Page 171 of Hidden Nature

“You have to find them.”

“You have to stop them.”

“They’ll take more.”

“You’re like us.”

And together, they said, “You could be next.”

The one at the counter turned. He had no face, but lifted a gun.

One by one, he shot them. One by one, they fell. Unable to move, Sloan felt the bullets strike her.

So she fell with them, bled with them.

Died with them.

When she dragged herself free, pressing a hand to her chest, fighting for air, Nash pushed up beside her.

“What is it?”

“I—I—nothing. Just… a dream.”

He switched on the bedside light, then turned her toward him. Cupping her face, firmly, he studied it.

“Flashback?”

“No. No, not really.”

When she started to draw back, he held on. “Then what, really?”

“Just a dream, Littlefield. I have hard ones now and then. Not as often as I did. I’m fine now.”

“If you were, those eyes of yours wouldn’t still look terrified. If I’m good enough to sleep with, I’m good enough for this. So tell me.”

“It isn’t that—” She stopped, realizing she was making it that. “The mini-mart. It’s always the mini-mart, though sometimes when I go in, it changes. The woods, at night, and someone’s hunting me. Or the light’s so bright I can’t see. But it’s usually just the mini-mart. This time the counterman wasn’t there, just someone standing in front of it, their back to me like that night. When I walked in, the five people missing stood there.”

“Five?”

“I found two more.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I walked over here because I needed to walk, to think, to clear my head.”

His thumb brushed over her cheek. “You didn’t say anything about it.”

“It wasn’t the right time. I didn’t want to bring it here with Theo so revved up that Drea was coming. I just didn’t want to bring it into that.”

“Okay. You saw the five of them inside the mini-mart.”

“They spoke to me, each one of them. I had to find them—the missing. Had to find the ones who took then. Stop them. There’d be others. And I could be the next.

“Then the one at the counter—no face, not the one who shot me—no face. He shot each one of them. I couldn’t do anything. It was like being paralyzed and I just stood there while he killed them. And then me.”

She let out a breath. “I always feel it. I always feel the bullets.”

Now he drew her in, gently stroked her back. “I don’t thinkhard’s the right word for a nightmare like that.”

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