See How She Runs (The Chronicles of Izzy #1)(58)

“Izzy, please tell me you are safe," Kennan said, looking exhausted and drawn.

“Safe is a relative term at this point. I am not dead or hurt, so that is something. But he caught me. I was stupid, I know, but we don’t have time for that now. If they catch me here they will know I lied. So let me get this out quickly. He has me in Chicago, you remember the building he worked out of in the Loop? I don’t know what floor though, sorry. There is something more. He is planning something big and he has the backing of some of the Council. I don’t know when, but there was talk about big explosions and monsters." I breathed a sigh of relief at unloading everything I had wanted to say.

“I am coming for you, do you hear me. Don’t do anything reckless between now and then. No more trying to save me Izzy, that isn’t your job. I will find you, and I will kill the bastard once and for all," Kennan said with rage pouring off of him in crimson waves.

“How touching dear brother. I thought you didn’t care," Xavier said from behind Kennan.

I stood stock still and knew that I was too late. I might have warned Kennan, but I had also let Xavier in.

I looked at Kennan with my eyes wide, and I could read the same terror reflected back. I ran. I tried to jump back from the dreaming and I opened my eyes.





**********





Standing over my bed was Xavier and a couple of his goons. Before I could even mutter the words of the ward to put it back in place, I was strapped to a board. I tried to scream, but I had tape wrapped over my mouth. I knew then exactly where they were taking me. I was getting hooked up. To what end I did not know, but whatever it was it would not be good.

“I asked so nicely for you to behave and cooperate, but then you go and betray me," Xavier said as though I were just a petulant child being sent to a time out.

I looked at him with my eyes full of anger and loss. I would never get to tell Kennan I loved him. I would never get to help Molly. I would never even get to shove a sharp object into the side of Xavier’s throat.

“Now, we are going to play a little game. I am going to put you back into the dreaming and we are going to have some fun. Perhaps after you have been there for a while you will rethink the whole 'not taking your wards down' thing." Xavier pulled me into the room with the five other women.

I was transferred to one of the medical tables and they strapped some sort of contraption around my head. I was frantic. My breathing became erratic and I knew I was on the verge of a total mental collapse. The fear of the unknown shredded any courage I had left.

Someone to my left flicked a needle before sticking it into my arm. I started to go fuzzy around the edges and then the darkness enveloped me. Only it wasn’t the darkness at all. Somehow they had induced the dreaming and what I was left in was a nightmare.





**********





I looked around me, hoping to find some way out, but knowing that I was trapped. Suddenly, from every direction the ground turned into a churning blackness. The waves of darkness undulated in a rhythmic procession toward me. There was no escape. As the wave drew closer, I saw that it was thousands upon thousands of insects. If I did not move they would overtake me and shred every piece of meat from my bones.

I screamed out, hoping the pitch of my voice might deter them. In a matter of seconds, I was swallowed up. Their spiny legs poking me as their pincers searched for a tender spot to pierce. They struck time after time. Pain radiated throughout my body. I was petrified and I knew that I must be dying.

Suddenly it all stopped.





**********





“Did you like that one?" Xavier asked. “I have ever so many more. Your mother did not like that one at all either.”

I screamed out. I knew that this torture would continue until I caved or I died of heart failure. I could hold out for the latter. I would hold out for it. I would not let this man win. He might have me in the dreaming, stuck in some mad man’s induced nightmare, but I would not cave.





**********





Suddenly, I was drowning deep in the ocean. I swam upward, and time after time the air was torn from my grasp. I frantically swam, and as soon as the surface would come into reach, I was shoved deeper into the water. It continued until I thought my lungs might physically explode.





**********





I was in a house and flames erupted around me. I looked for a safe escape but could not find one. Instead the flames sought me out. I tried to run, only to be stopped by another wall of raging inferno. I stood still, knowing that there would be no escape and praying that this would be the one that would end me. I felt the flames melt away my skin and deaden my nerves so that I could no longer feel the raging pain. I embraced the fire and let it eat away at my sadness. I let it consume me and fill me with the burning rage I had carried earlier. I let it kill the girl that had wanted to die only seconds ago.





**********





As soon as I embraced the fire it was extinguished. I was now in the woods, in the dark. There were hungry sounding animals close on my trail. I ran blindly through the thick underbrush, not knowing what direction I was heading. My heart pounded in my throat as I ran and ran and ran. I felt a pull at my ankle as a wolf bit down hard. I lost my footing and tumbled over. As one the pack of wolves moved in on me, seeking out their choice morsel. I felt them gnaw and gnash into me, as if to tear me in a thousand directions. I felt my body come apart and I once again let the rage consume me.