She dreamed of coiled snakes slithering up a gold staff that dripped with blood. And the blood slipped and slid and beaded over paper flowers tucked into a brown glass bottle.
Someone called for help in a voice thin with age.
She stepped into the dream, into a landscape blinding white with snow, wind that stung the eyes and carried the voice away. She ran through it, her boots skidding, her breath puffing out in visible waves, but there was nothing but that wall of cold white.
"Cunt cop." A hiss in the ear.
"What are you up to, little girl?" Terror in the heart.
"Why'd somebody wanna put a hole in him that way?" A question still unanswered.
Then she saw them, the doomed and the damned, frozen in the snow, their bodies twisted, their faces caught in that shocked insult of death. Their eyes staring at her, asking the question still unanswered.
Behind her, behind that white curtain, came the crack and snick of ice breaking. Of something breaking free with sneaky, whispering sounds that were like quiet laughter.
The walls of white became the walls of a hospital corridor, stretched out like a tunnel with no end in sight, the curves slick as water. It came for her, its footsteps slow with the wet sound of flesh on tile. With her blood roaring in her head, she turned to face it, to fight it, reaching for her weapon. Her hand came up empty.
"What are you up to, little girl?"
The sob ripped at her throat, the fear swallowing her whole. So she ran, stumbling down the tunnel, her breath whistling out in panic. She could smell his breath behind her. Candy and whiskey.
The tunnel split, a sharp right or left. She stopped, too confused by fear to know which way to go. The shambling steps behind her had a scream bubbling in her throat. She leaped right, plunged into silence. Fresh sweat popped onto her skin, rolled down her face. Up ahead a light, dim, and the shadow of shape in it still and quiet.
She ran for it. Someone to help. God, someone help me.
When she reached the end, there was a table, and on the table her own body. The skin white, the eyes closed. And where her heart had been was a bloody hole.
She woke shuddering. On watery legs she got up, lurched toward the elevator. She braced herself against the wall as it took her down. Desperate for air, she stumbled off, hurried outside where the cold bit blood back into her face.
She stayed out for nearly an hour, walking off the horror of the dream, the sticky sweat, the inner shudders. A part of her seemed to stand back, staring in righteous disgust.
Get a hold of yourself, Dallas. You're pathetic. Where's your spine?
Just leave me alone, she thought miserably. Leave me the hell alone. She was allowed to have feelings, wasn't she? Weaknesses? And if she wanted to be left alone with them, it was no one's business.
Because nobody knew, no one could understand, no one could feel what she felt.
You've still got your brain, don't you? Even if you have lost your guts. Start thinking.
"I'm tired of thinking," she muttered and stopped to stand in the snow that was going to slush. "There's nothing to think about and nothing to do."
Hunching her shoulders, she started back toward the house. She wanted Roarke, she realized. Wanted him to hold her, to make it all go away. To beat the demons back for her.
Tears were surging back, and she struggled against them. They made her tired. All she wanted now was Roarke and to crawl into some warm place with him and have him tell her it was going to be all right.
She stepped inside, the old running shoes she'd put on soaked through, her jeans wet nearly to the knees. She hadn't stopped for a jacket before going out, and the sudden warmth had her swaying in mild shock.
Summerset watched her a moment, his lips tight, his eyes dark with worry. Deliberately, he fixed his most arrogant expression on his face and slipped into the foyer.
"You're filthy and wet." He sniffed derisively. "And you're tracking water all over the floor. You might show a bit of respect for your own home."
He waited for the flash of temper, the cold flare of her eyes, and felt the heart she didn't know he had squeeze when she simply stared at him.
"Sorry." She looked down blankly at her feet. "I didn't think." She laid a hand on the newel post, noticed with a kind of distant interest that it seemed cold enough to snap, and started up the stairs.
Unnerved, Summerset moved quickly to the communication center. "Roarke, the lieutenant has just come in from outside. She wore no outer gear. She looks very bad."
"Where is she?"