Page 9 of Dead Man's Wish
Sweat beads on my forehead, and the nape of my neck turns hot. My chest heaves as my hand continues to hover over the doorknob. A scratching noise catches my attention; it’s just beyond the door. I muster any courage I can find. The knob is cold in my hand and when I look down, I notice the absence of my rings. Still, I turn and push. It’s not easy to move. The door feels solid and unbelievably heavy as I force it open.
Despite the windows on the side of the building, hardly any light comes through.
The air is stale, but more than that, it’s stifling. It hits me and I can’t breathe, but I can’t panic—my feet just keep moving forward. The room is empty except for a chair that sits in the middle. A faint glow that should be full sun highlights a few metal edges. My feet crunch on decaying wood.
There’s a metallic bang as a floodlight illuminates the chair from overhead.
It’s brief, and I startle at how quickly it came and went in time with the noise. A heaviness floods my body and mixes with the suffocating air. I go into a full panic. I want to look around me but I’m stuck.
Another bang, and the floodlight turns on again.
This time, the light lasts a few seconds longer and I take in the chair's altered appearance. Blood is smeared across the back and seat, some even drips down the sides and legs. My feet are glued where I stand and I can’t leave. I want to leave. I need to.
Leave.
Leave.
My chest heaves as I gasp for fresh air that won’t come and forcibly blink the scene away. There’s a temperature change, and while I don’t see my breath, I’m certain I could have. The beats of silence are longer.
Longer.
Lingering.
Looming.
I want to call out, but much like my feet, my voice is trapped and stuck just on the precipice of yelling. It burns as I wait for this torture to end.
Bang—the image before me is the man I love on the bloody chair, bound and . . . dying. The light illuminates the horror in a worse form than I initially experienced. His blood is stark red and pouring everywhere. The volume isn’t even anatomically accurate at this point, but it won’t stop—I can’t save him.
Jaiden.
Jaiden.
His face is so pale, and the lively glow in his stare is dimming. Crisp green eyes are fading and graying. He has to stay with me. What am I going to do if he leaves?Call for him. Get his attention.
“Jaiden!”
My eyes popped open, but the bloody image of Jaiden had been seared into my brain a long time ago. I looked around in the dark—I was in the cabin of a plane. People were sleeping, some watched movies, and in the seats across the aisle, Kel and Mari leaned on each other.
I remembered. Jaiden had woken me up and I was groggy as fuck, but we made it to the airport and I napped on and off where I could. I fell asleep after we settled, and the nightmare was the same one from last night.
“Bexley,” Jaiden whispered sternly from my left. “Are you okay?” When I looked up at him, worry knitted his brows even though he attempted to school his features.
“Same as last night,” I muttered.
“Last night?”Shit.I didn’t tell him why I was groggy and ragged. “You were frantically chanting my name and shaking in your seat. What the hell do you mean it’s the same as last night?” He leaned in closer, but truly it didn’t take much to do that in this space. He was jammed into that small plane seat, and he practically sat in my lap when he started his interrogation.
“I—my nightmares are back,” I whispered into the space between us. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“You’re telling me now so it’s okay. What do you need? I can get your bag and meds.” I put my hand on his chest when he started to reach beneath his seat.
“I’m okay for now. I promise.”
“Do you want to talk about it? How far . . .” He didn’t need to finish his question. I only had one nightmare, really. Bad dreams came and went, but this nightmare—night terror—repeated itself enough times that after the third or fourth night, he knew exactly what was happening.
“You, I woke up when it flashed to you.” I hadn’t removed my hand from his body. His heart beat beneath my hand and provided reassurance that it was all a horrible dream. There were stages to this nightmare, and every time that it came, the agony would prolong to the next-worst thing imaginable. The farthest it took me had been a face-to-face meeting with Brent. It came two flashes after Jaiden sat dying in front of me.
“Where did it end last night?” he asked in earnest. His large hand smoothed down some flyaway tendrils before cradling my face.
