Page 44 of Inextricably Tied

“What does that…? Whatever.” She massages into her eyelids. Her shoulders ache, neck heavy under thoughts of Evie. Flint can’t feel any better. Even Agony is irritable. “We’ll figure it out later. Let’s get some sleep. We have to drive again tomorrow.”

Flint takes first watch. Harbinger doesn’t put up a fight, head pounding by the time she’s out of the shower. She drapes a towel over her pillow, not giving her hair a chance to dry before she crawls under the sheets.

The Albruns bothered her more than they should have. She knows why, but when it crosses her mind, she buries the memory in the hole that was left for it and forces her thoughts in a different direction. The headache fades, but she knows she’s asleep once she sees the house.

It’s exactly as she remembers. Old-fashioned, split-level, blackout curtains pulled tight across the windows in her bedroom. The front door’s ajar, as if someone’s just stepped out…but Harbinger knows the truth.

She sprints away down the cul-de-sac, past other houses she’s long forgotten, until the blur of garages and siding gives way to trees and the cold snap of air. It’s an unfamiliar forest, but she recognizes the stone dais rising out of a lake. Water spills over its edges, a luminescent purple emanating from the darkness.

She turns back the way she came, but now, there’s nothing but wooded night settling around her. White noise crackles in her ears.

“Someone’s in a hurry.”

She knows that voice. A wisp of smoke phases through the trees, less opaque than she’s used to. Agony looks different here, body curling and coiling as his eyes and mouth stretch into jagged shapes.

Her heart pounds, but not from Agony. It’s almost a relief to see him here. A reminder that none of this is real.

“Was that your house?”

So he saw it. Of course: this is all her imagination. A dream version of Agony that her mind supplied from the leftovers of the day. She breathes deeply. She shouldn’t be tired. This is a dream. “No.”

Agony’s eyes narrow into slits. “You’re lying.”

“So?” She throws up her hands. “What, should I take your example and say ‘I don’t know’ instead?”

“Mine’s not a lie.” Shadows shift, snapping him closer until he’s a wall of smoke before her. “I don’t remember.” Then he scans the woods, circling her to take in the trees. “Is this part of your dream? With the stone slab?”

She ignores his question. The forest is murky, lacking detail, pine needles and a rush of chilly air. Nothing familiar. Nothing but the slab that she pushes deeper into her subconscious. “The forest isn’t mine.”

Agony moves toward one of the trees, lingering over a set of gashes in its trunk. His voice is muted like they’re underwater. “Then maybe it’s mine.”

Long marks wrench through the bark, like someone clinging to life. A cold snap darts up Harbinger’s spine.

“Can you read them?” Agony asks. Harbinger lifts her hand to pull off her glove, but there’s nothing there. She touches the tree.

“It doesn’t feel like anything.” Her fingers drum against it. “It’s not really here.”

There are more marks on the next tree. Agony and Harbinger follow them, winding deeper into the forest, pine needles slipping underfoot. The trees are endless, identical when Harbinger tries to look closer. As soon as she has a solid thought in her mind, the dream turns it to mush and clouds it with fog.

“There.”

Agony points. Harbinger moves toward another tree with gouges, but it’s the same tree as before. Impossibly, they’ve circled back to where they began. They turn in a circle, trying to find another path. There’s nothing but cold wind.

“Forget it.” Agony sinks onto the nearest rock, kicking a twig aside. It skitters across the ground with a hollow, echoing sound. “We can’t go any deeper. Not like this.” His wrists flex, but in the dream, nothing constrains him. No cuffs. No chains.

But they both know what’s holding him in the real world.

Harbinger takes in the endless tree trunks again. “You made this?”

With a shrug, he rests elbows on his knees. “You said it wasn’t yours.”

Her fingers trace over a patch of moss. It feels strange, a sensation she’d nearly forgotten. That’s how she knows she’s dreaming; her gloves are off. She can touch things without a barrier, mind pulling on fuzzy memories to give her some semblance of reality. Bark and the leaves feel foggy, too long forgotten when her skin doesn’t come into contact with such things any more.

“Why did you pick this?” she asks. “Why this place?”

“I don’t know.” The shadows of Agony’s body billow higher until he sighs, leaning back against a tree trunk. “I know you both think I’m full of shit. That I’m lying. That I should be able to remember what Reid did, but it doesn’t work like that.”

“What’s it work like, then?” Harbinger’s careful not to let her eyes linger on the curve of his shoulders. The teasing curl of his shadows. The way he looks up at her.