Page 97 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

97

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

The little doors are breathing.

In and out, in and out, soft, hungry exhalations. But my blanket is too small. I can’t get all the way under it. If I’m not under it, whatever’s waiting behind those closet doors—

Red eyes. Red eyes are waiting, and they’re going to swallow me whole, and it’s my fault. It’s my fault.

A soft click. A hiss of something dragging itself along the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut but it doesn’t matter, I can still see. I can always see. The red window gets smaller as it gets closer, blurs, becomes two burning points. Nothing can cover me, nothing can keep me safe, nothing can get between me and the teeth and the whispering, and—

—

Soft arms circle my waist. There are no teeth at my neck, no claws. A noise like the ocean in my ear, soothing, promising. I’m safe, I’m safe.

I’m safe.

But she’s pulling me away so frantically. I want to ask what’s wrong, what we’re running from, but I can’t talk. I can’t move. All I can do is hope she’s fast enough to get us—

—

My father flies across the dining room, slamming into the wall. Instead of a single percussive exclamation mark, the sound lingers, drawn out and extended until it fills the whole room. I try to scream but I can’t. The burning red eyes are here, too, watching me.

There’s no urgency in Dracula’s movements. He knows exactly where I’m hiding under here. My father stumbles against the table, collapses against it. The white tablecloth slowly turns red beneath him.

I curl into a ball and press my eyes against my knees, but it doesn’t matter. I can still see the monster, and he can still see me.

He can always see me. He was always going to find me again.

The waiting is agony. I need to open my eyes and look at him. Accept that he’s there, accept that this is the end. Won’t there be some relief in that? In not having to be scared of the unknown anymore? In seeing exactly what my fate is?

I lift my head, slowly, slowly, as though I’m not choosing to do it. As though the choice is being made for me. I can’t stop, can’t make my head go back down. My eyes are still closed, but they’re going to open. I’ll see him, and then—

—

A low growl rips through the darkness, but this growl is on my side. This one makes me feel safe. Her arms are back around me. I press my face against her neck. I want to stay here, I want to stay here, I want to stay here. Stay hidden in this darkness, alone with her.

Who—

How do I know her?

I try to drag my memories free of the sludge of dread and fear that has me trapped. I put my lips against her neck and beneath them I feel two small bumps, scars from a lifetime ago, scars from—

Lucy.

Lucy.

She’s Lucy, and I’m Iris, and I’m not a little girl anymore.

—

I’m back in my bed, but I’m too big for it. It’s a little girl’s bed in a cold, empty room. I kick off the blankets and drag the bed across the floor as fast as I can, then shove it into the alcove against the hovering doors.

The eyes will get out again, they’ll always get out again, but I don’t have to lie in bed waiting. I leave my room.

I’m in the dining room. My father slams against the wall with that terrible thunk. He slumps against the table, head gushing blood.

But I don’t pay attention to that. I pay attention to my mother, standing unseen in the darkness beyond the dining room. Not entering, not comforting or protecting her daughter hiding under the table, but calmly addressing the monstrous shadow looming on the edge of my vision.

She’s not upset about my father. And she’s not surprised by this visit. She knows Dracula.

It might have been my hand on the doorknob, my voice greeting him, but I didn’t invite Dracula in. My mother did. My family did. They were the ones in business with monsters, in the business of monsters. I was just a child. I could never have protected my dad, but he should have protected me. He should have—

—

The chair is lowered slowly, agonizingly, until I’m flat on my back. Exposed and vulnerable and unable to move. Then the needles come. Tiny metal fangs piercing me. Not just my wrist and my elbow, but my legs, behind my knees, my shoulders, my chest. And finally my abdomen, up and down the length of it, pulling everything out of me.

I scream but it doesn’t matter. I’m not a person. I’m a body. Their body, to do whatever they want with. Figures bustle efficiently around me, unmoved by my suffering.

Two needles caress the skin at my neck. They’re almost soft, almost tender. They’re different. They would take me away from here, away from this, forever. I just have to let them. I just have to invite them in.

The tubes in me whoosh and whir. The machines around me beep, flashing red. Two lights, flashing red, burning red. Fixed on my neck. All I have to do is say yes. All I have to do is ask. Better to be his than theirs. Anything to escape this. Anything to be free of this nightmare.

I’m going to say yes.

A hand wraps around mine. I can’t lift my head to see whose hand it is, but I don’t have to. I know its cool contours, the fingers that slip so perfectly between mine. I squeeze and she squeezes back. Urgent. Afraid. But here with me, still.

“No,” I say to the burning red eyes. “No, I think the fuck not.”

—

My childhood bed, but it’s not dark anymore. Dim light suffuses the room, giving shape to the cavernous contours of the ceiling, the slope angling sharply to the alcove, with its bloody window and those unnervingly suspended closet doors. The whole room points to them.

Everything is fuzzy and slow and painful. The little doors are there, closed tight. Not moving, not breathing, not doing anything except being stupid little doors set midway up the wall in an alcove. I sit up. I have to leave, again. Is this hell? Will I be trapped in this cycle forever?

“You’re awake,” my mother says. She’s not hiding in the darkness beyond the dining room anymore. She’s sitting at my bedside, face smooth and young once more, free of all the machines draining her and keeping her alive at the same time. Like she never aged. Like she never died. Like I never drove a silver dagger into her heart.

“Fucking nightmare,” I mumble, my mouth so dry my gums ache.

“Watch your language,” she snaps. Just like that I’m a little girl again. But nothing has changed. I’m not a little girl. I’m still me, and everything hurts because—

Oh god. I’m awake. And she’s undead.