Chapter 108: Be not afraid 3

BONNIE

Nothing happened.

The thing sat exactly as it had on the dresser, the wood grain dull under the light, and for one humiliating second I felt the old shame creep back in. But I refused to let it take over.

I closed my eyes instead. I stopped asking the hair brush to move and started asking myself to believe it could.

A creak came first, low and groaning, like the wood itself was surprised to be asked. Then I felt it, not around me but under my palms though my hands weren’t touching anything at all, a pressure blooming outward, thin and trembling and alive. A shape gathered beneath the intended subject and that was when I opened my eyes to catch a translucent bubble, catching the light in ribbons across its curved surface. But it was not the hairbrush that was affected. It was the legs of the dresser that was and I watched in pure shock as my gifts lifted it an inch off the floor.

I gasped when I saw it happen and as if obeying my emotions, the bubble popped like it had never been there, the dresser dropping back down with a thud that rattled the mirror on top of it.

I turned to Fia, expecting to see some disappointment at the fact that all I could do was that minute thing. Instead she was smiling.

"Goddess..."

"I did it," I said, and my voice came out smaller than I meant it to, disbelieving even as I said it.

"You did." Fia crossed the room and took my hands in hers, turning them over like she could read the proof of it in my palms. "Because you believed in yourself. Because you took charge of the blessing you were given."

I looked down at my own hands like they belonged to a stranger. A good stranger. One I was only beginning to meet.

"There’s something else," Fia said, and the smile faded into something more careful. "I don’t think I can stop what’s happening in your dreams. Whatever’s reaching you there, whatever’s carving into you while you sleep. That isn’t mine to fix."

I knew where she was leading with this. It was quick to catch. "It’s mine."

I sat with that a moment, turning it over the way I’d turned over the dresser in my mind before it finally listened to me. Every night I closed my eyes and let something else decide what happened to me in the dark. I had let Wenzel’s men decide what happened to my mother and me because of fear in my powers. I had spent my whole life being the thing something else acted upon.

"You’re right," I said finally.

I looked past her to the bed, to the sheets I hadn’t slept a full night in since the wounds had started appearing on skin that had no business bleeding from a dream. Tired settled into my bones all at once, heavy and complete.

"I’m tired," I told her. "And I want to sleep." My eyes went to the pillow, to the shape of my own dread waiting there for me. "I refuse not let that bastard kill me with insomnia. It is a pathetic way to go."

"What does that—"

I didn’t let her finish.

"I will take charge of my own dreams. Right now. I’ll call him to me."

Fia’s expression changed immediately. "Bonnie, no."

I looked at her.

"You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You don’t know if whatever has been attacking you can be summoned, or if it will use the opportunity to hurt you again."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Wait. We can find someone who knows more about this. Someone who understands dream magic, or divine interference, or—"

"How long?" I asked.

Fia stopped.

"How long am I supposed to wait?" I continued. "Another night? Another week? Another attack where I wake up bleeding and hope I survive it?"

"I’m saying you don’t have to do this now."

"And I’m saying I can’t keep being afraid of going to sleep."

"That doesn’t mean you walk willingly into a trap."

I stared at her.

"You were the one who told me to believe in myself."

Fia’s mouth parted, but nothing came out.

"You were the one who told me I had to stop running from what I am. You told me to take charge of the blessing I was given." I stepped toward the bed. "So why are you suddenly asking me to have no faith in it?"

She went silent.

The words seemed to catch somewhere in her throat.

I softened slightly.

"I’m scared too, Fia. I’m not pretending I’m not. But if this is my power, then I need to learn how to use it. If that thing is coming for me through my dreams, then I need to stop waiting for it to decide when the fight happens."

Fia watched me for a long moment.

Then she sighed.

"I hate this."

"I know."

"And I still think it’s a terrible idea."

"I know that too."

She looked like she wanted to argue again, but whatever she saw in my face stopped her.

I walked to the bed and sat down.

The mattress dipped beneath my weight. I pulled the blankets back and lowered myself onto the pillow, staring at the ceiling for a moment.

"Find a way to wake me if it goes bad."

Fia frowned. "Bonnie—"

"I mean it. If you see anything wrong, wake me."

"I’ll try."

"But to be frank, I don’t think you’ll need to."

There was a strange certainty settling inside me now. Not the reckless kind. Not the kind that made me think I couldn’t be hurt.

Something quieter.

I had spent too long treating my own mind like a place I had no authority over.

That was going to change.

I closed my eyes.

My heart was beating too quickly, so I took one slow breath, then another, forcing my body to loosen against the mattress.

The room faded around me.

I reached inward, searching for that strange sensation beneath my skin, the same presence that had answered when I’d lifted the dresser.

This time, I wasn’t reaching for the power.

I was reaching beyond it.

I imagined the darkness behind my closed eyes stretching outward, becoming something vast enough to carry my thoughts beyond the room, beyond the walls, beyond the waking world.

My breathing slowed.

I pictured the place where I had seen him before.

I pictured the darkness and the presence.

The thing that had hunted me every time I closed my eyes.

Then I pushed my mind toward it.

"Come to me, you fucking bastard."