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Bianaca

Iused to have this recurring nightmare.

Every night, every day, every damn time I closed my eyes, the nightmare would assault me like a freight train. I staggered helplessly under its weight, but it didn’t relent, tugging me into an icy embrace.

I’d wake up blinking rapidly, unable to conjure up the remnants of my dream. All I remembered was terror. Absolute, overpowering terror. It was the terror that paralyzed you, cementing your feet to the ground. It was the terror that bypassed your fight-or-flight response until all you could do was stand there, trembling. It was the terror that made sweat bead on your forehead and your hands shake, a scream lodged in your throat.

I never remembered the explicit details of the dream, only thatheplayed a pivotal role in it. He couldn’t just haunt me when I was awake; he had to seep into my dreams as well.

He wasn’t traditionally handsome—his forehead too large, his nose too small, and his hair too greasy—but he carried an arrogance, an imperiousness, that put others to shame. He held himself as if he owned the world and everyone in it. As if he owned me.

If there was one silver lining of joining a new school, it was escaping Dylan. My nightmare incarnate.

Why did he always have to follow me?

He stood on the other end of the hall, eyes narrowed into thin slits. The few students present provided a barrier between me and him, but I knew he could still get me if he chose to. Dylan always got what he wanted, and what he wanted was me.

Fear clogged my throat, choking me, but I did not break eye contact. I had a feeling it would be seen as a sign of weakness, and that was the last thing I wanted to be. With Dylan, I had to be brave and strong. The second he knew how much he affected me would be the same second he won.

And I would be damned if I lost this battle.

Skin prickling, I raised my chin and continued walking. To get to the cafeteria, I would have to pass him.

One step.

Two step.

“B.” His voice slithered over my skin, a tangible being. Fear gripped my heart in a chokehold, but still, I walked on, ignoring him. “Little sister.”

At that, I spun on my heel to face him.

“Don’t call me that,” I hissed. Disgust curdled in my belly. Those two words shouldn’t be permitted to ever leave his mouth.

He smiled coldly, teeth remaining hidden behind thin lips.

“That’s what you are, is it not?”

“You’re disgusting.” With that, I began to walk faster. Despite my brisk pace, his long legs were able to eat up the distance between us.

“I missed you, little sister,” he said mockingly. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and every muscle in my body tensed.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why?” He tilted his head to the side curiously. His smile was snake-like, venomous. Deadly. “You weren’t complaining last time.”

I felt sick to my stomach. What little I had eaten threatened to come right back out.

“Don’t,” I warned, furious when my voice quivered. I couldn’t say one fucking word to him without reverting to a scared child.

A scared, defenseless child that he had taken advantage of.

“Don’t what?” he asked, a smirk still firmly etched into place. “Don’t talk to my little sister?”

I recoiled from him as if his touch was toxic, seeping into my skin and slowly killing me. That wasn’t an inaccurate comparison, in all actuality. Dylanwastoxic, poison, deadly. He wielded his weapon with an expertise and finesse that hinted at years of use. He had been a monster long before he had attacked me, long before he had turned intomymonster.

“You’re mad,” he observed. “Why are you mad, little sister?”