Page 37

Luka

I wake to a hand slamming into my face. I groan as pain splits through my eye socket and cheek. It hurts like a motherfucker. My arm instinctively goes out to block the next blow, but the hit never comes. Suddenly, I realize where I am and jolt upright.

Lily.

I look over to see her thrashing in bed, her mouth open in a silent scream. I don’t think. Instead, I reach out, grab both her arms, and I shake her. Her face contorts, and the look sends adrenaline and panic racing through my veins. It’s a look of pure, unmasked terror.

“Lily! Wake up, baby. I’m right here. Wake up!”

My shaking does little to bring her out of whatever nightmare she’s in. Her mouth is open, and suddenly, an ear-piercing scream breaks free. The sound makes me panic even more. The terror I see on her face breaks my heart. Something is hurting her in her sleep, and there’s nothing I can do to save her except wake her.

“You need to wake up! Lily! ” I say as I shake her harder, but nothing I do is working. Her body starts to thrash in my arms, her hands clawing at some invisible enemy. She takes a ragged breath. “Baby, please !”

I crawl over, straddling her hips as I frantically try to wake her. My hands roam over every inch of skin I can touch, hoping like hell something works. I check her pulse, and it’s high .

Just when I go to shake her again, she goes eerily still. Her breaths—that just moments ago were rapid and shallow—are now almost nonexistent. Her chest barely rises and falls.

“Lily! You’re scaring the fuck out of me. Wake up!” My voice cracks at the end.

I cradle her head as I lean down and kiss her gently on the lips, but as soon as my lips touch hers, her eyes slowly open.

“ Oh, thank fuck ,” I say as I place my forehead on hers. Breathing her in. She pulls in a deep breath, her chest shaking as she exhales. Her skin is cold and clammy to the touch. As my eyes search hers for answers, hers cloud, and a single tear slowly falls. That single tear brings an onslaught of emotion deep within my chest.

“What happened? What’s wrong?” I whisper.

She closes her eyes, her body heavy with defeat. Her single tear turns into a trail of unstoppable sorrow.

“ I died.”

My heart stops because she’s serious. I can see it on her face and hear the fear in her voice.

I lean back. “What do you mean? In the dream? You died in the dream?”

Her lip trembles. She closes her eyes and turns her head to the side before shaking it so slightly that I barely notice. “No. It’s real, and it’s complicated. I wanted to tell you. I should have told you, but it’s hard to explain and even harder to believe.”

I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about, and she’s really starting to freak me the fuck out. I reach down, gently tilting her head back to face me. “Talk to me. I’ll listen.”

A bitter, humorless laugh leaves her. “I don’t even know where to start. I’ve had this conversation in my head a million different times, a million different ways, and none of them happened like this . Not right after the best night of my life, not after I just gave you my heart and body.” Her voice breaks as she continues. “And definitely not after hearing you say that you love me for the first time.”

My heart races as I try to understand what she’s saying. Her tears flow faster now, and her breathing picks up to a pace that seems panicked .

I swing my legs off the side of the bed, noting it’s only 2:14 in the morning. We must have just drifted off because I remember seeing 1:00 a.m. on the clock before we went to sleep. I turn to pick her up. I softly place her in my lap as I sit back down on the bed with her thighs cradling my hips.

“Breath with me, baby.” I place her hand on my chest so she can feel the steady rise and fall of my chest. Her eyes close as she works to steady her breath. It takes a few minutes, but finally, she calms down.

“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. Start with what happened in your nightmare,” I say as I push her hair back behind her ear.

“That’s the hard part. I can’t tell you what happens exactly.” She chews on her top lip before releasing it. “I get flashes here and there but nothing concrete. It’s mostly just feelings and sensations.”

It’s a start. “Then tell me about those.”

She shakes her head, one shoulder lifting momentarily and then dropping just as quickly. “I feel this intense…” She trails off, struggling to find the words to describe what she just went through. My heart aches to fix it for her. “There was a loud screech and then a bang. I feel pressure on my chest, and then it feels like I’m floating or falling. I can’t figure out which.”

“Have you had the nightmare before?” I probe as I stroke her bare back. Something about the way she talks about it gives the impression this isn’t the first time she’s had it.

“Yes,” is all she says.

My palms are slick with sweat, and my heart rate is so high I can feel my pulse hammering away in my neck.

“How many times?”

Her chin wobbles again as one shoulder lifts. “More than a few.”

My eyebrows furrow. I feel like there’s more—like she hasn’t told me something big, but I can’t figure out what the hell it is. It’s like she’s skirting around the elephant in the room, refusing to acknowledge it.

“Lily, baby, I need you to talk to me. I don’t understand. Okay, so you’ve had this nightmare more than once. Is it just a dream, or is it a bad memory? Something from when you were a kid? ”

She pulls in a shaky breath. “I’m trying, but I’ve only ever told my grandmother and my parents.” She looks off to the side. “It never went well with my parents. I didn’t even know it was a legitimate thing in our family, passed down through the generations. I don’t know how to tell you that I’ve seen how I’ll eventually die since I was a little girl.”

