Before I Wake (5 page)

Poor Fudge leaped off my bed with a perturbed mewl as I frantically tossed back the blankets and swung my shaking legs over the side of the bed.

I just made it to the bathroom. I retched until my stomach muscles felt like they were cramping. When my gut finally calmed down, I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and ripped. I wiped my mouth as the dispenser continued to spin. I flushed and used the vanity for support as I stood upright to look at my tear-streaked face in the mirror.

There was blood on my mouth. Sniffing, I wiped it—and the little piece of TP stuck to it—away with one hand while the other wiped at my watery eyes. I leaned into the sink to get a better look in the mirror.

My bottom lip was cut. I must have bit it during the dream. That would explain why my mouth felt so swollen and the musty taste on my tongue.

The thing in my dream couldn’t have done it. It hadn’t felt like an Oneroi—a creature of the Dream Realm—yet it hadn’t felt quite human either. I must have conjured it myself—a manifestation of guilt and anger brought on by my conversation with Ivy. That was why I hadn’t been able to stop it.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. A low, muffled voice penetrated the wood. “Dawn, you okay?”

It was Lola. Shit, I had woken her up. I opened the bathroom door. “Yeah. Sorry, Lo.”

My roommate shrugged her round shoulders. “I’d rather make sure you’re fine than sleep through it.”

I tried to smile, but it hurt. “You just can’t stand to miss anything—even if it’s gross.”

Lola grinned. “That too. Seriously, you okay? You look like shit.”

At five feet, Lola MacIntyre made me feel like a giant. She had curly black hair, dusky skin, and boobs that defied gravity—pretty impressive given the size of them. She also watched Forrest Gump with me whenever I asked, which made her my best girlfriend ever.

Right now she was wearing boxer shorts and a tank top with a picture of The Dukes of Hazzard on it—the show, not that sacrilegious movie.

“I’m okay, really.”

She frowned up at me, looking very young under the bright vanity lights. “What happened to your lip?”

“I think I bit it in my sleep.”

“Oh. Did you eat something funky?”

I wish. “Bad dream.”

Sharp eyebrows jerked upward. “That’s weird for you.”

“Yeah, well…” She was right, and two strange dreams so close together were even weirder.

“You wanna stay up for a while? I can put a movie in.”

I was tempted to let Forrest run all this anxiety out of my head, but Lola had to work in the morning, and I wasn’t going to have her fussing over me like a mother hen.

“Thanks, but I think I’m just going to brush my teeth and head back to bed. Rain check?”

She smiled. “You know it. If you change your mind, come get me, okay?”

I nodded. I wasn’t going to change my mind, I knew that. As much as the dream had bothered me, I didn’t want to share it, and I didn’t want to let it keep me from trying to go back to sleep.

It was, after all, just a dream. They happened, even to me. Despite my heritage, sometimes the mind just had to work stuff out.

During those times, my dreams were just dreams, and I let them happen, guiding myself through it and doing all that needed to be done to work it through. Maybe I had unknowingly done this. There was a reason why they called it the subconscious.

But those weird, spidery eyes stuck with me. I had seen them somewhere before.

I gave Lola a hug, brushed my teeth—and my tongue—with cinnamon toothpaste, and went back to bed. My lower lip was sore, but at least I wasn’t twitching with the aftershocks of orgasm anymore.

That had never happened to me before, and the fact that it had happened with such a disturbing dream was well, disturbing.

Dreams had always been an escape for me—a world of promise and adventure. Now, I had been violated inside that world.

I thought back to when I was little. My mother used to hold me in her lap, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, and rock me while she sang what I referred to as “dee-dee-dee” songs. The melodies were usually always different, but the lyrics remained the same—just “dee-dee-dee” over and over again. Sometimes, when I find it hard to fall asleep, I sing similar songs in my head.

My mother would also tuck me into bed every night—after singing to me—and tell me to have wonderful dreams. Even though I was usually on the brink of passing out by the time she put me in my bed, I remember her telling me she wanted to hear all about my dream-adventures in the morning. Of course, she was often there in my dreams, she and Morpheus.

