Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Oh, come on,” Jarett growls, “cut it off, you two. You’d better go change, or you’ll catch fucking pneumonia—”

I’m already walking toward the trees, dragging Cos along by one hand. “I’ll show you.”

As if we weren’t trying to drown each other a minute ago.

I’m back inside the dream, but this time, I control it. Nobody’s after me, no magical subconscious forces march me around like a puppet on strings, forcing me to stare at the dead, to run through the night, to drown in blood.

So yeah, I’ll be damned if I walk away before I find a clue—and it seems Ross feels the same way, as he starts after me, leaving Jarett and Gigi behind.

It’s fucking weird, the dream memories superimposing themselves on reality, ghostly golden trees over the blackened stumps and branches under which we walk. Morning mist winds around the trunks when in my dream darkness is starting to fall.

In my dream I’m alone.

In reality, I have Cos by my side and my family right behind me. No dead bodies. No blood. Ross is alive and well, if annoying as hell.

No swans. No axes. No single unblinking eye gazing at me.

Moving gets me warm enough for my teeth to stop knocking. “This way,” I say, almost seeing from the distance the man staggering behind the trunks, dragging the body behind him. “He came this way.”

“It’s all in your mind,” Ross pants and huffs.

“Here.” I stop, and Cos skids to a halt beside me, hanging onto my hand not to fall.

“What’s here?” she whispers. She looks spooked and chilled, her lips purple. Her jeans are wet—she waded into the stream with the others when Ross jumped on me earlier.

“There’s nothing here.” Ross stomps around like a drunken bull. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“He brought her here.”

“And then?”

“And then… I dunno. I left, I guess.”

“You fucking left?”

“I ran away, Ross,” I explain to him with more patience than I thought I had in me. “I was a little kid. He was the fucking bogeyman. I was terrified, so I ran.”

“What’s going on?” Jarett and Gigi are arriving, pale shadows among the tree trunks. “What are you doing?”

“Merc says this is where the bogeyman dragged the body,” Cos says.

“No shit.” Jarett whistles. “You sure about this, man?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be. I wouldn’t swear it on the Bible, all right?”

They all look around, and see what I am seeing: trees, shrubs, muddy earth.

“Maybe he buried her here,” I say, and I wince, my headache spiking. I see an ax rising and falling, sparkling.

Fuck.

Ross has a wild-eyed look, his back stiff, as if expecting a ghost to appear. It’s not a particularly ugly spot or anything, but I guess I set the mood, made everyone jumpy.

A crash has us all whirling around, gasping, but the two figures approaching are none other than Matt and Octavia.

“Jesus,” Gigi mutters, a hand pressed to her chest. “Are we done here? Can we go home?”

“You wanted to talk.” My voice is hoarse.