Impending Mate, The Moltiare Collection: Bk2 (Sample)(Available on Amazon/SW)

Chapter 9 (Allison)

Sometimes it was cold, dark, and quiet, and sometimes it was as bright as a shot off the barrel of the gun I stared down while my heart was thumping in my chest, but there was always a constant in the dreams. At some point there would be screaming, and then blood would collect on the floor in amounts that could only be seen in slasher movies. A little girl would lose her parents, and I’d be haunted by the fact that I had killed the man that did it.

I rubbed my eyes lightly as the last of the nightmare slipped away. It was the first I had in two months, just as I thought that they’d all but vanished, but here they were again, rearing their nasty head. As if they were the consequences of this morning, or knowing that Selene had been so close.

“Where is the train taking us?” I asked as Aaron pulled open the door to our cabin, stepping in with a handful of items that I had never seen before.

Once we were confident that the train had pulled far enough away from the station, we moved up the steps and into the seating area where smiles and cheers were thrown at us. It seemed that almost everyone had witnessed our run to safety, but to them it had been no more than a young couple struggling to catch their train. I wished that were all it was.

We had managed to claw our way up to the first class cabins, and with a couple hundred dollars, Aaron bribed the Steward into leading us to only empty one on the car. I rested up against the window, watching the scenery whizz by and waiting for the terror to calm itself, but I kept shifting in discomfort. It was quiet in here, but Aaron did his best to fill the space with chatter and humming until I drifted away.

“Towards the southern Appalachians.” He answered as he closed the door and dumped the contents in his arms onto the seat, “We just passed into Kansas.”

I blinked at him, “I slept through that?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged as he went through the pile, “I figured that you needed to sleep off your mood so I just left you to it.”

“Thanks….I guess.”

Then it grew quiet again. Though I could already feel myself shifting with a need to fill the space with some sort of sound, I kept quiet too, watching him as he moved the objects aside and stuffed them into his bag.

A matchbook went into a side pocket, granola bars into the other. A soft rattling noise grasped at my attention and I looked to see him holding a bottle of aspirin. His eyes met mine, only for a moment before he slipped the bottle into the front pocket, zipped it back up and gave me a pointed stare. It took a moment before I could nod, maybe because it took that long for me to understand.

The aspirin was there if I needed it, but he’d be watching me.

“I also got this off of some kid in second class.” He stated as he pulled out a small mp3 player and the bundle of headphone wires that had been wrapped around it.

“What in the hell do you need that for?”

“Not for me.” He shook his head as he began holding it out, “For you.”

My fingers twitched, my mind itching to take in the sound that would drive the madness away, but I didn’t reach for it.

“Why?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he examined me, “Because silence terrifies you, brings back everything that you never wanted to see or hear, and makes you feel inferior.”

I choked on my next breath, not because of his words, but because of how accurate they were.

“Way to make a girl feel special.” I muttered as I looked away, hiding the redness in my cheeks.