My throat makes a strange choking noise after she says that. I wash away the gagging with some coffee. Almost too hot to swallow, it makes a different kind of eye watering happen. I am grateful.
Pain can distract me so easily from confusion and overwhelm.
But pain can’t last forever. Just like love.
A television, attached to the wall above a corner near the front window, flickers with a bunch of changing images. It catches my eye as Amy pops the top off her to-go cup and blows on her hot drink.
“Another missing woman,” I say under my breath. There have been a rash of missing woman cases for a while. I’m reading the words beneath the images. This is the third one. The missing woman is named Dina. Twenty-three. About my height. The woman has brown eyes and black hair.
She looks kind of like Amy looks now, with her hair this dark color and the same style. I shiver at the thought and open my mouth to say so, but Amy speaks first.
“How’s camping?” she asks with a big grin. She knows I’m living in Elaine and Brian’s trailer. I shake off the crazy feeling from the news report and give her a wry smile.
“It’s more fun than I thought, and no roommates,” I confess. “Those assholes back in Oklahoma did give me a gift, though.”
“A gift?” Amy makes an inelegant snort. It turns a few male heads, all curious. “What’d they do, pass on an infectious disease? Get herpes from the toilet seat?”
Now onlookers were openly gaping.
I burst out laughing, and then say, “You can take the girl out of the hair dye and piercings, but…”
Amy’s giggle joins mine and the air feels a thousand times lighter, just long enough for me to take a big sip of coffee.
Ding! Ding! The jingle of the front door interrupts our laughter. Amy’s face goes from full-on happy to a bitchy glare in two seconds. My skin grows cold.
Without turning, I ask her through gritted teeth. “Who just walked in?”
“It’s the dean’s daughter,” Amy says, looking away from the door and playing with the edge of a napkin. Her skirt is a lovely heathered grey and her shirt is a nice lilac that works with her brown eyes and black hair. She looks like she got an Oprah makeover.
I shrug. “Don’t know her.”
“Oh, you know her, all right. Claudia Landau.” Amy’s eyes watch me, narrowed and focused. “Speaking of claws…”
“Claudia—oh, God!” I drop my cup, which is only a few inches from the coffee table. Luckily, I’ve finished two thirds of the delicious drink, so nothing spills. Picking the cup back up, I take a long, slow drink and mouth the words, Is she gone?
Amy’s head shake is hard to see, but I see it. I know my best friend’s signals.
“How can she be the dean’s daughter? She’s the chemistry chair’s daughter,” I whisper. The chemistry chairman at the college is the man who set my father up. Ignatio Landau, the famous almost-Nobel prize winner. He looks like that old dude from the Most Interesting Man in the World beer commercials. If only he acted that way in real life.
Coming back home to work in the dean’s office isn’t just a smart move to get my student loans and debt under control.
I’m here to learn more about what happened at the university three years ago. The chemistry department wasn’t going to hire me, but the offer from the dean’s office meant I had an in.
An in that means I can investigate what really happened with my father’s arrest three years ago.
“Oh, Carrie,” Amy says quietly. And then she goes silent and pulls on my arm. “Do not turn around.” Her voice has a catch in it, like she needs to tell me something. Urgently.
“Stand slowly but do not turn around. Let’s go to the bathroom,” she hisses.
“But I don’t need to,” I insist.
She rolls her eyes upwards so hard I think they’ll dock at the international space station. “Come!” she groans through her teeth.
Confused but obedient, I follow.
The bathroom is a single-use, multi-sex restroom with a sign that insists everyone wash their hands after use. Amy opens the door and shoves me in.
I protest. “Someone might see us and then—”
She interrupts me. “It’s better to be thought lesbians than to have Claudia see you. Not yet,” Amy says, shaking her head.
“What are you talking about? No one will think we’re having sex in a coffee shop bathroom!” Amy was never a drama queen, but I’m starting to wonder.
“It’s a college town, Carrie. People have sex in dumpsters. You think a coffee shop bathroom is exempt?”
Why are my best friend and I talking about lesbian sex in bathrooms during our first meeting in three years? Life is increasingly surreal.
A bzzzz from her pocket startles her. She pulls out her phone. “Damn. A client. I have to go.”
“What about Claudia?” I ask as she opens the door and pulls me out, steering us to the exit. We’re both holding our coffees, still, but my stomach is so clenched I don’t want it anymore.
Bzzzz! If cell phones could sound urgent, this one would win the prize.
Amy walks me to a car parked on the road, a new little Mini Cooper with a convertible top.
I gape as she beeps it open and starts to get in. “What happened to your Astrovan?” Amy’s mom gave her the family minivan our sophomore year, right after she got her license. The van was twelve years old then, and was missing fenders and rear-view mirrors, all taped on with purple duct tape the week before annual inspection.
“Gone. New job pays well enough for this,” she says, smiling wide. The grin fades fast as she opens her window and looks up at me.
“Carrie, I’m guessing you don’t know.” Her eyes darken with worry.
“Don’t know what?” Her cloak and dagger act is starting to wear on me. I finish my lukewarm coffee and pitch the cup in a green metal trash can next to the parking meter.
