Burnt

Chapter 29: Dreams

Alison's POV

I wake with a thin sheen of sweat coating my entire body. The blanket bunched up by my face is cold and wet. I sit up quickly, climbing out from underneath the sheets sticking uncomfortably to my skin.

Like always, it was a blur of flames. I can never see through them. The smoke burns my lungs but I'm yelling out words I can't hear anyway. Then, there's a loud thud and my head hurts. My shoulder burns even though the ground is freezing beneath me. It repeats until I wake up.

I shuffle to the end of the bed, not wanting to climb over either of my mates. It doesn't surprise me that Chris wakes up anyway. He moves to sit next to me still half asleep.

"Was it the same?" He asks, gently placing his hand over the strap of my tank top. The palm of his warm hand sits comfortingly on the clammy, scarred skin at the top of my shoulder blade.

My head turns to look at him. "It always is." I shrug uselessly. "I wish it was clearer. Maybe I could make sense of it." I say as if we don't know what it is. It's the worst night of my life. There's nothing else I can take from it.

So why do I want to know more?

"Have you looked into it?" His tone is as gentle as his fingers skimming up and down my spine.

A breathy chuckle akin to a snort blows through me. "No. I've never had the time." I say for what feels like the hundredth time. As if I could squeeze in time between pack politics and vampire problems to look deeper into the specifics of that night.

He nods, seeing my point. "Well, we could. I mean, starting with the records from the hospital and the reports from the warrior station that handled it." I listen as he points out things I never thought to look at.

Maybe I never thought about it because the gain would be purely personal. Putting time and effort into things for myself was never my strong suit. "I guess that's an option." I acknowledge the idea without agreeing to it. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"I think that maybe you need to." He utters, pushing the subject further. "You haven't had them forever. These dreams are a relatively new occurrence. They could mean something. Besides, we surprisingly have very little things to do today."

My eyes twitch, fighting a roll because I know that he's right. "You know, I miss the days without magic disrupting my life. When a dream was just a dream and I could go about my day." I long for the life that I once wanted out of. My head drops into my hands.

"I don't." Chris comments, shocking me. I look up to him with questioning eyes. "I don't miss anything about life before I had you."

He averts eye contact, opting instead to look at the floor. My hand reaches for his face. I make him look back to me. "You're right. Problems always exist, at least now we go through them together."

The smile on my face reflects onto his as we look at each other. I guess we now have stuff to do today other than the default; searching the racks in the library for any shred of relevant information.

Cameron doesn't wake up for another couple of hours. I rush him into getting dressed as soon as he does, explaining our new supposed lead as he goes. The three of us walk to our floors living room together once we're all ready.

"Hey." I greet the eight people sitting around the room watching the tv. "Who wants to go to the hospital and warrior headquarters?"

Both Zach and Luca immediately shake their heads. I wasn't really talking to them anyway though. Six vampires is a lot to have following you around running errands. We've come to realize that the public only needs to see one or two with me when I'm out and about.