Dreamcatcher

Anna Leonard

Contents

Title Page Chapter Copyright

Emma remembered that she wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time she would jump out of bed in the morning and hit the ground running. And then she…didn’t any more. Her muscles ached, her energy was low, and there was a constant hum in her ears, like a deep voice whispering to her while she slept, constantly whispering, never leaving her alone.

You’re mine. All mine. I will consume you, piece by piece, and I will never be done…

Her body convulsed around a pain centered low in her gut, like something was hollowing her out, bite by bite. “No. Please, no…”

Yes. Oh yes….

Emma's body was so heavy, lead-heavy, limbs heavier than the floor, even her skin aching and delicate with exhaustion. Something had happened? She had been so tired all week, all month, but this was…this was worse. It was like being pushed toward a cliff and then finally going over kind of worse.

A laugh sounded in her ear, low and satisfied, and she felt a shiver run across her skin. Was that her boss's voice? She didn’t like that laugh. It wasn’t a nice laugh, and it was in her head, and she didn’t like that, either. It made her tired just to listen to it.

“Where are the damn paramedics?” Her boss wasn’t laughing. In fact, he sounded panicked. Their construction manager never panicked, not even when all hell was breaking loose…

“They’re on their way,” a woman’s voice assured him. “Emma.” A hand lifted hers, smooth cool skin touching hers. “Emma, can you hear me? Twitch, if you can hear me.”

Emma wanted to twitch her hand, but it was too much effort. A sigh escaped her lips, and someone squeezed her hand. “Good girl. You just stay down, and the cute doctors will come and take care of you, okay?”

Stay down. Yes. She could manage that. Emma stopped listening to the voices over her, and in her head, and stayed down in the dark cool place where she didn’t hear anything at all.

The hospital bed was too hard in the wrong places, too soft in the wrong places, and too narrow everywhere. Emma was exhausted, but the bed wasn’t letting her sleep. Even after they took the machines away and stopped prodding her and making her look into lights and even after they drained half a gallon of blood for endless tests, she ached too much to sleep. Arms, legs, ribs, even her scalp, ached like someone had taken double handfuls of her hair and pulled for a day and a half.

The paramedics told her that she’d passed out in the office. The last thing she remembered was reaching down for an allocation request form, then being hit by a wave of exhaustion and hearing that voice—the same one that always seemed to be whispering in the back of her mind these days.

What had it said? She couldn’t remember.

Doctor Gan came in, carrying his PDA and looking professionally jovial. “And how are you feeling?”

“I want to go home.”

The doctor didn’t pretend not to hear her softly-voiced request, the way the nurses did. “I know. But we still don’t know why you collapsed, and—”

“And I have insurance, so you want to milk me for whatever you can get.”

The doctor, who was fifty-something, bald and not as jovial as his expression would suggest, closed his PDA with an exasperated snap. “Actually, I want to figure out what is making you so tired, so you can be not quite so tired, and not collapse again, and not end up in my ER again, so we can keep the bed for someone who’s actually in need of it.”

They glared at each other, and Emma dropped her gaze first. It was too much effort to argue. Her feet itched, and she rubbed the sole of one against the mattress. Alissa had brought her pajamas when they admitted her from the ER, and the cotton fabric, usually soothing, felt scratchy under the too-thin blanket. Suddenly all the noises and smells were too much, too overwhelming. A headache formed in her left temple, a by-now familiar and unwelcome counterpart to her aching scalp.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, trying to will the headache away.

The doctor sighed. “I know you want to go home, Ms. Roberts. Very few people appreciate our accommodations. But I can’t in good conscience release you when we don’t even know why you ended up here.”

They had run their tests and ruled out Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, myasthenia gravis, pregnancy, thyroid disease, heart disease, and an old-fashioned lack of potassium, among possible causes. The overwhelming and increasing fatigue that caused her to collapse seemed determined to keep its origins secret. Emma had done her reading of the pamphlets they gave her: chronic fatigue syndrome, the catchall for anything that didn’t match up elsewhere, was probably the inevitable diagnosis. But Doctor Gan didn’t seem ready to dump her into that basket just yet.

At this point, Emma would have taken a diagnosis of shingles, if it meant they’d let her go. She wasn’t used to being helpless, and certainly not to being treated like she was helpless. It was unnerving, and made her exhaustion and headaches even worse.

There was a knock at her door, and a round, wizened face peered into the room. “You ready to give us a little more blood?”

Emma almost smiled. “Would you stop if I said no?”

