Breaking Normal (Dream Weaver #3) (9 page)

             
Sunny’s face shone with admiration and she blotted a tear from her eye. “Thank you for talking with me today, Emari.” She turned to the camera. “And if you are a victim—a survivor of sexual assault, whether the perpetrator was DeLaRosa or not, I hope you’ll take this opportunity and contact someone who can support and encourage you. The numbers to the Spokane Rape Crisis Hotline and Crime Check are at the bottom of your TV screens. From the K5 studios, this is Sunny Sykes reporting.”

*          *          *

              I slammed the car door and stomped into the house.

             
“Son-of-a-bitch,” I ranted as I slammed my bags onto the counter.

             
Nick lunged to his feet. “What? What happened?” I started at his voice, despite being sure he would be there waiting for me.

             
“Thomas was there. I felt his skanky self sliming his way into my head during the interview.”

             
Nick grabbed my arms, as if to pull me into a protective hug, but his elbows locked at arm’s length. I wasn’t sure if I scowled at him or not. Part of me wanted his protection. But part still wanted to claw his eyes out.

             
Eddy cowered in his crate. I huffed a growl of self-contempt. My angry tirades had damaged my relationship with the pup. I’d never wanted him to cower from me. I was supposed to be the protector. Kneeling on the floor, I patted my thigh. “Come come. No one’s gonna hurt you.” His tail thumped the walls of the crate. I smirked at him. “Yeah. You’ll do it on your own time so it’s your idea.” A playful spark danced in his eyes and, toe nails clicking on the hard wood, he trotted to my side. I sat down on the floor with him, giving him a thorough scratching from head to tail, and completely forgot about Nick smiling down at us. Eddy perched his front paws on my thigh and licked my face. I laughed when he stopped mid-lick, his tongue still lolling out. His nose twitched and a small rumble vibrated from his throat. “What’s the matter, Eddy?” Then, as though suddenly remembering his presence, I shot a glance at Nick. Eddyson’s eyebrows lifted in confusion and he nudged me with his nose. Could he smell Thomas on me? We’d discovered just weeks ago that the pup could sense the Wraith when they were near. And he remembered Thomas trying kill us all. With a gentle hand, I stroked his pelt. His steely muscles softened under my touch. “Whoa,” I whispered. “That was weird.”

             
Nick sat on the floor beside me and ran a hand down Eddyson’s back. “He remembers.”

             
“Yeah. I guess so.”

             
“So, tell me what happened at the studio,” Nick coaxed.

             
“I was talking with Sunny and—these images just slammed me. Of the crash. And the rape. Very vivid.”

             
“But not like PTSD?”

             
“No. It’s different when Thomas is involved. I don’t know how to explain it. It just—feels different.”

             
Nick gazed at me as I spoke, but I could tell he was sending the information in a distance-weave to Sabre, wherever he was. While Nick conveyed the information to Sabre, in a feeble attempt at self-distraction, I tried to think of a cooler name for distance weaving. Something like ‘broadcasting’, ‘out-sourcing’, or ‘farming’. Nick’s quiet chuckle brought me out of myself.

             
“What?” I bristled.

             
“Nothing. Sabre will like that your trying to give ‘distance weave’ a better name, that’s all.” He reached up and tucked a stray copper lock behind my ear. I tensed, and immediately felt bad. A little. Deep down inside, my heart still ached for his touch.

             
I spooned around Eddy’s warm body right there in the middle of the floor. A heavy mantle of exhaustion cloaked my mind and compressed my body. Nick’s hand hovered indecisively over me, then he raked his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes and let his magic lull me into peace. Soon, the cold floor slipped away as Nick carried me to my bed.

             
God, I miss touching you. I miss your laughter. I miss your smile. The way your fingers traced the lines of my arms. I miss the sweetness of your mouth pressed to mine. I just…I miss…you.

              Nick’s thoughts spilled into my sleep. His heart, his whole being ached to hold me there in his arms, to lay beside me and wrap his body around mine like a shield. I could feel the crush of his heart, his guilt, his grief. He loved playing my protector. But deep down, my recent guile and guts thrilled him.

             
My body settled into the softness of my bed, and I moaned at the separation from his warmth. Nick breathed a reluctant sigh and stepped away, but I caught the back of his shirt.

             
“Stay?” I whispered, still only half-awake.

             
Without a word, he slid onto the bed beside me and I snuggled against his chest. Warm. And safe.

Chapter 12 Awaken

              I huddled over the sink, washing the few dishes that had piled up for a week. Food was no longer a necessity for me, but consuming it still gave me a level of comfort.

             
I growled. “If I held these dishes and phased, would they come back clean?”

