“I do?”
“Yeah, it’s a tiny one, but it’s there,” he explained, brown eyes flicking to mine. “So Iknowsomething’s bothering you.”
Knowing that he wouldn’t give in until he got his answer, I sighed heavily before admitting, “It’s the nightmares.”
Concern filled his eyes. “They’re happening a lot again?”
I nodded.
“What about the lady?” He didn’t laugh or smirk when he asked. He looked genuinely concerned. “Have you been seeing her, too?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it.” It pissed my father off and I couldn’t risk getting on his bad side. “You know that.”
“You can tell me anything,” Hugh pushed, unwilling to let it go. “And I want to hear about it, Liz.”
I arched a disbelieving brow. “You want to hear aboutmymental delusions?”
“You’re not mental, Liz.” Reaching for my hand, he pulled me onto his lap. “And you’re not delusional, either.” Wrapping his arms around me, he snuggled me tightly. “But you may be guilty of being a little weirdo.”
“You dick,” I snickered, elbowing his stomach. “You know what they say about weirdos, don’t you?”
“They’re drawn to fellow weirdos?” Hugh mused with a knowing smile. “That must be why I’m so obsessed with you.”
My heart skipped a solid three beats in my chest when he said that.
Feeling irrationally excited, I burrowed in closer, wishing I could weld my body to his and never be parted. “Hugh?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you think she’s real?”
“The scary lady?”
I nodded. “The one in my dreams.”
“I’ve never seen the one in your head,” he replied, sounding sincere. “But I know what we saw that day, Liz, and if you say that’s her, then I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He leaned back to look at me. “I do.”
“I think you might be the first person who ever has,” I whispered, fingers knotting in his hoodie. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me for believing you,” he replied, sounding pained. “Thank me when I catch her and prove to everyone else that we were telling the truth all along.”
My eyes widened. “You want to catch her?”
He nodded. “Oh, you better believe that I’mgoingto catch her.” Smirking, he added, “She’s the kind of weirdonotwelcome in our club.”
I shuddered in revulsion. “Definitely not.”
“When I catch her, our first pit stop will be the car wash,” he continued to say, lips twitching with amusement. “We’ll probably have to put her through the platinum wash twice to get the filth off her—and borrow an angle grinder to tame those claws.”
I couldn’t help but laugh because Hugh had somehow made something so traumatizing funny instead.
ARE WE GETTING A NEW MILLENNIUM OR NOT?
Hugh
