Strands of my hair fall into my eyes as I tip my head to the side. “But where are we even… The last thing I can remember is being in a cabin in Enchantment with Foster and Easton and no one could get to us and vice versa? So how did I end up here in this creepy forest with you?”
“Well, from what I understand you’ve been out of it for a bit.” He reaches out and taps his fingers against my temple. “Stuck in your own mind, which coincidentally enough is where we are right now.”
I blink, unsure I heard him correctly. “My mind? How can you be in my… Oh…” It clicks. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” I ask and he nods. “But then how are you here?” I eye him over. “Or are you just a dream?”
Instead of answering me, he gathers my hand in his and lines my palm against his chest. A chest that feels very solid and very real. Well, except for the fact that his heart isn’t beating.
“Do I feel real?” he asks, his intense gaze making my pulse quicken.
I give a shaky nod. “But why can’t I feel your heart beating?”
A smile spreads across his face, but I detect the slightest bit of sadness in the link.
“My heart never beats, even in real life,” he says with an indifferent shrug. When I open my mouth to ask why, he places a finger to my lips. “What’s wrong with me isn’t important right now. What is, is getting you out of this dream and getting darkness out of you.”
I want to ask him so many questions, but get distracted by something he said. “Wait… Darkness is in me…”
Images flash through my mind, bright and painfully potent, ones of me realizing my kiss killed Brody. “Oh my God… I’m a murderer… I remember now…”
As panic and guilt blaze through me, the wisps of darkness hovering near the trees start to slither toward me.
Porter flicks a glance over his shoulder at the wisps, then looks back at me, cups my face between his hands, and looks me straight in the eye. “You’re not a murderer. You didn’t try to kill anyone. It just happened and I might add, because of a stupid decision Brody made. And you need to understand that our world doesn’t work like the human world. Stuff like what happened to Brody happens all the time, and if you get hung up on it, you’re going to end up destroying yourself. And for what? Because some fucking asshole thought it was okay to force himself on you?” He shifts his weight. “I know who Brody was and if your kiss hadn’t stopped him, he wouldn’t have stopped.”
His words seep through my chilled skin and the darkness falters and scurries back as my attention becomes tethered to Porter’s words.
“How do you know that for sure?” I whisper, searching his eyes.
He mulls over something, a hint of worry zipping through the link.
“I’m sure you’ve caught on that I’m a bit…” He nibbles on his bottom lip. “Different.”
I give a hesitant nod. “Yeah, but no one’s told me why.”
“That’s because I’m not a fan of creatures knowing too much about me.” He pauses, studying me with his head cocked to the side. “However, I think, considering what we have to do to get you out of here, I may need to explain a few things about me.” He withdraws his hands from my face and sits down onto the ground in front of me with his knees bent in front of him. “I’m not going to get into all the details of how it happened because we don’t have time for that, but what you should know about me is that technically I’m not alive.”
Well, that explains the no heartbeat thing. That doesn’t make what he said any less confusing, though.
A smile quirks at his lips. “Max is right. You’re adorable when you’re confused.”
My heart flutters in my chest, but I tell it to shut the hell up, because seriously, it’s not supposed to do that. Not to mention do it while I’m in the middle of some creepy ass forest that I’m assuming is a dream and darkness is teasing me in the distance.
But when my heart does that fluttery thing again, I internally sigh. I don’t understand what’s going on with me. Why I feel drawn to the Portersons and why guilt consumes me when I feel something toward one of them.
“Compliments make you uncomfortable, don’t they?” he muses, the moonlight highlighting the twinkle in his eyes.
I scratch at my wrist. “I don’t know… I mean, I’m not used to them, so…” I shrug, feeling uncomfortable with the topic.
“Hmmm… You might want to change that.”
“Why?”
“Because you might be getting a lot of compliments in the future.”
“Again, why?”
“Because.”
I frown. “You’re being very vague.”