“Here he comes, and you look afraid, Little Blood Rabbit… you don’t wish to relive it all, do you?” he asked, making me close my eyes tight, finally able to shake my head as I tried to block it all out. Block out the way I cried. The way I called for my dog, begging for him to come back. Crying into his bloodied fur how sorry I was. I wished I could have taken it back. The instant regret weighed on my young soul.
“Don’t force me to be cruel and open your eyes for you,”he warned, making me do as he asked, watching the very second that my father burst from the door. The wailing child’s scream like a siren in the night.
“NOOO!” my own scream carried it on, but the demon at my back wasn’t deterred.
“Ask me and this all ends…ask me quickly!”His voice took on a desperation and just as I opened my mouth to ask him to take me away, I heard it.
My name.
“Vanessa… Vanessa!!”I heard it shouted through the veil of this nightmare, penetrating through the darkness of this horror. But then it was the child of me that offered solace, and she turned to look straight at me. My father was only a foot away as she told me,
“Time to wake…they found you in time.”
I heard the growl at my back before suddenly everything disappeared. The arms around me became black smoke swirling around my body, along with the shadows of my past, now evaporating into the sky. Each one took away the nightmare, as if this had all been painted with ash and the wind was washing it away from my reality.
The strength to keep upright was gone. Vanished, along with the last of my willpower to withstand any more. So, I fell to my knees as reality infiltrated the nightmare’s cruel grasp on me, allowing me to lift my head the second I heard it. My name once more being shouted by Victor and Talon, who were running toward me. Running across a rooftop garden with its center no longer showcasing my sins. Sins of my past now replaced by a shimmering swimming pool.
But soon they were both blocking all else out as they reached me, just as my mind gave up. Which meant the last thing they heard me say as they took me in their arms was nothing they would ever make sense of.
But the demon would.
Because he already knew. He knew that…
“I called him Peter,” I told them both and before I lost consciousness, I added…
“And I was the Rabbit.”
18
WHEN I WAS THE RABBIT
Everyone had their limits.
My past was mine.
Which was, no doubt, why I fainted only seconds after they reached me. As for what came next, my consciousness only kicked back into gear when I felt myself being lowered down on the couch. Which meant before I even opened my eyes, I commented dryly,
“I’m getting the chains again, aren’t I?” I heard Victor sigh before I opened my eyes to find him sitting next to me, the look of frustration clear on his face. But instead of getting angry at the situation, he simply smoothed back my hair. As for Tal, he came into view carrying a glass of water, the same tense look etched on his face.
“Here, drink this,” he said softly, handing it to me and prompting me to sit up, so my back was to the armrest. Then he took a seat at the coffee table, meaning both men were now opposite me. Their expressions worried and anxious as they waited for an explanation to why they just found me up on the roof.
“I don’t know how it happened,” I admitted after taking a long drink, my throat raw from screaming… unless none of that had been real either. I just didn’t know anymore.
“I woke up and neither of you were there,” I added when they continued to silently wait for more. However, the second I said this, they both looked at each other, and I had a feeling this hadn’t happened that way.
“You slipped from between us during sleep, we woke to find you missing,” Victor told me, surprising me with this knowledge and I knew they could tell because my expression spoke volumes.
“But how… I mean, if this was all just a dream, then how did I get to the roof?”
“That’s what we would like to know,” Tal said, his voice tight, and clearly thinking of what could have happened had they been too late.
“Have you ever woken to find yourself sleepwalking before?” Victor asked, making me shake my head.
“No, never.”
“Then you were lured out there,” he replied with a hard tone, one that made a muscle jump in his chiseled jawline.
“By the shadow demon?” I asked before I could stop myself, making Victor jerk back a little. Tal was quick to shoot a dark look to his brother.