             
Nick leaned on a counter across the kitchen. He chuckled. “No. It doesn’t quite work that way.”

             
“Figures,” I grumbled. “Stupid super powers. What good are they if they don’t help us with mundane stuff?”

             
Nick just huffed an amused laugh. So I scowled at him and returned to the dishes. I gazed out the window at Eddy bouncing and bounding after a butterfly. The leaves on the bushes and the quaking aspens were fluttering gently in the breeze. The motion drew me out of myself, out of the kitchen, out of the house.

              My calloused bare feet beat against the Delta dust. Each foot fall sends plumes of grey dust that twist in a flurry around my calves.

             
“Zecharias! I’m gonna whoop you when I catch you, you little snitch!”

             
Daddy?

             
“Gotta catch me first, lard butt.” My dad’s heart pounds faster than his feet. His brother will surely ‘whoop’ him…if he catches him. Rows of ripe cotton whizz past, their boles popping at the seams. He launches himself over the roots of an oak tree and keeps running, down the muddy bank of a trickling stream. A tangle of roots snags his foot and casts him face-first into the stream. The rippling twin of a twelve year old Zecharias Sweet gazes back up at me. His eyes are as blue as the sky and sparkle with mischief. His hair so fair it’s nearly white.

             
The thundering feet of his older brother jolts him from the ground and pushes him on. Water splashes in diving arcs as he sloshes his way downstream and to the opposite bank. Profanities, that his mother would chastise them with a leather belt for using, are cast at his back and usher him faster. The ground grows wetter and wetter as he nears a giant mud hole. Mud sloshes up his thighs, and with each step, his feet grow heavier and heavier, like wading through quicksand. His angry brother howls curses from the shore, but has no desire to plod through the gumbo mud. Daddy stops and swipes the layers of mud from his feet before diving forward away from his pursuer. As he slogs to the shallows, more mud cakes to his feet. Soon he must stop again to clear it away.

              “Emari?” Nick’s hand was at the small of my back. I whirled on him and brought my fists up, but his lightning reflexes caught my wrists. “Emari? What’s going on?”

             
I squeezed my eyes closed and shook away the images and sensations of gumbo mud stuck to my feet.

             
“Em? What happened?”

             
“My dad…” I rasped out. “I saw a memory of my dad.”

             
“Like, you remembered something about your dad? Or you saw one of your dad’s memories?”

             
Pushing myself away from him to get a little distance, I stammered over my thoughts. “I…it was his memory…like when I memoryprint something. A memory of when he was a kid. My…his brother was after him. He was gonna beat him up for something.”

             
His hand drifted toward my face, but his fingers retracted like I stung him. “May I?”

             
I scowled. “No. I can figure it for myself. I don’t need you to babysit my every thought.”

             
“As you wish.” This phrase that told me how much he loved me, held no affection at all. Just frustration and ire. He was having a hard time separating himself from his role as my protector. So, he tried a different tack. “Remember when we were downstairs in the hidden room? You were touching the ash and dust on the boxes and you said you remembered Mount Saint Helens blowing back in 1980?”

             
I nodded. “Yeah?”

             
“But you couldn’t possibly remember that. You weren’t even born yet.”

             
“I know.”

             
“You need to…would you find that memory? Figure out whose memory it is?” His attempts to pacify the raging beast inside me were heroic—but it only made me madder.

             
I snorted at him. So lady-like. He growled, low and quiet in his chest. “Why?”

             
The corners of his mouth quirked up. A smile that nearly liquefied my resolve. “Something’s just—off. I’ve never seen a Weaver, newborn or not, display the type of memories you’re talking about. It’s like you’re a chalice.”

             
“A what?”

             
“Um, like you’ve collected your dad’s memories.”

             
“Uh, yeah,” I tried and failed to rein in my snark. “Isn’t that what we do?”

             
“Yes, but—you’re different. What you’re describing is different. It’s like someone gave you the memories—used your head to store them in. Make sense?

             
“Sure. Sure. Of course it does. Not.” I was beginning to sound childish even to my own ears. “Fine. How?”

             
Nick gestured me toward the couch. “You can do it all on your own. I’d—like to see them for myself—if you don’t mind.”

             
Maybe I’d throw him a bone. He had been overwhelmingly patient with my snotty attitude. The dark phantom inside me screamed ‘no!’ But I ignored it and gave Nick a stiff nod.

             
“What do I do?” I conceded.

             
“Same as always, like a search engine, but you’re going to trace the memory back to its root. Just slide your thoughts along the thread of the memory until it comes to the genesis.”

