Page 31 of Fate of the Fallen

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, his panicked tone making it hard to tell whether I was still dreaming or awake.

He sat up beside me, the weight of his arms encircling my shoulders as he brought me close. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. The only action my body seemed to comprehend was crying. The tears came hard and fast, choking me up as the details of the nightmare haunted me even now, as I was wrapped in the arms of the one I’d just watched fight to save my life.

It was too much. All of it.

“Something’s not right,” I finally choked out, feeling the softness of his t-shirt against my cheek as it soaked up my tears. “I can feel it,” I explained.

Through the darkness, my eyes searched every corner of the room, carrying the sinking feeling something was coming for me.

“You’re safe,” he breathed into my ear, kissing the top of my hair the next second. “I have you.”

My hands gathered material from his shirt when I squeezed his back, desperately trying to convince myself it had only been a dream, but … it felt like more than that.

“I was there,” I finally whispered, deciding to tell Liam about the visions I’d begun to have.

“You were …where?” he asked, his tone soothing me as I clung to him.

“In the past,” I admitted. “Ourpast. The first time, it was the story you told me. The one about how we finally owned our feelings.”

Liam was quiet and still as he listened, but I felt his heart beating inside his chest. It picked up speed just a bit, but it was enough to notice.

“We were … we were in my bedroom,” I stammered. “You came to me to apologize, just like you said, but it turned into an argument. Then, before you walked away I asked you that question.”

I didn’t say anything more, maybe because I was suddenly aware of how insane this sounded, the idea that I had actually gone back to that night and witnessed this. That was impossible. This had to have just been my own interpretation of Liam’s rendition of the story. Realizing I’d been irrational, I didn’t go on. Instead, I just rested against his chest, reveling in the feel of being held.

“What was the question?”

My ears perked up when Liam asked, fixing my mouth to tell him how silly I’d been to put any kind of stock into these dreams. However, the sincerity in his voice made me think twice. So, I shared.

“I asked you why you cared. Why my actions mattered to you so much.”

He was quiet after that. Quiet enough that I felt uncomfortable.

“And what happened next?”

My cheeks warmed with the memory of our conversation moving to the bed and there not being a ton of talking after that. But there was one thing I did recall saying.

“I asked if we should stop because my father might find out,” I admitted with a smile, feeling the darkness from tonight’s nightmare being burned away.

“And when I offered to stop,” Liam cut in, “you were suddenly okay taking the risk.”

I didn’t say anything, because he was right. Still, I didn’t read too much into it because that was vague, a scenario that wasn’t so farfetched that fiction couldn’t have easily aligned with reality. When I didn’t confirm or deny that his response synced with my dream, he asked something else.

“What’d you see tonight?”

That feeling was back, the one that made me awaken in a panic.

“It was … I saw …him,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to relive it—what I saw, what I felt.Anyof it.

“The Liberator?” Liam asked.

I nodded. “It was the night he came for me.”

That stillness in Liam’s posture returned and I knew where his thoughts had drifted.

“It was terrible,” I shared, pressing my palms against his back. “It was like … he wasn’t even thinking, just acting on pure instinct. And I just had this overwhelming feeling the whole time he carried me that … it was the end. That he was unstoppable.”

That word hung in the air long after I uttered it.