In The Dark Of Dreams Part 21

What you're looking for could be right in front of you, Les had said, just days and a lifetime ago. And she understood now, the double meaning in that statement. She had been looking for mermen. Someone like Les.

But not him.

Just this man. Perrin.

He stiffened when she touched him, then relaxed. "Rest, Jenny. I'll watch out for you."

He still sounded angry. No pleasantries. Nothing soft about him.

But Jenny believed him. She believed him in that deep place inside her heart that believed in magic, and mysteries, and boys on beaches who were born from the sea.

Perrin. His name is Perrin.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Jenny dreamed, and when she opened her eyes inside the dream, she was on the beach, sitting in the sand, watching the waves crash from far away. The old house was on her left, windows dark, slumping on its foundation. Blood trickled down the sagging porch steps. It was just as far away as the waves, but she could see the blood as though it was right beside her.

And it was. On her hands. On her legs.

"Don't look," said a deep voice, and strong pale fingers slid around her jaw, guiding her until she stared at a broad, scarred chest and strong throat. "It hurts you, so don't look."

"You don't know," she murmured.

"I know blood," he said. "I know trouble. I was in your other dream."

Jenny wished she could see his eyes. She had never in the dreams been able to see the face of the boy-and later, the man. It would have helped now, though she couldn't say how. She felt free to say things here that she couldn't while awake; but there was new uncertainty in the air around her, a sense of things falling apart.

"We never spoke of our troubles before," she said, feeling lost. "It was always safe here. The only place in my life where I had peace. Where I belonged."

"You belonged with me," he said, and there was no mistaking that rough voice, or the possessiveness of his hands sliding over her shoulders. "I belonged to you. I always did, from the first time I saw you."

"It was fifteen minutes. I barely touched you. And here in these dreams . . . all we did was hold hands. Watch the sea. Talk."

She had loved talking with him. She had loved holding his hand. Feeling that presence beside her, solid and strong. She had loved it so much. In her dream, she had loved him.

She still did.

His silence was long and heavy. "You're frightened now. Of me. Even here."

Was she frightened? And if she was, should it matter? She had a right to be uneasy, even of him. But only because of the way he made her feel.

Nothing was safe anymore. And this was no longer a dream, where a girl could love without consequences.

She backed away. Just two steps, but in the dream that might as well have been a quarter mile. Her legs b.u.mped against the porch of that old dying house, and the blood on the boards burned her skin where it touched.

She hissed, and he pulled her close again, but there was a roar in the air and the sand shook beneath her, and the sun disappeared behind a wall of water that was big as the sky.

The man roared at the wave, pus.h.i.+ng her behind him. Too late. Water slammed against them, crus.h.i.+ng all the air from her lungs, tumbling her over and over in a blind spin. She heard nothing but the thunder of her heart, and no hands clasped hers. She was alone and dying, already dead.

Until, suddenly, she was not.

She floated, in darkness, insubstantial as a ghost. Water flooded her lungs, but it tasted good, and she could breathe.

In front of her, bodies s.h.i.+mmered. One, larger than the others, broad and masculine. His lower half shone with scales and a silver fin. She could not see his face, but in the dream she knew him as well as she knew herself.

He was caught. Trapped.

Ma.s.sive barbed hooks dug into his skin, attached to braided cords wrapped around the wrists of those who surrounded him. He fought, writhing and twisting, dragging his a.s.sailants-but the hooks were too deep, and there were too many. Blood drifted from his body through the water.

Jenny tried to go to him, screaming as he screamed, but not one inch of her body obeyed her. Frozen. Floating in place like she was just as trapped.

The base of her skull throbbed, and burned.

For you, whispered that dry voice. For you he suffered.

She woke up. Just like that. No lingering in the dream. She opened her eyes from the sea to a dark forest, and lay there, trying to remember who she was and why she kept thinking, No.

Jenny, she told herself, a moment later. My name is Jenny.

