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She read for nearly an hour, put the book aside and drew her duvet to her chin, then closed her eyes, hoping for sleep, silently praying that if slumber came, the nightmares wouldn’t.
She didn’t turn out the light, but closed her eyes and finally drifted off.
The nightmare roared through her brain, a huge, ugly beast from which there was no escape.
She was seven again, unlocking the attic door, and running down the stairs that curved around and around, spiraling downward to the sound of music—Christmas music. It was faint and there was conversation. Her father arguing with someone. A door slamming. Her mother’s screaming. Marlie’s warnings insisting that she keep quiet and stay in the attic. Faster and faster Kara ran, always downward along the never-ending staircase, her bare feet stumbling on the wetness, her fingers grazing the rail that was slick. “Mama,” she called. “Daddy . . .” But her voice was muffled over the sound of thuds and shouts and shrieks and that song, that carol echoing loudly as the grandfather clock resounded up the staircase.
Bong, bong, bong.
She lifted her hand from the rail.
It was red with blood.
And her feet? They, too, were red, slipping in the blood that dripped from one step to the next.
“Mama!” she cried as the clock’s tolling and the horrid Christmas carol echoed through her brain.
“Sleep in heavenly peace . . .”
“Mama!”
Kara’s eyes flew open.
Her heart raced.
Her back was covered in sweat.
She blinked, found herself in her own bedroom.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, struggling to a sitting position in the tangled sheets. The nightmare was so real. Always. Every damned time.
She swallowed against a dry throat and thought about calling Dr. Zhou, then immediately discarded the idea. It was a dream. So what? It wasn’t the first time that the night of the massacre came roaring back into her subconscious and it wouldn’t be the last.
With an effort, she pushed herself from the bed, her head pounding, and made her way into the bathroom, where she stopped at the sink, turned on the water and dipped her head to drink, then splashed her face with the cold stream.
As she twisted off the tap, she caught sight of her face in the mirror. She looked like hell. Her hair tumbled around her white face and shoulders in messy brown strands wet near her face from tipping her head under the faucet, her hazel eyes appeared sunken and haunted, her cheekbones severe. Water dripped from her chin, and she grabbed the hand towel from its ring and swiped her face.
Pull yourself together. For the love of God, Kara, pull yourself together.
She dropped the towel on the counter and returned to the bedroom, where Rhapsody snored softly and the digital clock glowed. 2:57. Would she ever go back to sleep? Probably not. She walked to the window. Stared out into the quiet darkness.
The snow had stopped falling, a deep blanket glittering from the muted light of her window. She shivered, pulled on the terry cloth robe she’d left on the back of a side chair covered in other wrinkled clothes. Cinching the belt tight, she dropped back onto the bed and dropped her face into her hands.
This had to end.
This torment.
There had to be a way to make it go away.
Maybe once Jonas’s release faded to the background, becoming just another forgotten news story when some other tragedy took control of the press, maybe then she could find a way, somehow, to finally put this all behind her.
Oh, sure.
What are the chances of that?
“Shut up,” she said aloud, hoping to still that horrid little voice in her head, the one that reminded her she would never be normal, always be labeled a freak, forever looked at as the survivor of an unimaginable event.
Her cell phone vibrated, humming beneath the twisted bedding. She tossed off the duvet and found it in a tangled sheet.
A text.
From an unknown number.
Kara read the message and the hairs at her nape stood on end. She dropped the phone onto the floor, but it landed faceup.
Across the small screen, the words glowed bright:
She’s alive.