Dream King by Elise Knight
12
Dream looked up as we entered the clearing. “Aethelu. I see you’ve found my...”
“Captive,” I cut in before he could finish his sentence. Aethelu had brought me back to the rows of doors, and I’d let her. My phone was gone - probably lost for good, and her pleading with Dream was more than likely my best bet out of here. She bowed slightly to him when he noticed our arrival. He was sitting pretty much where he usually did, whittling next to the ashes of the fire. The bastard hadn’t even bothered to run after me. He smiled at me, and I swear my heart jumped. He’d only ever shown me torture and disdain. I wondered if there was something between the beautiful Aethelu and Dream. I also wondered why a spike of jealousy hit me when I thought of it.
Christ, my mind was a torrid mess.
“I was going to say guest, but yes, captive works.”
I rolled my eyes. Since when did guests need to be tied up? Knowing this guy, he probably thought it was the height of good manners. He was being awfully civilized around Aethelu...Almost like a normal person. Who knew he was capable of it?
He turned to Aethelu. “Sorry to drag you into this mess.”
Her eyebrows quirked. “Mess, Your Majesty? I was under the impression you brought her here on purpose. I have to say I’m dying to know exactly what that purpose is. It doesn’t seem prudent to be bringing humans into our world after... ahem...what happened last time.”
He narrowed his eyes and then flicked them my way. Heat scorched me at the way he looked at me; the intensity of his stare was overwhelming and full of loathing. The mask of indifference was well and truly off. Neither he nor Aethelu had hold of me. I was free to run through the red door. It was less than ten feet away, but I was bolted to the ground, held in his stare. Running back into the forest was a no-no. I’d already seen how easy it was to get lost in, and if Aethelu was telling the truth about all the things that would find me tasty in there, then the red door was my only way out. It would be so easy. A few steps. Open the door and jump through. Dream wouldn’t be able to get me then. Sure, he could follow me through, but there were people there. Chris or even McGee or Alexis. And yet my brain was saying ‘and then what?’ What if I did escape through the door? My mother, and so many like her, would stay in their state of sleep. However much I loathed Dream for what he had done to me, I needed him. I needed him to make my mother wake up, and I fucking hated him for it.
A frisson of energy traveled up my spine as neither of us broke the stare. There was something about him that rendered me powerless to move. To do anything that would make the situation I was in any easier.
Aethelu coughed, and finally, Dream looked away. A hit of adrenaline hit me, and I had to suppress a smile. I’d won. Ok, it was a staring contest, but I’d take it. A win was a win, even a small one against a psychopath.
“I know it’s not my place, but don’t you think it might be a good idea to take her home?” Aethelu’s eyes shifted to the red door.
“It’s not as easy as that,” Dream replied, his voice gruff.
“Does she know?” Aethelu pressed.
The way she said it made me think the 'she' in question was not me, but some other she.
Dream pursed his lips. “No, my mother does not know and I’d like to keep it that way. I thank you for bringing her back to me, but unless you need anything else, don’t let me keep you. I know how busy you must be.”
It was kind of nice to see he didn’t direct all his rudeness to me. He was just a rude bastard in general.
Aethelu was having none of it. “Dream,...Your Majesty, this is not the place for a human. You cannot keep her tied up. I understand that there may be things that I don’t understand about the situation, but I cannot in all good conscience let you keep her tied to a tree.”
He grabbed her arm. Without thinking, I jumped between them.
“Don’t hurt her. If you want to take this out on me, so be it. Tie me to a tree again if you must. She was only trying to help. She was the one who said I should come back here. Please don’t hurt her.”
Dream’s eyes looked at me questioningly. For a split second, there was no hate in them. Confusion maybe, but not hate.
“I was not planning to hurt Aethelu. I merely need to speak to her without you listening in to our private conversation.”
He pulled Aethelu away from me and dragged her out of earshot to just below where Tour was sitting on a tree branch. The door was there. So close. My one chance at freedom. Maybe there was a way to wake my mother up without Dream’s help. It wasn’t like he’d shown any compulsion to help me so far. He’d barely said a word to me in all the time I’d been here, preferring as he did to sit and let me waffle on without making comment.
My insides churned as I contemplated my options. Whatever Dream and Aethelu were arguing about, they were doing it in heated whispers, and neither was looking my way. I had a clear run. My mother’s face flashed up in my mind. I started to walk, almost mindlessly, toward the red door.
I was almost at it, my hand already extended to open it when Dream caught my arm and dragged me back to the clearing. Aethelu was already making her way back to wherever it was that she had come from, her lilac dress disappearing from view as she walked away into the darkness of the forest as Tour flew overhead.
