“Did you ever think we’d become the kind of people who chose sleep over sex?” Ten asked, as Ronan turned off the lights.
“I knew it had to happen eventually.” Ronan laughed and pressed a kiss to Tennyson’s temple. “We’ll be all systems go again once we get to the bottom of this nightmare. As much as I hate to say this, Ten, I hope you have unpleasant dreams.”
Ten shivered. He knew exactly what Ronan meant, but the statement was ominous none the less.
Rolling onto his right side, Ten tried to prepare himself for sleep. Usually, he’d drift off with his head on Ronan’s shoulder, but tonight, he was on his own. At least that’s the way it felt. By the time Ten was settled and comfortable, Ronan had already fallen asleep.
Ronan had always been able to drop off to sleep within five minutes of going to bed. It was the one thing Ten was jealous of. While he was awake, his mind spinning with his clients for the next day, their kids, bills, an upcoming dental appointment, and this nightmare, Ronan was dead asleep, probably dreaming about the naked car wash.Again.
Ten matched his breathing cadence with Ronan’s. He tried to clear his mind and let his body take over. After a few seconds, Ten’s mind wandered to the creaky cellar door. Maybe if he got up now, he could find a can of WD-40 to fix it. If he couldn’t, he supposed he could always use Pam cooking spray. Lube was lube, right? Then there was the ugly backsplash in the kitchen. Ten had hated it since they moved into the house nearly seven years ago. He could grab his phone and check out tile samples on one of the big box store websites.
Realizing his only job at the moment was to dream, Ten let go of home improvements and felt himself starting to slide toward sleep. Just as he was about to drop off, Ten told his unconscious mind to pay attention when he dreamed. A single detail could be the difference between life and death.
Ten found himself back at the Boston Garden. The building was dark, but for the spotlight in the center of the floor. He assumed it was for the ring master. Moving quickly, Ten walked into the beam of light, which blinded him. From a distance he could hear arguing. Shouting. The sound of a gun being cocked. Fired. Someone was screaming.
Moving away from the light, Ten hurried toward the screams. Two voices were shouting. One simply screaming in pain, the other begging someone to call 911. It took forever for Ten to find the source of the screaming. When he did, Ten saw someone lying flat on their back in a pool of blood.
Every time Ten moved closer to the scene, it got further away. He couldn’t tell who the hurt person was. Celestina hovered over the body, screaming. The hem of her pink gown was quickly absorbing the blood spreading from the victim.
As he tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing, Ten realized the second person he heard screaming was his daughter. Panicked, he looked around for Everly. She was nowhere to be found. “EVERLY!”
“Ten, wake up! Wake up!” Ronan begged.
Ten’s eyes blinked open and quickly shut again. The bedroom light was on and Ronan hovered above him wearing a scared look. “Ronan.”
“Jesus, are you okay?” He sat back against his pillows with a hand on his heart. “You scared the life out of me.
“I’m okay, but someone in my dream was not.” Ten tried with all his might to see who was lying in a pool of their own blood.
“Who was hurt?” Ronan’s eyes were frantic. “Was it Everly? You were screaming her name.” He looked as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“I don’t know.” Ten sat up and reached for the bottle of water on his nightstand. With shaking hands, he twisted the top off and took a sip.
“Is there anything else you can remember?”
Ten shook his head. When he tried to reach for fragments of the dream, they got foggy and out of focus. “There’s one detail I can remember,” Ten said, still panting. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t slow his breathing or his pounding heart.
“Tell me.”
“There was a gunshot. Someone way laying on the floor and there was blood. The bottom of Celestina’s pink gown is soaked in blood.” The more Ten pushed his memory and his gift to recall the entire dream, the more his head ached.
“Who’s blood was it?” Ronan asked, breathlessly.
“I think it’s yours.” Ten could see the blood in his mind clear as day. Spreading. Red. Viscous.
Ronan got out of bed and started pacing around the room. “Why do you think it’s mine? Could it have been someone else?”
“I don’t know.” Ten felt like a complete failure for not being able to see more of the dream. “Everly was screaming. That’s the last thing I remember, that pain-filled sound, and not being able to find her.” There was just so much he didn’t know or couldn’t remember.
Why was Everly screaming? Whose bloody body lay on the floor? Was this dream a premonition of things to come? If so, could he stop these events from happening?
Ten had no answers, but there was one thing he did know. He wasn’t going to let his family go down without a fight.
11
Ronan
After the nightmare and Ten’s revelation, which brought more questions than answers, Ronan hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep for a long time. He was able to catch a few broken hours, but he definitely wasn’t at his best.