“ What ? Like a vision?” I ask, dumbfounded as I try to wrap my head around this.

“Don’t look at me like that. I can’t bear the thought of you thinking I’m crazy. I’m not crazy! This goes back centuries in my family. Generation after generation.”

She’s breathless by the time she finishes, and my fucking brain feels like it might explode. I gently move her hips off me and sit her next to me on the bed so I can stand.

My hands scrub through my hair, my fingers then interlocking as I pace the small space in front of her bed. “You’re telling me you have visions about how you’ll die? ” I clarify.

She nods. “Essentially.”

“It’s a yes or no question, babe.” My tone is a little rougher than I intend.

“Then, yes,” she answers as she watches me nervously pace in front of her.

My chest is tight with worry, and an uneasy pit is forming in my stomach. However, when I look at her, the tightness eases, and the swirling in my gut slows to a low simmer.

She’s in nothing more than a pair of panties, her long hair draped over her shoulders to cover her perfect breasts. I still pace the damn floor like a maniac in only my boxer briefs. Last night was the most epic, surreal sexual and emotional experience of my life—an actual out-of-body experience. I love her, mind, body, and soul.

“So what does all this mean for you?” I ask as I finally stop pacing and sit on the bed beside her, turning my body to face hers.

Lily looks off to the side for a long second before her eyes come back to me. “It means that I’ll die either by falling or drowning. I don’t know which.” She takes a deep breath, swallowing hard before continuing. “And you will be there. ”

Had I not been sitting down, her words would have knocked me off my feet. I shake my head and stand once again. I resume pacing because my body needs to move in order for me to think.

“I’m there?” I ask as my hand flattens against my chest.

“I see your eyes and hear your voice calling out to me in panic. You beg me not to leave you.” Her voice breaks, and silent tears run down her cheeks.

“How long?”

She swipes at one cheek angrily, like she’s mad that she’s crying. “How long what?”

“How long have I been in your nightmare, Lily?” Her eyes fill with regret, and her throat bobs with emotion. When she doesn’t answer, I ask again. “ How long ?”

“Since I was a teenager.”

I stop pacing, my eyes locking firmly on hers. I’ve never had one of those record-scratch moments like you see on TV and in movies. The one where the character stops everything—even breathing sometimes—upon hearing some revelation, and then the sound effects guy uses a loud record scratch soundbite in the scene to emphasize the shock.

Nope, I’ve never experienced it, but I’m almost certain that’s exactly what just happened.

“You’ve known the entire time?” I ask accusingly, the shock still taking me. I mean, did she start talking to me because of that? Did she just want to be close to me to figure shit out? Does she care at all, or is she just trying to save her life?

Her tears fall faster, and she does that hiccup thing kids do when they’re so worked up that they irritate their diaphragm, and the body goes overboard trying to regulate itself. She’s fucking falling apart, and it tears me up inside. My body aches to go to her and comfort her, but my brain keeps my feet planted.

“It’s not like that!” she yells.

“Then explain it to me! I’m having a really fucking hard time wrapping my brain around this. I mean, is it real? Are we real? Is this just you following patterns and having dreams where you’re putting things together? Because I don’t understand how anyone can predict their own death. And if you’ve ruled all that other shit out, does your family actually have a strange ability to predict their exact cause of death?” My eyes shift back and forth as they search both of hers for any sign of an answer. “But that isn’t even it, is it? Because you’re telling me I’m involved, and you’ve known that since we met. Please. Just…speak.”

Lily takes a deep breath and exhales heavily and shakily before her head falls forward slightly. She gives the tiniest nod before starting. “For years, your eyes are all I’ve seen in the dreams that make any sense. When I met you, I recognized them the second I looked into them, but I didn’t know what it meant. I never thought they belonged to a real person, so I never expected to meet my best friend’s brother and find those same eyes staring back at me. I didn’t know if you were involved at all, and if you were, how. At that point, I still thought the nightmare was just a stupid reoccurring dream.”

I work to calm down because I don’t want her to take my emotions the wrong way. I’m not mad at her. I’m shocked, scared, and confused, and the three emotions are overwhelming me right now.

“But it’s not?” I ask, my voice low.

“ No ,” she whispers brokenly.

My chest is so tight that I worry my heart might break through my ribcage. While she is far from in shock, I can’t help but talk to her like she is. It’s all I can think of to reassure her, reassure myself, and make sure this actually makes sense.

“Okay. See? Slow and steady. If it’s not a normal reoccurring dream, and you’re worried about it, I have to assume that means you think this is absolutely real. So, do the visions always come true for the women in your family?” Problem-solving mode seems to help calm the unrest and uneasiness in my mind. I can’t even fathom her dying, let alone being there and experiencing it with her.

“All but one.” Her answer is like a ray of hope and an anvil of despair simultaneously.

Because if what she says is somehow true, if this woman somehow has premonitions of her death, then that means I will lose her, and that scares the shit out of me.

From what I gather, the visions come for a reason, but no one has been able to figure out why since they’ve all failed to change the chain of events.

All of them failed except one.

I reach out and take her hands in mine, squeezing them. “Then you’ll be the second.”