Page 70 of Ex Somnis

Shit.

I squeeze my eyes shut immediately and reach again for that familiar membrane between dreaming and waking. The pull. The crack in the surface.

Push.

Nothing.

Panic flares hotter in my chest.

I try again, harder this time, concentrating until my head throbs. I imagine my real body in bed. The smell of my shampoo. The feeling of real blankets.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

My breathing turns uneven.

“Okay.” I laugh once, and it comes out a little shaky. “Okay, that’s fine. Totally fine.”

I pace across the apartment and grab the kitchen counter hard enough my breadstick fingers bend strangely around the edge.

I hate that.

“Fuck!”

My pulse is hammering now.

This can’t be happening.

People wake up from dreams. That’s how dreams work. You wake up.

I grab my wrist hard enough to hurt, grounding myself instinctively, but even the pain feels wrong somehow.

My eyes burn suddenly.

Oh my God.

I really can’t get out.

After another round of pacing, my knees finally give out, and I sit heavily on the edge of the bed, dragging both hands through my hair before covering my face completely.

“This is bad,” I whisper into my palms.

What the hell do I do now?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ridge

Derek goes lucid for eleven seconds.

I know because I count. I’m standing in his beach dreamscape again, and I watch his eyes change and his attention shift from dreaming to being aware. But then he looks down at his hands, and when his gaze comes up to mine, the beach flickers.

“Breathe, Der,” I say softly, trying to reach out and grab him, to ground him in the dream, but the next second the light changes. His dreamscape collapses around me…

…and I fall backward into yellow flowers, landing without grace and lying there staring up at the Milky Way for a moment.