I salute him. “You’ve done your duty, my dear friend. Now, what should we write about?”
He shrugs, rotating on his side and propping up on his elbow. “I don’t know. What do you want to write about?”
We ponder our options while the song plays through and changes to the next.
“I never knew it could be like this,” Ayden finally says, his lips quirking.
I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or mumbling a lyric, but I write it down anyway.
His eyes drift to the ceiling as he ponders the next line. “Kissing the air from her lungs.”
“Her, huh?” I pen what he said down. “Guess I’m a lesbian in this one.”
He chuckles and I grin.
“And the heavens rain stars down on us.” I scribble across the paper.
“Pieces of shimmering gold around us.”
“Pouring warmth all over us.”
“Kiss me until I can no longer breathe.”
“Raveling me up with you until I can hardly think.”
That’s how far we make it before we start making out on my bed. We stick to kissing and getting tangled in the sheets, but we break our lip lock the moment Ayden starts having trouble breathing.
I can tell he’s upset that he has to force us to stop. I talk around the subject and eventually manage to sidetrack his thoughts.
A little past two o’clock, Aunt Lila pokes her head into the room and tells us we should go to sleep. She doesn’t make Ayden leave, but she does open the door all the way.
We start to drift off a while later, lying face to face while Ayden strokes my cheek and stares deeply into my eyes.
That’s the last thing I remember before the screaming starts.
Chapter 12
Lyric
Screaming.
Screaming.
Screaming.
At first, I think I’m dreaming.
But when my eyes shoot open, I realize I’m not.
I search frantically for where the noise is coming from. But the lights are off and nightfall is heavy and thick against my vision. The yelling is coming from somewhere close. Somewhere in my room. But I have no idea where.
I sit up in my bed and fumble around in the dark until I feel my lamp. I tug on the cord, clicking it on. Light flows around my room and I realize Ayden is gone from my bed. The screaming has stopped, though.
I hold my breath, waiting anxiously for someone to run into my room, because someone had to have heard it. But my house is fairly big and the walls are fairly soundproof and sometimes sounds get muffled.
When no one shows up, I stumble out of bed and peek under my bed, then head for my closet, the only other place he could be in my room. When I open the door, Ayden is huddled in the corner with his arms wrapped around his knees. He’s rocking back and forth, staring at the wall. His eyes are huge, glossy, dazed, and out of touch with reality.
I cautiously approach him, worried I might spook him if I move too quickly. The closer I get, the more I realize he’s not awake. Sleep walking. Everson used to do it when he first arrived at the Gregory’s. He actually walked over to our house one night and tried to get inside. My mother thought it was an intruder and almost called the police. Thankfully, Aunt Lila found him before that happened. She gently guided him home, telling my mother that, if it ever happened again, to not wake him up; he’d get hysterical if she did.
Deciding I need to find Aunt Lila, I turn around.
“Where are you going?” Ayden mumbles. “You can’t leave here.”
I freeze and peer over my shoulder. He still seems in the same condition, spaced off in dreamland.
“I’m just going to get your mom,” I say quietly, turning to leave again.
“Your mom’s dead,” he utters. “She’s dead, and she left you here to rot with us.”
An eerie chill slithers up my spine, like a bolt of electricity zapped me in the back.
“Ayden, my mom’s fine. She’s just asleep like everyone else.”
“There’s no sleeping in this house.” His eyes are fastened on the spot of carpet in front of his feet. “We don’t sleep, not until the ritual.”
A massive lump wedges in my throat. Absolutely terrified and with no clue what to do, I leave him there and race down the hallway to my parents’ room, hoping he doesn’t go anywhere. I give my mother a shake to wake her up then tell her what’s happening. She immediately stumbles out of bed and runs into the guest room to wake up Aunt Lila.
“Where is he?” Aunt Lila asks, hopping out of bed and throwing on her robe.
I point down the hallway. “In the closet in my room.”
She races into my room with my mother and me following. She sticks her head inside the closet, and her shoulders relax.
I relax, too, but only a little because I can still remember what Ayden said to me. His words are an echo in my head. His mother was dead while he was with those people. He wasn’t allowed to sleep until the ritual.
What the hell?
“Come on, sweetie,” Aunt Lila speaks tenderly as she holds onto Ayden’s arm and guides him out of the closet. Ayden is still asleep and can hardly stay on his feet as they make a winding path to my bed.
Once he’s lying down on the mattress, Lila turns to me. “Lyric, would you mind if I slept on the floor?” she asks in a hushed tone. “I want to keep an eye on him, but I’m worried that, if I try to get him into the guest room, I might wake him up.”
“Lyric can sleep on the sofa.” My mom pets my head like she used to do when I was child.
“Yeah, of course.” I grab a folded up quilt from the trunk at the foot of the bed.
“Thank you.” Aunt Lila draws the comforters over Ayden.
“I’ll go get a sleeping bag for you,” my mother tells Aunt Lila then hurries out of the room.
I start to follow her but Aunt Lila calls me back.
“What exactly happened?” She momentarily stares out the window then tugs the chord and closes the blinds.
I shrug, hugging the quilt to my chest. “I was woken up by a scream and found him in the closet.”
“Did he … say anything to you?” Her question is casual as well as her demeanor, but it almost looks forced.
“He was muttering some stuff.” I omit the details, figuring I’ll tell Ayden in the morning and let him decide if he wants to tell her.
“Are you sure you couldn’t understand what he was saying?” She studies me from across the room.
I shake my head. Something feels off. It’s like she already knows the answer to her question and only wants me to confirm it. “I’m going to get set up on the sofa.”
I leave the room, feeling strange and really uncomfortable in my own home. The feelings amplify when I realize I’ll be sharing the living room with Kale, Everson, and Fiona.
The three of them are sprawled out on the floor, fast asleep in their sleeping bags. It’s like a maze to get through them to the sofa.
“Is he going to be okay?” Fiona suddenly asks while I’m making a bed on the couch near the fireplace.
I jump from the sound of her voice. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, but then Ayden woke me up.” She rolls over in her sleeping bag and stares at me. A fire is crackling, my parents’ heat source during the mild winters in California. Fiona’s eyes glow orange, the flame reflecting in her pupils. Dark strands of hair poke out of her braided hair at every angle.
“You heard his screaming?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, I felt it.”
My brows knit. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Most people don’t.” She turns over like nothing about the conversation is strange.
Although, it is.
The entire night has been strange.
I just cross my fingers, hoping that, by morning, things will have returned to normal.
Chapter 13
Ayden
“I don’t know what to say,”
I mumble to Lyric the next day after the break-in.
It’s late in the evening and the pale pink glow of the sunset streams though my window. We’re in my bedroom, searching for something the guy might have left, but so far, we have come up empty-handed. For the last five minutes, Lyric has been explaining to me what happened last night, how I talked to her in my sleep. The things I said to her … I feel so embarrassed. She has to be afraid of me now, right?