She heard movement and turned her head. Perrin was rubbing his eyes, half-sitting up from a spot so close to her she could have stretched out one finger to touch him. His long hair covered much of his face, and he moved as though his muscles were stiff, or just too tired to function.

"You slept," she said, her voice raw, hoa.r.s.e.

"Didn't mean to. Closed my eyes for just a minute." He sounded little better, and hesitated, peering at her through the curtain of his hair. "You were there."

"The beach." Jenny rolled over on her back, closing her eyes.

"The house. The wave." Leaves crunched beneath him, and she thought for a moment he would touch her. She swore she felt the heat of his hand above her arm.

But the heat faded, and she listened to him stand. "Bad dream."

She opened her eyes and looked at his scars. Wondering if hooks had caused those deep silver marks. "What else do you remember? After the wave?"

"I woke up," he said, not looking at her. Jenny couldn't tell if he was lying. It didn't matter. Real or not, what she had seen in that dream was nothing she would ever forget.

She heard a crackling sound. Fish cooked over the fire, impaled on sticks. He must have started them before nodding off. She looked at Perrin again, but he seemed uncomfortable. So was she, Jenny realized. It had been different when she didn't know the dreams were real. Just some figment of her obsessed imagination.

Dreams were intimate. Dreams were part of the soul. She felt a little like she'd just woken up from having s.e.x, and this was the awkward morning after.

Perrin crouched in front of the fire, removing one of cooked fish. Steam rose from the cracked dark skin.

Not quite looking at her, he extended his arm and waited for her to take the fish from him. She hesitated, and he finally met her gaze. Pale eyes. Piercing. Jenny stopped breathing, maybe with a twitch.

"Don't be afraid of me," he said quietly. "Please."

Jenny held his gaze. "Why do you think I'm afraid of you?"

Frustration filled his eyes, maybe a little helplessness. She couldn't be sure. He turned his head before she could look too hard.

"Take the fish," he muttered in a cold voice. "You need to eat."

Jenny took the stick from him. The impaled fish looked at her with shriveled eyes.

"Did it ever occur to you," she said slowly, "that I might not be hungry?"

"Earlier, you said you were hungry." Perrin glanced at her. "When was the last time you ate?"

Jenny opened her mouth to answer him but had to stop. Les had fed her something, maybe, but that had been a lifetime ago. Her stomach felt queasy at the thought of eating.

"Eat," Perrin said. "I don't know where we'll find our next meal."

Good point. The fish was hot beneath her fingers, but she managed to tear off a piece of flaky white flesh and pop it into her mouth. It tasted good, and her nausea subsided.

Perrin removed another fish from the fire. He ate it with a little less care than she had. Jenny watched him openly, but except for a tightening of the muscles in his shoulders, he said nothing.

Judging from what little sky she could see beyond the canopy, it was early evening or very late in the afternoon-though it might as well have been full night in the forest where she sat. It was dark amongst the trees, and the small fire's light was welcome.

Jenny drew in a breath to tell Perrin about the parasite, but her throat closed, and the words only came out as a hiss. An attempt to point at the back of her head failed when her arm refused to move. And when it occurred to her to just flop down and plant her face in the ground-so that hopefully he might catch a glimpse of the d.a.m.n thing beneath her hair-she managed to twitch a full inch before her body shut down. Frozen as a statue.

And thirsty. For salt water.

Desperately thirsty.

Hey, she called out in her mind, willing Perrin to turn around and look at her. Hey!

But Perrin threw away the remains of his fish and stood. Still not looking at her. Silent, tense, every movement fraught with suppressed violence. Should have scared her, but she wasn't afraid that he would hurt her. Her uneasiness was more intimate than that.

The parasite frightened her more. The parasite baffled her. It was clearly intelligent-unless she was hallucinating that voice in her mind. And it was important, the key to whatever the h.e.l.l was going on with Perrin. So why was it lodged in the back of her head?

And what were the odds that it would have brought her and Perrin together again? Why, now, had all the broken s.h.i.+t of her life become tangled with him?

What does all this mean? What happened to that scared little boy on the beach? Why did I dream about you, all these years?