             
I settled on the couch and pulled a pillow to my chest as a shield.
Since when do I need protection from Nickolas Benedetti? Maybe, I always needed it.
Nick sat next to me, a modest distance away. He faced me and propped his hand on the back of the couch. “You know the drill, Em. Just relax.” His voice still did its magic to soothe the inferno inside me. I rested my head on the back of the couch, but I could still feel his eyes on my face—still feel the wringing of his heart as its wreckage echoed inside him.

             
I opened my eyes and gazed into his. “Will you help me?” In all honesty, the thought of what I might find frightened me and I didn’t want to be alone. Nick’s pupils dilated with the surge of his heart, but he reined in his hope, trying not to seem too eager.

             
“Of course,” he murmured and held his hand out to me.

             
My hand trembled over his as fear clenched my heart in a vice.
Can I trust him in my head anymore?
I slid my hand into his with feigned bravery. Heat raced up my arm and exploded like fireworks in my chest. His unrestrained emotions spilled into my mind. Pain unbearable. Grief and loss. Love and passion. Fear—and an inkling of hope. With a gasp, I jerked my hand back. The pain was no longer hidden under his brave facade. Now it twisted his brow.

             
“I’m sorry, Em. I…”

             
“I don’t think it was your fault, Nick. Remember? You tend to leak around me.”

             
He pursed his lips and nodded, so I took his warm hand in mine and placed them in my lap.

             
“Just relax…” Like that expert hypnotist, his words lulled my heart and quelled the raging storm inside me. I grinned at his warmth and familiarity, and his smile in return fluttered in my heart. Comfort. That’s what each of us had been missing: that comfortable place we’d shared with each other for so many weeks and months. That comfort that brought us rest and peace, and support from the onslaught outside of us. A sigh wheezed from my lungs and he echoed me. “Locate that memory…good…see the thread of light that sparks away from it?...Follow it.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking out loud or just in my head, but the words spilled over me like anointing oil.

             
The same memory blossomed, my father’s feet beating the Mississippi Delta dust into low, dry clouds. The gumbo mud caking thicker and thicker layers and dragging my feet.

             
Keep going. Back to the source.
His voice reverberating inside me distracted me from the task at hand.
Concentrate, Em.
My soul, my energy, whatever it was bent to meet his, drawn by the polarity of his.
Emi. Concentrate. Slow and steady.
Nick guided me back to the memory and walked me to its source.

*          *          *

              “What do you mean ‘you know’?” scoffed Nick later when we told Sabre about my father’s implanted memories.

             
Without looking up, Sabre said, “I put them there.”

             
“What?!” Nick and I said in unison.

             
“You don’t really believe you were the only one holding secrets for Zecharias.”

             
“Seriously?” I fumed. “And just when were you going to tell me?”

             
Sabre just shrugged.
Ass!
Somehow, I’d momentarily forgotten that we’d established that’s exactly what he was. An arrogant, self-righteous ass. Since when did I start thinking of Sabre James as the ‘good guy’?

             
“And you didn’t think that was important information for me to know?” Nick raged.

             
Sabre glance up from his project and shrugged again. “What all did you put in there?” I asked, though my fingers itched to wrap around his neck and squeeze. Another shrug nearly jettisoned me across the room to pound on him. Nick angled himself in front of me. To protect me or Sabre?

             
Slowly and meticulously, Sabre finally set down his tools and turned his full attention on us. “He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.” He must’ve noticed my nostrils flaring and the steam rising from my ears. “I helped him gather some memories of stuff he wanted you to know. Memories of his childhood—I don’t know what else. Your mother’s are in there too. You just haven’t found them yet.”

             
I raked my nails through my hair, laced my fingers at the back of head and squeezed my skull between my forearms…like that would curb the raging headache that throbbed in my brain. Nick’s hand grazed my back, but I jolted away.

             
“Do you guys
ever
tell the truth, even to yourselves?!” I raged. “’cause obviously you even lie to each other.” Nick winced, then shot a glare at his mentor.

             
Goddammit, Sabre!
Nick’s rage roared through the room.

             
I snarled at them both and phased from the house.

             
The light of Nick’s ethereal form blazed after me until I reached my little house in the woods, then he veered off and streaked away across the black night sky.

             
Eddyson wasn’t fazed by my phasing in and out of the house anymore. I guess he just thought that’s how coming and going was done. I didn’t doubt his super-puppy powers alerted him to my presence as much as the Rephaim. His boisterous bays and waggling hind end coaxed a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. I scooped up his growing body and fell into bed with him. He licked my face with his warm wet tongue. Finally, his head came to rest on my shoulder, and with great sigh of contentment, he nudged himself closer to my side and closed his eyes. Only moments passed before soft snores rumbled from his nose, and the twitch of a dream raced behind his eyelids and flicked in his paws. And I wondered what puppy dreams were like.