Page 49 of Too Good to Be True

You’re asking the wrong questions. You’re asking about her. You should be asking about me. About Joan. About Rose.

“Rose?”

Light filled the room.

I turned to look toward the door.

Ian stood there, hand out, palm up, stretched toward me.

Don’t take his hand. It’ll be the end of you. They break us. They’ll break you. They broke me. I couldn’t be fixed. Don’t take his hand.

I turned back to Virginia.

“Daphne,” Ian called.

I looked again to him.

Don’t. Don’t take his hand.

“Daphne,” Ian repeated.

You’re not safe. Leave. Go. None of us are safe.

“Daphne!” Ian yelled.

None of us are safe.

“Daphne, come to me,” Ian bid.

Suddenly, I was in his arms.

His face was stuffed in my neck, he shifted so his lips were at my ear.

“I’m going to eat you,” he whispered there.

I shivered with delight.

“Eat you alive,” he growled, his voice wrong, animal.

I pulled away in fear, and I was falling.

Falling and falling.

All I could see were stairs.

Spinning, never ending, white stairs.

I woke, truly woke, on a truncated scream.

I pushed up on an arm, reaching out to the light, turning it on dim.

The shadows slunk away.

“Holy crap, goddamn it,” I muttered to myself.

The room was freezing.

I pulled the covers up to my neck, but I didn’t lay back down. I needed to take in the room. Assure myself I was alone.

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