Return (Coming Home #1) (7 page)

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 ca
n
not 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
b
y 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.

I
t’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 time
s
. 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.
T
hey 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 r
adiates
out of me from within.

I feel like a gong. Like someone
h
it 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.”

M
y 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.
I
t’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 str
u
ggle 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 the 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 co
m
forting.

“Bolt cutters,” he says softly. “I’ll get a new lock for you tomorrow.
O
ne 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.

The prestige
i
s so thick in the air at
my
old college
, Yates University, that you c
an
eat it with a fork. You c
an
smell it, too—or maybe that
i
s something else
I
sniff as the late-summer air choke
s
me.

I
sniff again.

No, that definitely
i
sn’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.

I have a real job.

Heels clicking on the uneven cobblestones, the hypnotic sound soothe
s
me, my hands smoothing the
thrift-shop
suit I w
ear
today.
M
y lilac silk shell
(ninety-nine cents because it was red-tag day at the thrift
shop)
is
neatly tucked into the waistband of a skirt I’d let out yesterday.

A few extra pounds fill out my frame now.
Three
years of
working midnight shifts processing checks for a bank
have turned
me into a desk jockey.
I could play a vampire in a movie—I am that pale.
 

My body crave
s
movement. Excitement. Change.

“
Hey!” Turning, I see the most delicious set of masculine legs pumping my way.
The legs are attached to a torso chiseled and peppered with dark hair. His arms reach up with such effort and agility. Washboard abs give a display like a work of art.
 

Sweat coats the neckline of the upstretched shirt that covers a guy who couldn’t be more than eighteen, his face intense and focused, so utterly engrossed in trying to catch something that the force of movement entrances him.

I am
invisible.

“
Jim! Watch out!”
 

A shout, the man’s voice a high baritone out of range. A grunt, then—
slam!
I
am
diagonal in mid-air, my heels flying high, the soothing click-clack on stone gone in nanoseconds.
M
y right side
is
now awash in sweaty muscle as I
am
tackled to the ground by a dripping wet piece of marbled sex on legs.
He pins
me to the newly-sodded grass strip next to the sidewalk.

Riiip.

There
goes
the back seam of the only skirt I own, the sound of tearing like hearing my hopes split in two.

Way to go, Carrie. Blow your shot at looking decent before you even sit down at your desk.

My brain processe
s
the moment with two completely different minds. One mind
pictures
what just happened—a game on the quad and a ball that went off course. An accident. Pure coincidence.
 

The other mind apparently is controlled by something deeper. I like the feel of a wall of muscle pressed against my entire body, one knee wedged between my legs, a bone pressing into my hip—oh, dear.

That is
so
not a bone.
 

He knocked the air out of me. And not
just
from that tackle.

Rough hands and a rougher voice enter my co
ns
ciousness.

“Get the fuck off her!” an angry male voice, mature
and refined, growl
s
into the space above me.
A light Irish accent. Or maybe Australian? Something foreign, but in English. A
sudden withdrawal of
movement and the guy who tackled me is flung across the air. He lands with an “oof” sound that makes
me giggle. Even with the air knocked out of me, I can’t help but laugh.
 

“My God, Carrie, are you injured?” The lilt t
akes
on a decidedly Irish accent.
I stop laughing, then look up
i
nto the worried face of Eric Horner.

I ha
ve
n’t seen Eric in more than three years, and he seem
s
bigger. More mature. More substantial.

And definitely more powerful.

“Hey!”
The guy who knocked me over—Jim?—
g
ives
Eric a shove with one hand, barely moving the Irishman. Short hair mean
s
Eric’s deep auburn locks and the long braid he’d worn when I last saw him
a
re
a memory.