“Sit,” he commanded, the second Aethelu disappeared completely.
“What were you and Aethelu talking about?” I asked, ignoring his command completely.
He curled his lip, clearly antagonized by me not doing what he wanted at a moment’s notice. Not that I cared. Something was happening. Something I didn’t know about, and it was pissing me off. I hated not knowing things. It was my biggest fault. I had to know what’s going on at all times, or I felt lost, and quite frankly, I couldn’t feel any more lost than I did here.
“Sit down, human. You are not here to ask questions.” Surprise, surprise. He didn’t want to talk to me again. I should be happy. Him ignoring me was better than the alternative of him hurting me, but as usual, I didn’t let it lie.
“So why am I here? You still haven’t told me, but you obviously have a reason. ” I couldn’t help myself. He rolled his eyes and let out a breath of frustration but didn’t answer my question. Figuring that we were in a stalemate situation, I gave in and sat down, crisscrossing my legs. It wasn’t great, but it was a damn sight better than being tied to a tree.
He leaned forward, his steely eyes boring into mine and a grimace on his lips. “I don’t know why you are here. So far, despite all your chattering, you’ve failed to tell me.”
I crossed my arms. He wasn’t the only one with secrets. Yes, I’d followed him in, but he’d dragged me back here. If he wasn’t going to tell me why, I sure as shit wasn’t going to enlighten him as to why I’d followed in the first place. I didn’t trust him. If I mentioned my mother, he’d probably do something worse than just having her sleep. I couldn’t let that happen. To give him that small part of me would be to give up any power I had, which was barely any. He held all the cards, and he knew it. It dawned on me that the only reason he’d been keeping me alive all this time was that I knew something he didn’t. If that was the only thing standing between me and death, I’d hold onto it.
When he saw that I wasn’t going to speak, he waved his hand, and a small flame ignited between us. In any other situation, I would have panicked by magical flames heading my way, but I was getting used to this guy’s peculiarities. The flame hit the ground between us and became a fire like the ones we’d had camping when I was a child. Except, of course, this one was fuelled by magic rather than wood. It occurred to me then that I was becoming immune to his weirdness. I barely batted an eyelid at the use of magic. In all honesty, a magical fire was lame compared to all the other stuff I’d seen over the last couple of weeks or so.
Dream sat, his back against a tree, one leg out flat, the other bent a little. His face lit by the orange flames gave him a little color, making him appear more human.
If that’s even possible.
The fire crackled as a normal one would, despite its apparent lack of kindling. My mind buzzed with questions that I knew he wouldn’t answer, but the silence between the two of us was deafening. If only there were other sights and sounds for me to concentrate on, but in the forest of silence and blackness, the only stimulus I had was him and his bloody raven, which seemed to be absent.
“Where is the raven?” I felt like a total shit for hitting it with a stone. I hadn’t really wanted to hurt it, only startle it.
He didn’t look up. “He is flying. He will be back when I call him.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to hurt him. Maybe I could do something for him. Dig up some worms or something.”
Dream looked at me with curiosity. “You are scared of worms. Why would you do that?”
I cringed. Being scared of worms was as irrational as it got, but they were gross and wriggly. Snakes I was totally fine with, but worms. They were disgusting creatures. “I hurt him. I want to make it better. Make him feel better. I want to say sorry to him and tell him I’ll never hurt him again.”
Dream licked his lips and regarded me with curiosity. “You want to apologize to a bird? Not many humans would lower themselves.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’m not many humans.”
“So I’m beginning to see.”
Something about his answer embarrassed me though I couldn’t say why. Maybe it was because he wasn’t threatening me or barking orders. This might be the first time he was talking to me normally. It was weird.
He’s a psychopathic murderer. Nothing more. Don’t read anything into nice words of his. That’s how they get you!
“I’ve never seen you relax before,” I changed the subject, deciding to go with a statement rather than a question.
“This isn’t relaxation,” he muttered. “This is me making sure you don’t try to escape again.”
I could see it on him. The way he was posed, to anyone else, would look like prime relaxation, but there was a tell in the way his fingers moved slightly. The thumb rubbing against his forefinger. His toe tapping ever so slightly on the floor. I cast my eyes around the darkness, wondering what it was he was thinking, what he was afraid of, because it sure as hell wasn’t me.
“So... What do you do for fun around here?” It was hardly the question I wanted to ask. I needed to know who he was, what he did, and why he was keeping me prisoner. I wanted to know what he was talking about with Aethelu and who the mysterious ‘she’ was, but I knew from experience that questions like those would get me shut down quicker than a rat in a burger joint.
His eyes remained on the fire, and I noticed how beautifully it reflected in them.
