Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Jack didn't get that much sleep.

He hadn't really expected any different. In fact, he didn't think he'd ever sleep soundly again after everything that had happened, but that night had been much worse than he'd been expecting. Jack's slumber had been disturbed countless times by horrific nightmares, most of them pertaining to Alex and his chilling smile. His words echoed through Jack's head over and over again, and he was unable to shake this strong sense of deja vu they inspired.

It felt like Alex had written his declarations on the back of Jack's eyelids, rendering the sleep-deprived man unable to forget them.

And to top it all off, he'd had a weird-ass dream about somebody breaking into the house in the middle of all that. Jack didn't remember much about it, except some unpleasant feelings of fear and what he'd assumed, in his dream, was the sound of the backdoor opening.

The first thing Jack did when he woke up was check the house for any signs of a break-in in order to satiate his mind's desire for proof that it hadn't really happened, and sure enough, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was exactly as he, PJ, and Signe had left it the night before. Nothing was rearranged, stolen, or broken. The backdoor was locked when Jack checked it, as well as every other entrance in the house, and no windows had been broken as far as Jack could tell (and a broken window is pretty hard to miss).

After completing a sweep of the entire house, Jack finally let his guard down and brushed the notion that someone had broken in out of his mind for the moment. It was probably just a dream.

Jack crept down towards the kitchen once he'd finished his search, trying to be as quiet as possible in order to let Signe sleep. He desperately needed coffee right now. The caffeine itself didn't really do much for him, but the taste alone was enough to put him a good mood.

However, when he got downstairs, he found Signe already standing in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast.

The two of them nearly jumped out of their skins upon seeing each other.

"I thought you were in bed," Jack stated after mildly freaking out for a moment. "You were there, like, two seconds ago."

"I thought you were in the bathroom," Signe explained, setting down her toast. "I woke up maybe a minute or two ago, but you weren't in bed, so I just thought you were already up and went to go make myself some toast."

"I was...," Jack started, trying to think of a plausible excuse as to what he'd just been doing, but he found himself unable to fabricate a lie good enough. He decided it would be best to tell Signe the truth about his weird dreams last night. Hiding the whole immortanimus thing before didn't really do either of them any good, despite his intentions, and he also hated lying to her in the first place. He didn't think he could do it a second time.

"I had a really weird dream about someone breaking into the house last night," Jack said, wringing his hands as he talked. He began to walk over to where Signe was in the kitchen, watching her begin to make a pot of coffee as he did so. "And this is going to sound really stupid, but I just wanted to check to make sure it hadn't really happened."

"Did you find anything?" Signe asked, turning back towards Jack as she waited for the coffee to brew.

"Nope. Everything was fine. Doors were locked, windows are intact."

Signe paused to think over what he'd said for a moment, as if trying to remember if she'd seen or heard anything last night that could potentially legitimize Jack's idea.

"I didn't hear anything," she said. "And I didn't see anything out of place either. I think it's safe to say it was just a dream, and after everything that happened yesterday, I don't think having nightmares would really be considered out of the ordinary."