Where was my so-called father when I was being raped in his Realm? So much for him being the Lord of Dreams. The walls I built shouldn’t have stopped him, should they? Didn’t he know everything that happened in his kingdom?

Screw Morpheus; I should have slapped that creep silly. If I had known more about myself and what I could do, I would have known how to react.

But I hadn’t—and that bothered me more than the dream itself.

“I’m coming, Dawnie. I’m coming, and you can’t stop me.”

I rolled over onto my side as my stomach lurched. I had to stop thinking about it. I had to let it go. It was over now. I was safe. It was just a dream, and dreams couldn’t hurt me.

Even though I knew that, it was a long time, and six “dee-dee-dee” songs before I fell asleep again.

When I first moved to New York I was certain I would be unaffected by the size of the city and the people in it. After all, I was from Toronto. I knew all about city living.

I was full of crap.

Part of New York’s charm is that it is unlike any other city on the planet—not that I’m that well traveled, but I think it’s a safe assumption. There are times when it is dirty and smells bad, and the people seem to be in too much of a hurry to care about anything but themselves. Then there are also times when the sun beats down between the buildings lining Fifth Avenue and makes the whole world seem bright and beautiful. There are mornings, when the streets have been sprayed down, that all you can smell is wet concrete and the freshness of a city waking up. There’s a haze on the horizon, but the breeze is sweet—and there’s no smell of taxi or subway urine.

A mariachi band got onto the subway on my way to work and played in the aisle as they passed a sombrero around. Only the tourists openly watched. I’ve been able to perfect an expression of boredom, but I still get a kick out of it. Although the break dancers that sometimes ride the subway scare me. I keep thinking one of them is going to kick me in the head or something.

Somebody’s going to lose an eye, I just know it.

New York, especially Manhattan, is so image-conscious, and yet I can pretty much guarantee you that the next Mid-East hot-dog vendor I meet will call me “pretty lady” or some variation thereof because he thinks my voluptuous form is the ideal. And while Torontonians can hold their own in terms of the brusqueness that comes with urban living, nowhere but in Manhattan have I ever been told that I need “more attitude.”

I thought I was a city girl. I was wrong. I was becoming one now. I totally belonged as I strode purposefully down the sidewalk in the black suit I got for a steal at Daffy’s and the huge diva sunglasses I bought from a street vender, along with my faux Kate Spade. The shoes were designer discount as well. I needed the window dressing to cover the fact that I felt like crap. Obviously, I hadn’t slept well last night.

The clinic was on East Eighth Street, not far from NYU, and I spared a glance at the milling students as I climbed up the steps by the handicap ramp. The clinic was on the second floor. Normally, I took the stairs for a little exercise. Today, I took the elevator.

Noah was waiting for me in the reception area when I stepped off. For a moment I was ashamed to be seen with my Venti extra-whip latte, then I noticed the familiar white-and-green paper cup in his hand. I took a deep breath and smelled vanilla and sugar. I wondered how much whipped cream he had on his.

He stood when he saw me. I forgot about my sweet, decadent coffee when I saw the dark circles under his eyes. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept well last night. Of course, he managed to make tired look hot, with his mussed hair and patchy stubble.

“Hey, Doc.” He frowned—quickly, then it was gone. “You look like shit.”

I might have been offended if I hadn’t thought the same thing myself. And I was cranky enough to be honest right back. “So do you.”

Bonnie watched this exchange with some interest. “Did the two of you get looking this way together?”

I shot her a look that definitely had a “shut up” vibe about it.

Noah glanced at her with what might have been genuine bewilderment, but I doubted it. He seemed amused by the question.

“No.”

Did he have to say it like it should be so totally impossible for us to have been together?

“What’s up, Noah?” It came out a little abrupt, but standing around feeling like a joke was not my idea of fun.

Dark eyes turned to me, but his face remained impassive. “I need to talk to you.” There was no inflection in his tone either.

I might have thought him totally vacant if I hadn’t known how good Noah Clarke was at hiding his emotions. In my experience, the blanker Noah looked, the more there was wrong. This did not bode well.

“Come into my office.” I glanced sideways at Bonnie. “If Mrs. Kinney arrives, give her a cup of coffee and the latest issue of Cosmo.”