“I am not here to have fun. This is my job,” he said simply, and for the first time, I detected some emotion in him. Some emotion other than psychopathic rage. He was resigned to the fact that his job was to perv on other people’s dreams because that’s what it looked like to me. He spent every hour of every day and night walking in those doors and seeing people’s inner psyche. The doors were currently still. It was the longest I’d seen them go without moving, which told me his movements controlled them, not the other way around. I looked back at him and felt something other than fear or hate for him. I was sorry for him. Stuck alone, seeing people all the time but not able to communicate with them. No wonder he had kept me here.
“What exactly is your job?” I expected him to ignore me again. It was his way, so I was surprised when he spoke.
“Do you not dream?”
Why did I get the feeling this was a trick question. He knew I did. He must have seen inside my head, just like everyone else’s. The thought made me feel vulnerable in a way I’d not felt before.
“You tell me,” I challenged.
He finally took his eyes from the fire and cast them my way, eliciting a shiver down my spine.
“You are wearing a white dress in a big building with strange edifices. Weird creatures made out of stone. Everyone is looking at you and smiling. Except you. You are crying. Flowers begin to fall around you.”
Oh shit. Shitty shit, fuck shit. He’s talking about my wedding. The one I never had. I knew exactly what he was talking about because I’d had this dream over and over again since David left. The building was the Fairmont in downtown Vancouver, and the stone creatures were the gargoyles that decorated the upper parts of the outside. In my dreams, I’d been so happy until I realized I was standing there all alone. David wasn’t with me. He’d stood me up, and yet no one else in my dream had noticed. They were throwing petals at me and taking photos, full of joy as my heart tore in two.
“Bastard!” I said, standing up and turning away from him so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I stomped away from him though I had nowhere to go. If he’d seen that dream, he’d seen what came next. To my utter shame, the wedding dream always changed after that point. Another woman came out of the building behind me. Sophie. She stood hand in hand with David, both of them perfect and smiling as the crowd of people carried on throwing petals. And I, to my utter horror, had walked over and slammed Sophie’s head against the ground until there was nothing but blood and brain matter and petals and smiles.
Bile rose in my throat at the thought of the dream that had possessed me for the past three months. Even before I knew what Sophie looked like, I’d had the same dream, and every morning I’d woken up feeling ill at what my inner psyche really thought. Yeah, I was angry. I hated Sophie, and I hated David for what they had done to me. A less benevolent me might even have given her a good slap for what she’d put me through, but not once in any waking thought I’d ever had, had I thought about murdering her in such a vile way, nor in any way. In all the waking thoughts I’d had about revenge, most were petty and downright pathetic, like sending them a glitter bomb or keying her car. Not once had I thought about hurting her physically. Not to the point of blood anyway. And yet, the deepest darkest part of my mind was obviously a nightmare of horror. Sick and twisted and vile. I choked a little, unsure of what to do, now that I’d been uncovered as the disgusting creature I was.
“You aren’t the only one.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, turning around and trying to keep my face impassive. He’d seen my biggest weakness already. I wasn’t about to allow him to see that it bothered me so much. He stood up and bridged the distance between us. I was so close to him that looking into his eyes was like looking into eternity.
“Death, destruction, pain. I see it all the time. I see people who enjoy it. I don’t think you do.” He held out his hand to me and swiped a stray lock of hair from my face. My breath caught in my throat at the gesture. It was too intimate. Too nice. Not the kind of gesture a man who wanted to kill a person might make. Confusion abounded in my mind. There was literally no reason for him to suddenly be nice to me, and yet he was being. At least he wasn’t trying to hurt me or murder me. I wasn’t sure I liked this new side of him. The filthy hot murdering psycho I hated, but I understood it. This scared me even more, if possible, because when he was being nice to me, I might just fall for what was obviously a trick.
“You don’t know me at all,” I whispered, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “Maybe I do enjoy it. Maybe that’s what keeps me going.”
I took a deep breath and stared at him, challenging him. He leaned forward, and for a scarily thrilling second, I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn’t. His breath caught on my neck as he whispered into my ear. “I know you better than you think I do. I don’t think you would hurt her. Your thoughts and your actions do not always equate. I find you an enigma.”
God, I hated him. I hated how he had the upper hand in all things. I couldn’t even be on my own in my own mind.
My lips curled downward as I contemplated spitting in his overbearing face just to prove he was wrong. The bastard had my mother and hundreds of thousands of others like her locked in sleep. Where did he get off telling me I didn’t enjoy hurting others? I was going to prove the bastard wrong. Even if it took me a month to figure out how, I was going to get that knife of his and slit his motherfucking throat.