Wildest Dreams [ON HOLD]

❝ and my heart don't understand it ❞

You don't mess with love,
You mess with the truth.
And my heart don't understand it,
Understand it, understand it,
Why I got you on my mind?
You think you know somebody.

"On My Mind" -Ellie Goulding

The room was burning when I woke up.

I blinked, my eyes stinging from the thick gray smog hanging in the air. I forced myself to sit up, my head pounding from last night's events.

Where is he?

I have to find him.

I glanced around, but my eyes were blurry with tears and smoke clouded the room, making it impossible to see. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and climbed out of bed. The doorknob burned my fingers as I twisted and pulled the door open.

How did I get here?

Bright orange flames licked up the staircase, most of downstairs ablaze.

He's not in the bedrooms.

Somehow I knew that.

He's downstairs.

Somewhere.

Passed out on the couch?

Or gone?

Hadn't he left?

I called his name.

No. No use.

He wouldn't hear me over the cackling of the fire. If I stayed in here any longer, I would die.

He's probably gone like last time.

Last time?

I ran downstairs, my feet stinging from the hot wood, my breath coming out in huffs as I tried to suck in much-needed air. I reached the first floor and tripped over something lying on the ground. Crawling back, I noticed... Jacen?

He was slumped halfway over the first step as if he had been on his way upstairs... And he wasn't moving.

"Jacen?"

Why isn't he moving?

"Jacen?"

His face was warm, but was that from his body heat or the fire?

We're in a fire.

We need to get out of the fire.

"Lucia?"

Someone said my name.

But Jacen hadn't moved.

No one else is here.

No one else is in the fire.

"Hey! Lucia!"

I gasped, blinking awake. I startled when Nik's face came into focus above me, then shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Need a moment, Valentine?"

Not Nik, Jacen.

I had known that, of course, but I had mixed them up in my dream, and it was still kind of fucking with my head. I grabbed the pillow beside me and pulled it over my face, giving myself some time to compose myself.

"Why did you wake me up?" I mumbled into the pillow.

Hmm, Jacen kind of smelled nice. Kind of soapy and clean, a little lemony... Or that was probably the pillow itself and laundry detergent.