Page 34 of Ex Somnis

The apartment hums softly around us. Leaves rustle against each other. Somewhere above us, one of the hanging pots creaks faintly on its hook, which means something is slipping under the surface, whether he wants it to or not.

“Or what, Paul?”

He completely turns away from me. It’s not dramatic or angry, but the movement of a man deciding the conversation is over and physically enforcing it. Something in me snaps so fast I don’t even feel it happen.

No.

Absolutely fucking not.

You do not get to turn your back on me again.

The darkness tears loose before I consciously reach for it, a black streak slicing across the apartment toward him. Paul sidesteps without even looking. He shifts a step to the left while water continues pouring into the plant. The shadow smashes into the white wall behind him instead, leaving a long, scorched smear across the paint.

Right.

Paul Bennett has been lucid dreaming his whole damn life.

This is his territory.

And apparently, five years of being furious at him made me forget he’s genuinely terrifying in here.

Still, I send another.

He moves again with that same infuriating economy, still not turning toward me. This one explodes through a shelf instead, terracotta shattering across the floor while soil bursts everywhere. Three plants topple sideways in a spray of vines and broken ceramic.

“Ridge.”

“You turned away from me,” I snap. “Again.”

Another streak of darkness lashes toward him, faster this time.

Paul ducks smoothly beneath it and finally turns enough for me to see his profile. His jaw is tight, tight enough that I know he’s controlling something.

“I’m asking you to stop.”

I send two shadows at once from opposite directions. He catches the first with one hand, and it bursts apart against his palm like black water. The second misses his shoulder by inches before slamming into the wall behind him, hard enough to send a hanging plant swinging violently from the ceiling.

“That one nearly hit me in the head.”

“Nearly,” I say with a smile. “Funny how that works.”

“Ridge.” Almost all the clinical distance is gone now. “I understand you’re angry⁠—”

“You cut me off!”

The next shadow tears out of me harder than the others, bigger and even darker, pushed forward with the full weight of the years I spent choking on this conversation.

“You left me here alone!”

Paul catches it against his forearm. Darkness splashes across the sleeve of his pristine white shirt, staining the fabric black. His gaze flicks down to it for one brief second before returning to me.

Not calm anymore.

Good.

“You left me alone in this town where everybody looks at me like I’m fragile.” My voice cracks around the word. “Like I’m some fucking tragedy they don’t know how to talk to.”

Another shadow lashes toward him.