shaking his curly head vigorously. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? That does not happen! This isn't a movie, and you're not that possessed girl in every horror film. I know that there's a reasonable explanation for this, and so do you.”

“No, I don't,” I hissed. “I don't know anything except that a demon-thing killed my sister and now the goddamned creatures are coming after me.”

“You can't be sure!” Logan slammed his drink down, sloshing dark liquid onto the desk. The other kids glared, and this time we both ignored them.

“Maybe I can't, but it seems like the best explanation right now.”

“Best explanation—please. Why do you insist on believing this? Do you have some kind of death wish?”

Logan's green eyes were wide, his gloved hands pressed firmly to the top of his head as he attempted to pace back and forth between my chair and his. I watched him from my seat, feeling a strange, contradictory mixture of anger and attraction tickling at my ribcage. And maybe it was the fact that I'd slept for less than an hour and hadn't studied nearly enough to pass my exam, but I was wired and buzzing and my response came out in a confident whip.

“Maybe I do.”

Logan was just opening his mouth to reply when there was a tap against the microphone, and Dr. Hennessy cleared his throat. “Good morning,” he intoned, addressing us from his podium. “I ask that you all put away your study materials at this time. The midterm is rather long, so we'll begin right away...”