Hunter's Moon

Explaining

My throat hurt—a lot. I couldn't even talk normally. Sophie was lying on my bed the next morning and I must've fallen asleep while we had been doing something because I didn't remember lying down next to the wall.

I cracked my eyes open. They felt like clay had dried on them and I wiped at them. Groaning, I sat up. My throat throbbed at the new angle it had to get used to. I picked myself up and went to the bathroom to check it out.

I couldn't even gasp without it hurting.

Delicately, I ran my fingers over the purple marks around my throat. Had Sophie choked me out? What kind of game had we been playing?

All I could remember was a strange dream that hadn't even felt real. Lincoln had shown up in my room looking absolutely horrible. He had looked angry, afraid, and relieved at the same time. He had put my head in his lap and started muttering weird things to me, telling me it was all right and I could breathe now, that he was there and he would protect me.

But that was absurd. Lincoln no more wanted to protect me than he wanted to be with him. He had fled from me during the track meet.

I poked a purple mark and flinched. Okay, maybe that hadn't been a good idea. It was still obviously tender. I quick ran upstairs to grab Mom's makeup bag. I knew she kept concealer in there and I definitely wasn't going to try to explain this to her when I couldn't even explain it myself.

Thankfully, Mom was still gone and I could creep in without worrying about waking her. She was too light of a sleeper. When I had finished covering the purple bruises, I heard Sophie's shriek from my room.

"Elizabeth!"

"Up here!" I tried yelling but more of whispered. I settled for banging on the wall instead.

When I got to the main floor, I saw Sophie brandishing a rolled up poster. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw and quickly ran to me, wrapping me in a hug. I patted her back slowly, taken aback by how forward she was.

"Okay..." I whispered. "What's going on?"

She dropped her arms and took a step back. "You don't remember?" She looked down. "Your neck looks good, too. Good job."

I raised a brow.

"I was telling you about John and the weird guy came in...," she suggested. "He choked you and then Lincoln showed up and took him away and told me all these things to do to make sure your sore throat wouldn't hurt as bad."

"What?"

"You need to change you locks!" she blurted. "Some creep came in through the sliders by unlocking them! And then he...and then he found us and, and he grabbed you, and your face turned all purple and he told me if I did anything I'd be next and then Lincoln showed up and twisted his neck and—oh God! I thought you were dead!"

"Well, obviously I'm not. Wait. Did you say Lincoln was here?"

"Yeah! He took the creep and ran after telling me what to do with you!"

So my dream had been real. Why couldn't I remember the other guy though?

Sophie must have seen something in my expression because she said, "You should eat something cold. Lincoln suggested ice cream but I think anything cold would do."

"We don't have any ice cream."

She blinked. "Are you serious? Okay, well then drink ice water! Sheesh! He's probably going to come back today to make sure I didn't kill you or something. He seemed pretty adamant about me doing all these things for you."