“Vampires aren’t known for their restraint, but for you I’ll make an exception. Hopefully, you’ll let me do my job, and I’ll give you a lolly.” Sean, the phlebotomist, ignored Doctor Gan as he came into the room, a small cart loaded with white-towel-covered instruments, tubes, sterile boxes and deflated bags. His hands were brisk and gentle, and Emma barely even noticed as he took another vial of blood from her arm, adding to the black and green bruises on her skin. As promised, he presented her with a lollypop when he was done. She smiled and let the candy rest on the bed next to her.

“Please let me go home,” she said, looking up at the doctor who sighed again, this time in resignation. He didn’t have any reason to keep her there, not really, and they both knew it.

“If you promise to take at least a week off from work, to recover. No work, no running around, straight bed rest and call if you start to develop any new symptoms, and I mean any. Do you have someone who can take care of you for at least a few days?”

Emma looked him right in the eyes and lied. “Of course.”

“Dad, please.”

Her father stood at the window, looking out at the postage stamp-sized yard. Her bungalow was classic Craftsman style, built in the 1920s. Emma had bought it years ago, seeing potential in the rundown building. Her job at Blackbrun Construction had gotten her the contacts—and the discounts—to restore the clean, simple lines to near-perfection.

Just thinking about how hard she had worked, sanding and painting and landscaping, made her want to weep, now.

“The doctors said nothing was wrong with you.”

How would he know, he hadn’t even come to the hospital… She cut that thought off immediately. He had called, twice. And sent flowers.

“They think it’s chronic fatigue syndrome.”

Her father wasn’t impressed by the diagnosis. She hadn’t expected him to be. The rule growing up in the Roberts family was “suck it up and shake it off.” If there wasn’t blood or bone showing or something on fire, it wasn’t that serious. Being tired all the time? Not sleeping well? Suck it up and shake it off, girl!

“Dad, I…”

She couldn’t stay here alone. Much as it burned her to admit that fact, it had taken all of twenty-four hours before the truth became glaringly obvious. Dr. Gan had been right. She had barely been able to get out of the cab and into the house before she needed to take a nap. The thought of being alone if she passed out again the way she had in the office…

“If you were really ill, they should have kept you in the hospital.”

“I didn’t want to stay there. Hospitals are horrible.”

Her father cracked a smile at that. “True. Emma, baby, your mother and I are supposed to leave for Virginia tomorrow. We’ve been planning this trip for months. And your brothers can’t be expected to drop their lives to come and babysit you; they have lives and jobs of their own.”

“I know.”

She hadn’t expected anything else. Surprising, how much it hurt, anyway.

Her coworkers were no different. They were sorry she wasn’t feeling well, her passing out had scared the hell out of them but already her boss had left a message on her answering machine, saying that he knew she was only just home but would she be able to swing by the office later this week?

What was that old saying? Don’t be irreplaceable; if you can’t be replaced you can’t be promoted—and you can’t be out sick, either.

None of them matter now. You’re mine. All mine

The hint of laughter came back to her, and Emma winced. It was just the exhaustion, the doctor said, causing her aural hallucinations. That was all. She wasn’t going crazy.

“Your mother suggested that we hire someone to take care of you, while you’re taking leave. I’ve engaged the services of a caretaker, starting tomorrow. The agency says that they’ll do light housekeeping, make sure you are getting enough to eat, and don’t fall down the stairs.” He turned to look at her, a long, assessing stare. “Please don’t fall down any more stairs. It would upset your mother.”

Emma looked at her father, his well-cut suit and ruthlessly trimmed hair almost perfectly-matching gray. Her mother’s hair was silver—they both refused to dye their hair, wearing their decades proudly. Emma’s own brunette had started to show a few strands of white a year ago, around her thirtieth birthday. She had dyed it immediately, and hated herself for it.

“Dad, I…” She dropped her gaze, and laced her fingers together in her lap. “Thank you.” He was trying to be helpful. Her parents loved her, and wanted her to be safe. They just…couldn’t understand. She couldn’t just “shake this off.” If she could, she would have already.

“We love you, baby.”

“I know, Dad.” They did. They really did. But they were the way they were, and always had been. You stood on your own feet in the Roberts household. That wasn’t a bad thing. It was simply…exhausting, sometimes.

Emma got up, slowly, and walked with him to the door, submitting to the engulfing hug.

“Take care of yourself. When we get back, you’ll be all revved up and ready to go, the Emma we all know and love.”

“Yes, Dad.”

What else could she say?

Give. Give. It’s what you do best. And now you’re mine, all mine, and I won’t share…

Emma woke up the next morning with the sheets wrapped around her, damp with her own sweat. A nightmare, that’s all, triggered by her own morose and self-pitying thoughts before falling asleep. If she could just get up and moving, everything would be all right. The by-now familiar sensation of muscle-quiver, though, made her want to stay in bed and not move.