“The dean. The old one resigned to take a faculty job somewhere else. You have a new boss.”
My blood runs like ice water at her expression. Light fills my eyes and my hands and feet go very, very cold suddenly.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes,” she says as she starts her car. It purrs. The old van used to belch.
“Professor Landau is the new dean? You’re serious?” I can barely get the words out.
She reaches for my hand again. “You look white as a ghost.”
“I feel haunted,” I reply. I can’t keep the edge out of my voice.
Bzzzzz. Amy ignores her phone, but I see her fingers switch, eager to check.
“Just don’t get hunted,” she warns.
She pulls out of her parking spot and comes to an abrupt halt. “And pizza. Tomorrow night. Your place! I want to see the palace!”
And with that she takes off into broad daylight, her little car fading into silence as I stand there, my heart taking over all the space for sound as it slams against the edge of the world.
My new boss is the man who killed my father.
Chapter Eight
“Daddy! Daddy, no!” I shout. I’m facing a long, dark tunnel. My eyes see no light. It’s pitch black and cold. I’m wearing my pajamas. I have no shoes. There is no breeze, but it’s damp. The chill feels like it’s licking my bones.
I don’t know where my dad is. I call out to him, over and over. He never answers. I know he is here, though. Why won’t he answer?
“Carrie,” says a voice I do not know. It comes from above me, and I look up. All my eyes see are blackness. There is no light now. Not behind me, not in front of me, not above. The only way I know I even exist is by touching my arms, my hands, my waist, myself.
“Who are you?” I can barely speak. A cold dread settles in my lips, my neck, along the outlines of my breasts. The fear is primal. I am about to fight for my life. I do not know what I am fighting.
Or who.
“I’m Daddy,” says the voice. It feels like someone is sliding an icicle into my heart.
“Where’s my real dad?” I cry out, my voice high with hysteria, my sense of self fading. I become the darkness, my arms and legs disappearing into it. I’m melting and freezing at the same time, when suddenly my mouth is taken by the cold kiss of a violent being who traps me in something close to strong arms, but they feel like ribbons of death.
I can’t breathe.
The lips of this evil entity suck all the air from me. Its fingers shove beneath my waistband and up under my shirt at once, covering my tender flesh with a cold scrape of pain. I try to cry out and I gag. The sound sticks in my throat. The touch is everywhere. I cannot escape. It violates me. It penetrates me.
It wants to own me.
It wants to kill me so no one else can own me.
The ribbons that bind me begin banging, loud, over and over. The sound is pain, a loud boom that grows until I open my mouth and scream.
But sound does not come out. I gag.
Blood pours forth as I cough up my own heart, still beating—
CRASH!
The front door of the trailer slams open.
“CARRIE!” Mark shouts as I realize I’m screaming over and over, clawing at my throat. I’m sitting up in my small bed and my eyes take him in. I close my eyes and see darkness. I scream more.
I can’t breathe.
“Is someone in here? Is someone hurting you?” he asks, a gun in his hand, pointed down but ready.
I can’t breathe.
My heart pumps so hard in my chest. It feels like it’s in my throat. It was in my throat seconds ago. I vomited it up, right?
No.
That was a dream.
I hang my head and stop screaming. My throat feels like road rash. It’s happening again.
The dreams.
A cold sweat covers me as Mark takes five seconds to check the tiny trailer, prodding the bathroom door open. He quickly sees that no one else is here.
I can’t talk.
I’m still trapped in darkness. I’m still bound by the icy ropes in my dream.
Mark comes to me and sits on the very edge of the bed, holstering his gun. His eyes are cold and sharp. He’s in rescue mode.
Reality seeps in slowly. I’m in my trailer. I can see. No more dark tunnel. My skin is free to move. I lift my arms and put a palm over my heart. It’s still there. My blood pounds in my ears. I can see light.
I’m okay.
The dream wasn’t real.
In the first few weeks after I moved to Oklahoma to follow Dad, the dreams started. The same two dreams. This one, and one where I almost see the face of the being that captures me. Almost.
It’s maddening.
But I’ve spent two years without the dreams. Why are they back?
As I think, Mark studies me. His eyes change. Concern floods the irises until they’re a dark brown with a golden ring. It’s the color of worry. The color of compassion.
The color of love.
“You were screaming,” he says in a voice hoarse with agony. “I thought someone was attacking you.”
They were, I think. Just not in the way you imagined.
I sniff and blink lots of times. My mind feels split in two. Blood floods my arms and feet. My toes feel numb. My lips feel big. Nothing is normal. I pull the sheet over my body and just stare at him. The only sound in my little home is our breath.
We’re both panting hard, but for totally different reasons.
His brow deepens with worry, the muscles around his jaw tight. His eyes flit around the room as if he’s scanning. Surveying. Still on constant watch for danger.
Danger.
“It was a dream,” I finally choke out.
“Some dream,” he says in a voice filled with sympathy. “You really screamed like someone was killing you, Carrie.” His concern becomes greater. Mark’s eyes narrow. He’s watching me like I hold the key to everything.
“They were.”
Alarm floods his features.
