Page 4 of Synodic

The darkness I’d not-so-silently been living with was compounding on me by the second. Normally, I could still walk, move, and cry out into the night. Not this time. The impossible weight pressed down on me with the force of a pitch-black centrifuge, causing my body to fight in on itself.

Every second was an agonizing eternity.

Night after night I endured this hell, but it had never been this bad. I knew something was bound to break, I just couldn’t let it be me.

I pushed back on the nameless and faceless enemy that threatened to destroy me, fighting back with the faintest embers that existed in the small in-between spaces of myself. I was battling with everything I had, however meager, and it wasn’t going to be enough. I was about to shatter all over the floor of my mind.

Resisting to the bitter end, I gave one last pathetic yet defiant push with my whole body and soul.

The compressed atmosphere popped with a releasing hiss, and I gasped in a breath that pierced my lungs. My whole body arched skyward as if I were coming up for air, as if I had been submerged my entire life and this was the first true breath I’d ever fully taken.

The inhale was full and unstinting, and it immediately welcomed in the spiraling scents of wild evergreens, rain-soaked earth, burly wooded bark…and something else, somethingmore.

The breath rocked me so thoroughly that I collapsed to my hands and knees, panting as inky whorls dispersed around me.

The fissure of relief was just enough that I was able to lift my gaze to a lush forest teeming with emerald life. But what should have been a resplendent view was distorted and warped by the fumes of my broken darkness. Strands of midnight billowed unnaturally between the towering trees and lofty canopies while shadows twisted at the splayed ferns, gnarled roots, and large, mossy stones. Even the ground shifted with a lazy fog.

My skin prickled under the weight of a commanding gaze, and my eyes snapped to the tall, unmoving shadow in the distance. Fear spasmed up my spine as the faint silhouette of a man appeared through the sweeping coils of mist.

Petrified to move from my plush nest of greenery, it was all I could do to squint to see him more clearly. Despite the murky brume, and the shadows that pooled in the hollows of his face, I could still tell, or more accuratelyfeelwhen our gazes locked. He seemed to peer closer, as if shocked to discover my own stare intently fastened upon him. I thought I detected the slightest twitch in his expression, but it may have been a trick of the fog.

I let my sights wander to the rest of him, only able to make out prominent attributes like the tanned hue of his skin and the loose waves of dark hair tousled around the nape of his neck. Rugged stubble shaded the lower half of his face and outlined the hard, unflinching line of his mouth. His powerful frame implied a raw strength of body and movement, and his stature belied a height sure to tower over my own five-foot-seven.

He could easily overpower me, if it came to that. But he came no closer than the tree line; only the smoke daring to move between us.

His rigid body suggested he was waiting for me to make the first move. But why? Who was he?

Unsure if he would let me by unscathed or if he only enjoyed pursuing what ran, I rose to my feet, not a thought beyond what I would do after that.

Standing before the mysterious figure in the trees, I was suddenly very aware of my vulnerability. I wore nothing but a thin shirt that barely covered me and a pair of panties that left my legs visible like two slips of moonlight. I was nowhere near adequately dressed for a midnight hunt through the woods.

I shivered uncontrollably from the dark wind drifting through the leaves, but it was the hidden gaze I sensed trailing all over my body that had my skin erupting into goosebumps. Every instinct blared within me that this was still a nightmare and he was just as dangerous as he looked.

“Keira.” I heard someone yell my name from behind me in warning, and the stranger seemed to glance over my shoulder in irritation.

I knew the voice from somewhere…it was close and pulled at me to turn around, but I hesitated, caught between the familiar and the unknown.

“Copeland,” they said more firmly, a demand to take a step back when my foot itched to move forward. I scrunched my nose at the use of my surname and ignored their call.

The last thing I should want to do is investigate this shadowed man and forest any further, but my mind desperately wanted to fill in the details still hidden by the eclipsing fog.

“Keira!” the voice shouted in my ear as a firm hand grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me around. My vision fluttered as I spun, and with each blink of my eyes, the forest faded from view, and a man’s face slowly shifted into focus: light, smooth, and blonde.

“Harlan,” I said, waking up in a grog, remembering now that I had invited him over last night in hopes he would keep my mind from the haunted illusions of sleep. A decision I firmly regretted now that I was waking up next to him in my bed.

“You okay?” Harlan’s brown gaze skirted over me standing at the side of the bed. He pulled me back into his embrace, clutching me as if to secure me by his side. “What were you dreaming about? I wasn’t sure if I should wake you, but you were shaking pretty hard.”

Harlan was someone I was occasionally intimate with, but recently I’d been trying to distance myself from him. Despite my wanting to keep things strictly physical and casual, he’d been pressuring me to take our relationship to the next level. I knew he desperately wanted more from me, but it was something I just couldn’t give. Not to him, or anyone else for that matter. That part of me seemed to be broken.

There were a few others before Harlan. I had enjoyed them and our carefree time together, but no matter how clear I was with my intentions, they inevitably wanted more; they always did, so I would have to let them go.

“I’m fine,” I said, still shivering from the effects of the chilling dream. “It was probably from all the coffee I drank yesterday.”

“Or from all the fun we had last night,” he said, flashing me his flawless smile. His hand on my shoulder loosened only to run along the indented curve of my side. “You’ve never invited me to stay over. You always kick me out before the sun rises, but this is nice. I could get used to it.”

Oh shit.

I realized too late the repercussions of my decision to let him stay the night. I’d given him hope; I’d further opened a door to his emotions that was firmly closed for me. It was a bad call, but I was a woman, not a saint.

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