SADIE
Something feels wrong the second I open my eyes, although my half-awake brain takes its sweet time figuring out why.
After staring at the ceiling for a moment, it finally catches up.
Bed. I’m in my bed.
Under normal circumstances, I’d be happy about that. As morning locations go, my own bed is a perfectly respectable one. A tree, less so.
I’d appreciate the good fortune a lot more if I remembered getting into it.
I sit up with a yawn and drag a hand through my hair, looking around as I try to work backward from how I ended up here. Waking up here should come with some memory of leaving the couch, except my brain is useless on that front. The last thing it’s willing to give me is my laptop open in front of me, project notes all over the coffee table, dinner already eaten and me waiting for Trey to get back from training.
After that, nothing. Last night ended early as far as my memory is concerned, which leaves me with two explanations.
One, Trey somehow put another dose of his anti-horny soup in the food I made myself, which would require several laws of time and common sense to stop applying.
Or...
My gaze drops to yesterday’s clothes, then travels slowly over the blanket tucked around me. I stare at it for a little too long.
Surely there’s a third option.
Alien abduction. Temporary amnesia. Anything, really. But my brain has already landed on the explanation I’ve been avoiding.
I bury my face in my palms with a muffled groan.
I sleepwalked.
It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve had a few episodes over the years, with sleep talking occasionally joining the party. A doctor once told me stress and trauma could bring both on, and considering the last few days, I could spend the entire morning listing possible triggers and still miss a few.
Ugh.
Now I just have to hope I stayed in my room. Past experience says that’s probably asking for too much. The few people who’ve caught me wandering around asleep usually go from confused to mildly terrified pretty fast, and Trey firing me because I started haunting his apartment at night would be difficult to explain on a résumé.
I drag both hands down my face and shove the blanket away. "Please tell me I behaved."
Forcing my feet toward the bathroom takes more effort than it should, but at least I have one reason not to crawl straight back under the blanket. I’m finally heading to the Omega Welfare Center to renew my health coverage.
After days of worrying about running out of medication and eventually going rogue, I managed to beat unemployment before it could kill me.
I shuffle into the bathroom and reach for my toothbrush, yawning as I squeeze toothpaste onto the bristles. Once the coverage is renewed, I can get back on my injections and maybe spend the rest of senior year stressing about normal things.
Grades. Graduation. Finding a job. Problems that probably wouldn’t keep me up at night if I’d had the foresight to be born an Alpha’s daughter. Honestly, I would’ve settled for a Delta’s.
The toothbrush makes it halfway to my mouth before my eyes wander up to the mirror.
My hand stops midair. My brows pull together. What in the Joker’s name am I looking at?
Blinking seems like the obvious first response, so I do it twice for good measure.
No improvement.
My eyes are still green, which barely even makes the morning’s top-ten list anymore, because we’ve moved on to veins. Dark ones. Very visible ones.
They run along my neck and branch upward beneath my skin, crossing my jaw and reaching my face in thin lines that look alarming enough to make hallucination feel like a reasonable explanation.
Before I can decide, they disappear.
I straighten.
Wait.
They come back.
I lean toward the mirror again as they fade, then reappear a few seconds later.
Okay, so we’re blinking now. Haha. No. I must be dreaming. That has to be it.
My fingers go to my cheek, pressing against it before I give myself a quick pinch.
"Ow."
The toothbrush slips from my hand as I gasp and stagger away from the sink, but even with several feet between me and the mirror, I can’t stop staring at the veins appearing and disappearing beneath my skin.
Fear keeps me rooted on the spot, my eyes wide and my heart pounding while my reflection does the exact same thing back at me.
"What is wrong with me?"
My voice comes out quieter than intended, barely making it past the tightness in my throat.
Against my instincts, I return to the sink and brace both hands against it, leaning toward the mirror until I can see every dark line beneath my skin.
I tilt my head, trying to get a better look at the ones disappearing beneath my jaw, when a violent crack explodes beneath my palms and the sink gives way so suddenly that I nearly go down with it.
Porcelain crashes against the tiles and shatters around my bare feet before I can get clear, one sharp piece striking the top of my foot and sending a burst of pain through my foot. I cry out and stumble backward on instinct, desperate to get away from the broken pieces, only stopping when my back slams hard into the bathroom door.
Another crack erupts behind me.
I scream, jumping forward, my feet skidding on the wet tile as I scramble to put distance between myself and every breakable object in this apartment.
My hands are shaking now, the rest of me not doing much better, and I’m staring at the split in the door when I hear my bedroom door burst open.
"Sadie? What happened?"
Trey crosses the room in seconds and stops at the doorway, his eyes finding me first. Then the sink. The porcelain scattered across the floor. The water. Back to me.
"Don’t move. I’m coming to you."
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to say when my head is still trying to catch up with the last thirty seconds and the room has started swaying slightly around me. I assume it’s the panic until Trey’s gaze drops to my hand and stays there long enough for me to follow it.
Blood.
Oh. Maybe the dizziness has less to do with panic than I thought.
There’s more of it than I expected, running across my palm and down my wrist before dripping from my fingers onto the floor.
"I...I don’t know what just happened," I whisper.
His attention stays on the blood as he steps inside, carefully navigating the broken porcelain between us.