“In the dream, I mean,” I blurt out, reaching for his hand. I don’t know why I do that. I can see my hand stretch into the space between us. The part of me that knows it’s wrong isn’t saying anything. The part of me that needs to be connected to Mark must be stronger.
My fingers feel like a brick of ice. His hand is hot. It feels like I’m touching a stove burner and I pull back.
He softens and tilts his head. A wave of sandy blonde hair slides over his worried brow. He reaches for my hand and I let him.
“You’re so cold,” he says, his voice dropping. He sounds so protective.
My teeth start to chatter. He’s right. Suddenly, I can’t stop shivering. Everything in the trailer begins to bounce slightly, like in earthquake scenes in the movies. I shake so hard my skin starts to hurt.
“Oh, Carrie,” Mark says in a voice full of sadness. He crawls across my little bed and moves behind me, kicking off his shoes in the process. They thump—thud thud—and the sound echoes in my head.
Thud thud.
Thud thud.
Like a heartbeat.
Like my own heart in my mouth in the dream.
A sob fills my chest, growing like a balloon. It swells and fills, so big I can’t breathe again. Can’t talk. Can’t anything.
And then Mark is behind me on the bed, his jeans-covered legs around my hips, his heat pressing against my thighs, my calves. He pulls me back against his warm, muscled chest. He tucks the covers up to my chin and wraps his arms around my shoulders.
He’s so warm. He smells like old sweat and dust and coffee and autumn leaves. He feels so good behind me. I can’t stop shivering. The vibration radiates out of me from within.
I feel like a gong. Like someone hit me as hard as possible and now the ripple effects can’t stop.
“Shhh,” he says against my ear, rocking me slightly. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Safe.
Oh, I want to believe him. I lean back and give in, melting into his arms. Mark’s chest moves as he shifts one arm. I feel his gun against my hipbone. He reaches down and undoes his gun belt, as if he read my mind. It thumps onto the fake wood top of the nightstand next to the bed.
He settles back in and I relax again, his heat seeping into me. He’s like a comfort furnace. I don’t feel safer, but I do feel better.
“You can tell me about the dream if you want to,” he whispers, brushing a long strand of hair from the side of my face. His touch is feather light. It makes my heart skitter.
I close my eyes and see the inky darkness of doom.
I shudder. Mark clears his throat and tightens his arms around me.
“Or not. Whatever you need, Carrie. We’ll do whatever you need.”
My shoulders release into him.
“I just need my dad,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes instantly.
“I wish I could give him to you,” he says after a long pause. “But I can’t.”
I know, I think. You’re the one who took him away.
I don’t have to say that aloud. I can tell Mark’s thinking it, too, as he stiffens against me, his arms freezing.
Mark makes a little sound, like he’s breathing through his nose. It’s a sound of frustration, and I feel his throat move as he swallows.
“Some day, Carrie, I’ll be able to tell you what really happened three years ago.”
My turn to stiffen.
“What?” I ask, my body going soft with exhaustion. Of all the times for me to fall apart. “What really happened?” I mumble. His arms are so strong and soft. How can he feel like both at the same time? Only Mark can do that for me.
His hand moves. I know he’s running it through his thick hair. I imagine the pained look on his face. I can feel his struggle in the way his muscles move around me.
I yawn. He makes a little sound of amusement.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m so tired.” I’m not just sleepy. I’m tired. Bone-weary exhausted. Being here in Mark’s arms feels like t
he first time I’ve had a chance to relax in three years. Like I can breathe. Like I’m—dare I say it?
Safe.
Safe but not safe.
God, I’m such a mess inside.
I snuggle in, turning my head. My ear is up against his heart. It’s so steady. All those confused emotions inside me simmer down. I shouldn’t want to be in his arms. I shouldn’t let him do this. The man barged into my trailer in the middle of the night. In fact—
“Wait?” I ask. “How did you get in?”
He brushes his cheek against my hair. It feels weirdly comforting.
“Bolt cutters,” he says softly. “I’ll get a new lock for you tomorrow. One that can’t be snapped with a simple tool.” He mutters something that sounds like he’s mad at Brian.
“Not his fault,” I say, half-asleep. “He jus’ was trying to help.” That doesn’t make sense, but I’m falling. Falling deeper into Mark’s arms, deeper into slumber, deeper into…
Well, something.
“Sleep, honey,” he murmurs in my ear, kissing the top of my head. “It’s all going to be all right, Carrie. I’m here. I’m here.”
As I fade out, I swear I hear him say,
“And I’m never letting you go again.”
When I wake up in the morning, he’s gone.
I’m not sure which was the dream and which was the reality until I see the snapped deadbolt outside, on the ground, staring up at me like it’s a witness to something I don’t understand.
Chapter Nine
The prestige is so thick in the air at my old college, Yates University, that you can eat it with a fork. You can smell it, too—or maybe that is something else I sniff as the late-summer air chokes me.
I sniff again.
No, that definitely isn’t the scent of prestige. It’s the smell of bullshit. There’s an endless supply of it at this college. I don’t care. Increasingly unsure, I take a deep breath and stride with purpose toward Bow Hall. It is the administrative heart of one of the top universities in the United States.
And my new employer.
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