Chapter 12: 12: Field of Dreams

BELLE

I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

And then the dreams started.

I was in a field of red poppies, the wind rustling my hair and the long, white dress I was wearing. It was peaceful here…serene.

But for some reason, I wasn’t calm. I was on edge, my heart fluttering frantically against my rib cage like a captive bird. Something felt…~off.~

I whirled around, searching, although I wasn’t sure what for. All I could see were poppies, an ocean of red and green. They were everywhere, surrounding me and traveling far past the horizon.

Clouds rolled over the sky, blanketing the sun and making everything suddenly very dark. I could barely see ten feet in front of me.

My panic grew, forcing me to run forward, pushing flowers out of my way as I tried to find my way out of the overwhelming sea of poppies.

But no matter how far I ran, I was stuck, trapped in this never-ending field.

Movement caught my eye. I turned. Two small lights were glowing bright red in the distance, nearly blending in with the flowers. They were low to the ground and moving closer to me.

I squinted, trying to make out what they were through the darkness, but it was nearly impossible.

I took a step forward. Then two and three. Something was pushing me closer to the moving lights. I had to know what they were. They were getting brighter and easier to see in the pitch-black darkness.

It was about ten feet away from me now. I realized with a start that the red lights weren’t actually lights at all. They were eyes. And they were connected to a low-roaming beast. A wolf.

Panic speared the walls of my throat and clogged my windpipe. I recognized this wolf. It was huge—nearly the size of a horse and covered in thick midnight black hair. It was Grayson’s wolf.

I should have found comfort in that fact. Even when Grayson was horrible to me, his wolf was not. His wolf had always wanted me, always cared for me.

However, if his dark-red eyes and prowling, evil mannerisms were any indicators, this was not the wolf I remembered.

It bared its teeth at me, growling deeply, keeping low to the ground, never taking its eyes off of me.

Grayson’s wolf was hunting me.

Without another thought, I turned and began running in the opposite direction. I stumbled over flowers and the bottom of my long dress in a panicked sprint.

The pollen of the surrounding poppies traveled up my nose, congesting my lungs to the point that it nearly felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I looked over my shoulder, my heart beating in a blur against my rib cage when I saw Grayson chasing after me, staring me down with his determined, malicious blood-red eyes.

I had no doubt he was going to catch me—and soon. He was toying with me right now, allowing me to run ahead even though we both knew he was more than capable of reaching me whenever he wanted.

Was his plan to tire me out? Or maybe he was enjoying making a game out of me?

My abrupt feet got caught in the flowers, causing me to stumble and fall to the ground. I let out a shriek of terror.

I turned onto my back and watched in horror as the wolf stood on its hind legs and then started to morph into something else. His bones cracked, and the skin of his face stretched and tore open.

Within seconds, a human was standing over me. Grayson was looking down at me with a natural grin, one that took up his entire face.

His eyes still burned red, unlike the usual deep green or black I had become so accustomed to.

“Grayson,” I gasped. “Please don’t.” I wasn’t even sure what I was begging for.

His smile only grew at the sound of my whimpering voice. And that’s when I noticed them. There were long, pointed fangs peeking out from underneath his curved top lip.

“You can’t escape me, Belle,” he said. The voice wasn’t his own; it was wispier and sounded more like one long hiss.

He pounced on me.

I woke up screaming. My entire body was shaking and covered head to toe in dripping sweat. My heart pounded rapidly in my chest. I couldn’t see anything.

Was I still in the field? Was Grayson here to kill me?

My mark was burning so hard I could have sworn it was on fire, and my head was pounding as if someone was repeatedly hitting the inside of my skull with a hammer. My stomach rolled, filled with nausea.

My muscles ached.

Suddenly, the door to the room flew open. Liam came running in, followed closely by Laila.

“Belle!” Liam yelled. I could tell he had just woken up. He was wearing only pajama bottoms and had an alarmed, befuddled look on his face as if he had been shocked awake.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay! It was just a dream! It’s okay!”

I realized that I was still screaming. But I couldn’t stop. The intense terror coursing through my body made it impossible. My lungs begged for air that I was incapable of giving them.

When Liam tried to approach me, I screamed louder, pressing my body back against the headboard in an effort to get away from him.

Someone grabbed my hand. Laila was on the other side of the bed from Liam, looking down at me with wide eyes.

When I tried to pull my hand away from her, she just held on tighter, then placed it over her chest so I could feel her heart beating beneath my palm.

My eyes met her golden brown ones. My screaming faltered.

“Breathe,” she whispered. She took in a deep breath as if to demonstrate, her chest rising and falling under my hand. “You’re safe, Belle. No one is going to hurt you. Just breathe.”

I listened. Air filled my hoarse throat and traveled to my grateful lungs.

“Good,” Laila said calmly. She continued to breathe with me, grounding me once again.

My mind cleared until I remembered where I was and what I was doing here. I was at Liam’s apartment, thousands of miles away from Grayson. Grayson wasn’t here. He couldn’t hurt me. It was all just a dream.

After a few more moments, I was finally calm enough to speak. I looked from Laila to Liam. “I-I’m sorry,” I whispered. I wiped at the tears that were streaming down my face. “Bad dream.”

Everyone was silent for a few seconds. Then Laila laughed under her breath. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you okay now?”

I nodded, running a hand through my messy hair. I couldn’t help but wince at the pounding in my head. “I’m okay. I-I’m really sorry to have woken you guys.”

I glanced out the window. It was still extremely dark out. “What time is it?”

Laila pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. “It’s three in the morning.”

I winced. I was a terrible house guest. “I’m really sorry, you guys.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for—”

“What the fuck ~was~ that?” Liam asked me, interrupting his sister and shocking me with the abruptness of his question. “I thought you were being murdered or something. Has anything like that happened before?”

I shook my head. “No, never. I…I think it was just a dream, but it felt so…real.”

“It was a night terror,” Laila explained. “They can feel really real. They’re usually a sign that a person has been through trauma.”

Both of them looked at me expectantly, obviously expecting some sort of explanation. As if I was going to walk them through my traumatic past in the middle of the night.

“I’m okay now, I promise,” I said instead. “I’m honestly just more embarrassed than anything else. Really, I feel awful I woke you both up. You guys should go back to sleep.”

They exchanged worried glances.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Liam asked. “You’re clutching your neck again.”

I dropped my hand from Grayson’s mark. I hadn’t even realized I had been holding on to it.

“I’m fine,” I said once again, setting my hand down at my side.

“Do you want one of us to stay here with you?” Liam asked me. “In case something like that happens again?”

Laila nodded. “I would be happy to stay here with you, Belle.”

My cheeks reddened. I was starting to feel like a little kid who was afraid of the dark. “I think you guys have done enough for me already, but I appreciate the offer. I’ll be fine sleeping on my own.”

It only took a little bit more convincing before they both begrudgingly agreed to leave me alone and warily started to leave the room.

Liam paused in the doorway, looking back at me. “I’m right down the hall if you need anything, okay?”

I nodded, giving him the best smile I could manage. “Okay. Thanks.”

He nodded once, then pursed his lips. “You want me to turn off the light?”

I was about to say yes but hesitated. “Would it be okay if we left it on?” I asked. So maybe I was a little kid afraid of the dark.

“Of course,” Liam replied, taking his hand off the switch. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He gave me one last worried glance before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.

As I laid my head back down on my pillow, Grayson’s words from my dream ran through my head over and over again.

~No way~ I thought to myself. “You can’t escape me, Belle.”~