Claiming the Enemy: Dustin (Porter Brothers Trilogy 3)

“I will.”

“While you’re at it, make damn sure he doesn’t go near Ma’s biscuits when she makes them. Them there’s are mine.”

1

The nightmare began as it always did. One second, he was in a deep sleep. Then he was suddenly mentally aware that he was awake, yet his body was incapable of movement except for his eyes, making him powerless to fight the shadowy figure that would enter his bedroom through his closed bedroom door.

Dustin knew it was useless to fight the dream. His body felt as if he were a patient under the effects of anesthesia, feeling the surgeon’s scalpel make an incision into his flesh, unable to cry out and make them stop the surgery.

In his mind, he started counting backward to calm himself, waiting for the shadow to kill him. He was never able to see his attacker. No, the gift he’d had since birth made sure he wouldn’t be able to warn the person whose deaths played out in his bedroom before it happened.

He didn’t know how old he was when the nightmares began. His mother once told him that he would cry nonstop at night when he was a baby. Thinking it was colic, she hadn’t realized it was nightmares until he was able to talk about the boogey man who would come into his bedroom at night. His father would laugh and make fun of him until he stopped trying to explain the dreams to them.

It was his grandmother who had figured out the nightmares increased when someone they knew had died. His father would say it was superstitious hogwash that his grandmother had planted into his mother’s mind, but sometimes he would see uncertainty when the violent nature of the deaths of friends and family were eerily similar to his dreams.

The dreams would increase in frequency and intensity until he was too afraid to go to sleep at night until the victim was revealed. It was only when he grew older and Tate’s, Greer’s, and Rachel’s own gifts became apparent did he realize he wasn’t losing his mind.

The shadow walked on silent feet to stand beside his bed. Then, as the figure bent down until he could smell the rancid odor of death on its breath, Dustin felt sweat bead on his forehead before running down to land on the pillow beneath his head.

Desperate, he lost focus on the numbers he was counting. Instead, he tried to visualize himself sitting beside a still lake with the sun shining down. That was when he abruptly felt a flash of agonizing pain as he felt his legs being twisted until the bones snapped as a crushing weight settled down on his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

His mind screamed at him to fight, to struggle against the shadow that was causing him so much pain. The tendons in his body strained under his flesh, trying to move though paralyzed until his dream finished playing out.

It ended as they all did—with him gasping for air that was no longer there until he felt himself losing consciousness, falling into a pitch-black void before he was plummeted back into his body.

He jerked awake, sitting up in bed. Shaking, Dustin slid his legs off the bed as he reached for them, assuring himself that they were unharmed. Rising, he then started to reach for his jeans but stopped himself. There was no need to wake Greer and Holly up in the middle of the night. Nor was he going to call and wake up Tate and Sutton, who would come over from their home just half a mile away from the house he shared with Greer and Holly.

“Dad?”

The soft knock on his bedroom door had Dustin padding barefoot to it, opening it to see his son standing on the other side.

“I heard a noise. Can I sleep with you?” Logan muttered quietly so he wouldn’t wake the others in the small house.

“Hunter’s outside. We would hear him barking if anyone came in the yard.” Dustin let his son inside his room, watching humorously as the boy took a flying leap onto his bed as he closed the door.

Sliding under the covers, Logan shook his head. “I heard the noise from your room. Were you having a bad dream?”

“Yes, but it’s over now.” Dustin didn’t try to lie about the noise his son must have heard. Lies destroyed lives. He should know, since lies had nearly destroyed his.

Logan’s mother, Samantha, had manipulated him with lies from the very beginning of their relationship. The bitch had no compunction about not telling him about Logan’s existence. He had felt guilty about being the accidental cause of Sam’s death until he had discovered he had a son who she had kept from him. If he had known before, he would have strangled her with his bare hands.