Bonnie saluted me, the diamonds on her fingers glittering under the bright lights. “You betcha.”

Noah didn’t follow me down the corridor like so many of my patients. He walked beside me. Being a doctor often made people treat me with a certain degree of deference. Noah never did.

“Pumpkin?”

I jerked, shocked at his attempt at conversation. “Excuse me?”

He nodded at my cup. “Your coffee.”

“Oh.” My cheeks warmed a little. Not a come-on then. “Yeah, it is.”

“Mmm,” he agreed as he took a drink. “My mother used to make pumpkin pie. Why do you look so bad?”

I was startled—and yeah, offended. “It’s nothing, but thanks for the concern.”

He must have heard the sarcasm in my voice—he’d have to be stupid to miss it. “Sorry. It’s just…you usually look nice.” His frank gaze met mine. “Real nice.”

That warmed me. “I had a bad dream,” I admitted, meeting his fathomless eyes for a second longer than I was comfortable with.

“A nightmare.”

He seemed surprised—sort of how I imagine you’d look at a mechanic who didn’t have his driver’s license, or an oncologist who had a tumor. Wonder and irony combined.

I opened the door to my office and gestured for him to step inside. He brushed past me with a whiff of warm vanilla and clove, and stood in the middle of the carpet, staring at his cup for a few seconds before meeting my gaze.

“Thanks for seeing me, Doc.”

I sat down behind my desk, tucking my coat around me as I crossed my legs. “I get the feeling you want to talk about something important.” And by important, I meant anything other than my dreams.

He looked at the cluster of photos on the wall by my desk. He didn’t seem so eager now. “Is that your mother?”

He’d seen that picture before and never commented on it. It wasn’t his fault, but his doing so now, on the heels of Ivy’s phone call, brought a new rush of familial guilt.

“Yes.” The photo had been taken when she was pregnant with me. She looked so happy—almost as happy as she did now, sound asleep. “In the Arms of Morpheus” the doctors called it. How appropriate. She wasn’t a morphine addict, as the term sometimes implied. Rather, my mother had fallen into a deep sleep and couldn’t be roused. There seemed to be nothing else wrong with her, and her brain patterns were normal.

The bitch was just asleep.

“She’s pretty.” He glanced at me. “You look like her a bit.”

Was that a compliment or an insult? I was either almost as pretty as she or nowhere near it. “I don’t think you came down here to talk about my mother.”

He drew a breath, long fingers wrapping around his paper cup. “No.”

Oh frig, what if he was going to tell me he didn’t want to work with me anymore? Noah was one of the highlights of my job. It was pathetic but true. His ability to shape dream matter amazed me. I didn’t want to lose that.

I didn’t want to lose him.

But I couldn’t just sit here in silence. “Noah, why are you here?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “I think my dreams are trying to kill me.”

“You what?” Not my most witty response, but I was thinking on my feet—and my balance wasn’t that good at the best of times.

Noah shifted in his chair, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. The denim there looked thin enough to start shredding.

“I know how it sounds…”

“I’m not here to judge.” I winced. God, I hadn’t just said that, had I? Most times I had trouble remembering I was a doctor, and now I was resorting to armchair-shrink lingo.

He blinked and rubbed his jaw with long, paint-stained fingers. “It sounds crazy, I know that.” He also sounded perfectly sane, which scared me—and not for the reasons it should have as a doctor.

This was the point in the conversation where I was supposed to tell him that he was wrong, or that I didn’t like “that word.” “But you believe it.”

This time he didn’t blink. He just held my gaze with the unflinching darkness of his own. “You think I’m crazy?”

“No.” There was no hesitation on my part. There was something going on though. For a man who was normally so in control of his dreams to make such a claim, something had to have happened. I wasn’t ready to assume it was something from The Dreaming and Noah’s own mind. Not yet.

“Generally such dreams stem from a deeper issue—a fear or conflict that the subconscious is trying to sort out. In your case it might be something from your childhood.” He never discussed his life before his parents’ divorce—only the years after he and his mother went out on their own. And he never, ever mentioned his father.

He laughed—a sharp, harsh bark that startled me. “It’s nothing from my childhood.”