Fake Game (The System #3)

Chapter Forty-Five

FORTY-FIVE

DEER

I wake with a scream.

My hands tear at the sheets that are stuck to my clammy skin, ripping them away as I struggle to take in a breath. Raw terror crawls over me like hundreds of tiny spiders, and I can’t shake them off, no matter how hard I try.

The room is cloaked in darkness, and I don’t recognize it.

Something is in the corner watching me—someone.

Not safe. Never safe.

My breaths come shorter now; I can hear them wheezing out of me.

I need air.

My body tumbles off a bed that is too high, and I thump onto the carpet below. The pain of my knee hitting the ground at a weird angle brings some sliver of awareness back.

I’m at my parents’ house.

The shape in the corner is nothing more than a lamp.

I curl up on my side, hugging my knees to my chest as I bury myself against the carpet.

I hate sleeping because the nightmares are always floating nearby, a daemon ready to grab me from the shadows and strangle me with the fear that is eating me alive. I hate being awake, the memories of the man I left behind haunting me everywhere I accidentally look for him.

The bone-deep fear morphs into a guilt-laden sorrow, and I cry until my body gives out.