Page 40 of Wicked Little Darling

That I wanted to tear them all down, raze them to the ground and tromp through the rubble until I got to the heart of him.

I wondered what I’d find.

The soundof shouting dragged me from a dreamless sleep, and when I blinked my eyes open, it was dark. Shadows cut through the blinds of the windows and played along the ceiling, like spindly arms reaching over me.

“No! No, no, no, no, no, please!” Reese’s frantic words were slightly slurred with sleep, and I turned over to see him thrash his head against his pillow.

Fuck. He was going to hurt himself.

“Reese,” I called, sitting up and rubbing at my eyes.

“Don’t put those in there! Take them out right now!”

I shook my head and threw the covers off. “Reese,” I said again, walking over to his bed. “Hey. You’re dreaming. Wake up.”

This had happened a few nights already, and usually if I stroked his head, he quieted down a bit and I could fall back asleep. But tonight felt different. He seemed a lot more distraught than usual.

I stood over him, hoping he would just wake up or his dream would end on its own. He was lying on his side, fingers curled around the edge of the blanket as he held it to his chin. They were trembling, and he started to whisper into the fabric.

“Mama, please—please, please, take me with you. Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. Please, please, please.”

Chills erupted down my back and over my arms, all the fine hairs on my body standing on end. He sounded so lost and broken, so desperate and devastated, and the urge to just take him into my arms and tell him everything would be okay was sudden and staggering.

To give him what no one had ever given me.

I crouched at the side of his bed and raised my hand to his head, my fingertips hesitating an inch above his hair.

“Come back for me,” he pleaded in the most gut-wrenching tone I’d ever heard. “Please come back.” A sob broke from his throat, and I let my hand fall gently onto his head.

“Reese,” I said softly. He whimpered and shifted his head into my hand as much as he could, and a tight band wound itself around my chest. I slowly sifted my fingers into his hair and brushed it back from his forehead.

He mumbled something incoherent, and the miserable expression he was wearing began to soften. It startled me when he suddenly reached out and grabbed my wrist, pressing my hand harder into his head.

Did he want me to touch him?

I mean, I already was, so I didn’t know how I could do it…more. His grip on my wrist slowly loosened until his hand fell back to the bed as I kept running my fingers through his hair.

I thought he was settling down, that that would be the end of it, when he gasped. He started whispering words I couldn’t hear in a panicked voice. They gradually became louder and louder until he was shouting.

I still couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he was gonna wake up the whole floor at this rate. I cupped his face in my hands and said, “Reese. Wake up. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

A tear slipped down the side of his face, and fuck me, what was I supposed to do here? And what was he dreaming about that was upsetting him so much?

“Reese,” I said softly but firmly. “It’s just a dream.” I sifted my hands through his hair, dragging my blunt nails across his scalp a little. “You’re okay.”

More tears fell, and the awful misery on his face was brutal. His sadness had come to the surface and was trying to drag him under.

“If you knew what I was doing right now,” I told him, “you’d be so pissed at me.”

His breath hitched, and then he mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

“It’s just a dream,” I said softly, hoping those words would break through and get to him somehow, soothe him maybe.

“It’s a nightmare,” he shouted, scaring the shit out of me. His eyes flew open and he shoved my hands away with a sound of frustration, then popped up so quickly that I fell back onto my ass.

“Reese—”

“And they marched right over her grave,” he said angrily, pushing the covers away from himself and jumping to his feet.