Hired Hunter (The Rover 2)

I got to my feet and circled her log to look around for a watch, but nothing lay on the ground, nor was she wearing one.

Maybe she’d meant for me to look at her. To see something. I spun back around in front of her and lined up our faces. She continued through her pantomime, and again I couldn’t make out the words, or any way to break through to her.

Shit. Shit. Fucking shit.

I really hoped I wasn’t about to have to watch Fin’s sister get murdered in front of me. Boy, would that be one hell of a conversation when I woke up.

I didn’t like this at all. Right now, I wanted to open my eyes, snark at Fin, and have him stare back at me in his usual unbothered way.

I rubbed my face and then skimmed fingers up over my head to push my hair away.

“Wake up,” I whispered to myself, as I squeezed my eyelids tight together. “Wake up.”

Nothing happened.

Sol still carried on her invisible conversation. She’d relaxed a bit more, which boded well, but I still wanted out of here.

I lay down on the ground in front of Sol and stared up at the sky, ringed by the tree canopy in my peripheral vision. Then I closed my eyes and walked myself through relaxing. It was a song my mother had taught me as a child. Fingers, toes, knees, and ears. A lullaby to relax each body part. It rarely failed to send me into a deep sleep. I figured if I could sleep here, maybe I would wake up in my world.

I squeezed my eyes tighter and balled

my fists, counter to the relaxing advice, and tried to will my mind to quiet. When that didn’t work, I resumed my song, naming my body parts in my head as I traversed my entire frame.

When I reached my face and ears, I slipped up. Drifting off in my own bed, into a proper sleep, was always soothing. This felt like slipping feet first into an oil well. In a way, it felt like a drug taking hold of my system, spitting me out the other side of a high I didn’t want any part of.

If I made it home, I knew one thing for sure: it was time for Fin to teach me how to do magic. At least the basics. Right now, my world spun, and the out-of-control feeling of it made me want to punch something to re-establish my dominance.

I squeezed my eyes as I reached the edge of the oil slick, and the last image burned in as I finally went under.

Chapter Seven

I awoke with a jolt and then a splitting pain down the center of my forehead. It took a few seconds of blinking and rubbing the spot to realize Fin hovered at the edge of my bed, clutching his forehead similarly.

“Were you watching me sleep?” I asked.

He took a few deep breaths before dropping his hand. “I could tell something was wrong. You were twitching and sort of whimpering while you were sleeping so I tried to pull you out of it, but I couldn’t reach you.”

I fisted the covers up around my hips, just in case. I didn’t need him to see my sloth print sleep shorts. After what felt like an eternity in that dream world, being back in my skin seemed to be the strange place.

“Are you okay?” Fin asked and plopped down on the edge of my bed.

As always, he looked immaculate in a slim cut black suit, the jacket open to reveal a white shirt and a gray pattern tie. His hair hung loose around his chin but had obviously been brushed back by his fingers a few times since he woke up.

I shook my head. “This time was different. Sol was there, but she didn’t seem to be able to speak to me. I kept trying different things to get her to talk, but she wasn’t responding. She just sat there, kind of like an animatronic robot waiting to be plugged in.”

I debated on telling him about the trees, and about how the forest seemed to be alive around me as I passed through it. Would it matter? Did that information help him figure out her location? I doubted it, since he still believed the Black Mage behind her appearance in my dreams.

I rubbed some grit for my eyes and brushed back stray hairs around my face that had fallen out of my ponytail while I’d slept.

Fin patted the bedcovers and stood to button his jacket. “I’ll go make some breakfast. Come out whenever you’re ready.”

Once the door sat firmly shut between us, I climbed out of the bed, grabbed some clothes from my dresser, and went into the bathroom to shower.

The world seemed too bright and too big around me, like I stood in a bubble waiting for it to pop any moment. While I brushed my teeth, I thought about Sol and my short-lived hunt for the watch she mentioned. She’d said watch, but how could I know if she meant a wristwatch or that she wanted me to see something.

I brushed my hair up into a bun. Because of the length of my hair, it would still be damp in the evening if I kept it up all day, but I didn’t feel like fussing right now. I stuffed my legs into a pair of jeans and pulled on a T-shirt. Once I was ready, I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. No use stalling. Fin, or the captain would just come in my bedroom to hunt me down, anyway.

I exited out to my living room quietly and then jerked to a stop as I surveyed the space.