And how, how was it possible, he had shared her dreams? Shared them, until eight years ago-with her always nave enough to think it was simply her imagination? Her desperate, sorry-a.s.s, pathetic heart-aching for something it could never have?

Jenny still remembered that first dream, that first night after she had found him. Falling asleep, only to find herself on the beach, with the sand beneath her feet and the waves lapping the sh.o.r.e, and the wind, the bright sun.

And a presence. The boy.

A flash of silver, pale skin. His hand warm on hers. A soothing touch. Sitting together, in the sand, watching the waves. Taking comfort in nothing but each other. Warm ghosts, with warm hearts.

You searched for him. Searched so long and hard. And he was with you, all along. Inside.

Perrin paced the edges of the small clearing. Studying the trees as though they were the bars of a cage. It wasn't overt. Anyone else might have called it restlessness, burning off excess energy.

Jenny knew better. She recognized that behavior. All the signs were there. And that upset her, more than she wanted to admit.

"Have you ever been locked up?" she asked him.

Full stop. Every part of him, rippling with unease. His skin was golden in the firelight. Silver hair fell over one eye and hung loose and tangled down his scarred chest. She could not see his eyes, but the rest of him was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look.

"Why," he said slowly, "would you ask that?"

Jenny set down her fish, a little too carefully. "Maybe you're claustrophobic. I could imagine that, if you've grown up in the sea, without walls. But there's something more, in the way you move. Like you've been in too many closed s.p.a.ces. Helpless."

Perrin was so still. "Helpless."

Jenny refused to back away from that word. "You've spent time on land. The way you speak and act. I don't think it was pleasant. And then there's the way you keep telling me not to be frightened of you."

He stood there, silent. Outwardly calm, though she could feel, was.h.i.+ng over her, that inexplicable hum of ready violence coiled inside him, along with that same ruthless determination that had let him beat Les until he was unconscious: the same resolve that had saved her life, cared for her while she was ill; carried her through the forest to protect her feet, while his tore and bled.

Innumerable little gestures so at odds with the rough anger in his voice and the remote coldness of all his other actions.

I'm not scared of you, she thought, waiting for him to say something, anything, her stomach tight, heart aching. Of all the impossible things she had learned to believe in . . .

Believe in yourself, she thought, leaning harder against the tree behind her. Believe in what you see. Believe in what you know, in your heart.

Easier said than done.

Perrin swayed toward her, his eyes still hidden in shadow, though the reflection of the firelight on the sharp angles of his face made him look even harder, more dangerous. "How would you know such a thing?"

"I've seen it. I lived it." Jenny tried to stand, but had to clutch the tree as a wave of dizziness made her sway.

Strong hands gripped her arms, then her waist. Those familiar hands. That familiar voice, deep and quiet, that she had only ever heard in dreams.

Those dreams.

"Jenny," he said, and hearing him say her name made her feel so strange. Words welled up in her throat, hard and pulsing, burning through her like fire. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend this was one of those old dreams.

But this wasn't the beach. This was real. She had chased mysteries all her life, for just one reason.

"Jenny," he said again. "You should sit."

"I feel small when I sit," she told him, eyes still closed. He sighed and pulled her close, his arms sliding around her with heavy, comforting strength. He shouldn't have felt so comforting. He was a stranger. No matter their history, tenuous and mysterious as it was.

"What did you mean?" His voice was rough, coa.r.s.e, though his touch remained so gentle. "What have you seen, and lived?"

Her hand slid down between them, touching her stomach. A different kind of ache filled her. "The Consortium. The people who came for me on the yacht. The ones who were in that bad dream you saw."

"They hurt you, before."

Jenny tried pus.h.i.+ng free, but he held on, and she found herself pressed against the tree. Not because of him. She had put herself there, backing away-but he followed, and now loomed above her, unmovable and warm. His hair touched her face, and Jenny shuddered.

"Forget I said anything," she said.

Perrin didn't budge. "You started it."

She shoved at him, uselessly. "Get off me."