The doorbell chiming downstairs insisted otherwise. That must have been what woke her up. Despite temptation, a stronger sense of responsibility—she couldn’t just leave whoever it was standing out there—made her get up, pull on clothing, and go downstairs to answer the summons.

“Emma Roberts?”

Emma tugged the edge of her sweatshirt self-consciously and nodded. “Yes?”

The man on her doorstep looked at her impatiently, like she was supposed to have recognized him already and welcomed him in. She had never seen him before—she would have remembered him, no matter how tired she was. Pale, which was unusual here in southern California, and with the darkest eyes she had ever seen, like deep, still pools of black ink. The rest of the face was standard-issue handsome—squared off chin, nice firm jawline, good cheekbones, and sandy brown hair trimmed into near-military obedience. The face of a man who was good looking, knew it, and had other things on his mind.

“My name is Matthew. From HomeHelp?”

Emma stared, her brain not quite working as fast as it usually did. By now she should have been on her third cup of coffee, sorting and shoving the office into functionality. Instead, pulling on sweats and jeans had taxed her endurance to the point where she just wanted to sit down.

“You hired me.”

Oh.

“My father did. I was…I was expecting someone…”

The man—Matthew, sighed. “Female?”

“Yeah. I suppose so.”

Matthew pulled out a laminated ID and handed it to her. It told her that his name was Matthew Reiden, that he was employed by HomeHelp Nursing, Inc, and that he was certified by the California State Nursing Board as a Home Health Aid. She looked at the picture, then back at him.

“Now you know who I am. May I come in?”

“Yes, sorry, of course.” She stepped back, and let him into her home.

He walked in, and took over. “The referral form we got from the hospital said that you’ve been diagnosed with CFS?”

“Yes.” She was guarded still, waiting to see his reaction.

“And you really think that two weeks are going to be enough to let you get back to your previous levels of energy?”

His tone was flat, almost unsympathetic, and she bristled. “I’m not making it up. The doctors said—”

‘I didn’t suggest that you were, and I’m sure that they did,” he replied, placing his black case—too large for a laptop, too small to be a suitcase—on the floor. “I’m not a doctor, I’m not here to diagnose. My job’s to teach you how to take care of yourself, so that you don’t just curl up and die when it gets too hard. Why don’t you show me where I should put my things, and then we can talk about what your expectations are?”

Emma looked at him blankly, then realized he was talking about where he was going to sleep. She had expected—assumed—that the caretaker would be female, and for a moment thought about demanding that he go away, that the company send the older, sympathetic maternal housekeeper type she had been expecting. But it was all too much effort. He was a trained professional, and his ID said he was bonded and insured, so there was no reason to have a fluttery missy fit. Right?

It was too much effort to kick him out, and have to explain to her father, and…

“The guest room’s upstairs, first door on the left.” She let him take the lead on the stairs, following more slowly, her hand on the wooden banister for support. She wasn’t so tired, though, that she didn’t notice that he had a world-class ass. Pretty faces were a dime a dozen out here—she came from a family of handsome faces—but not even the best surgery could replicate the look of a well-formed backside.

She almost laughed. The good looking nurse and the lecherous patient, gender-switched. Hooray for social progress.

The guest room barely deserved the name; it was large enough for a bed, a small dresser, and a tall cupboard, all made out of the same red-hued wood. The bed was made up with a dark blue blanket and two white pillows. Matthew took it all in with a glance, and nodded briefly. “It will do. The bathroom is down the hall?”

“Yes.” Figuring it was best to get it out of the way immediately, she added “There’s only the one on this floor. Downstairs there’s a half-bath.”

“I’ll respect your privacy as much as I can,” he said.

“Thank you.” It was only two weeks, and it was better than being in the hospital.

After his gear was stored, they ended up in the kitchen, Emma sitting at the table with a cup of tea he had brewed up for her immediately, ladling two spoonfuls of honey—organic, he had noted with an approval that was missing in the rest of his survey—in the mug, while Matthew moved through the cabinets, familiarizing himself with what was there and where it all was.

“No cereal,” he noted.

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

“You do now.” He didn’t miss a beat, starting a shopping list on a pad of paper he’d brought with him, then bending down to see what pots and pans she had. Emma had a lashing of embarrassment at how badly her kitchen was stocked, and then shrugged it off. She wasn’t a cook. So what?

“I’m never hungry—”

“Look. He turned around then and looked at her with those dark, liquid eyes. In her cozy little white-and-yellow kitchen, he seemed like an alien intruder, except for his obvious familiarity in the domestic surroundings. “You need to keep your strength up, and that means fueling the machine. Breakfast, lunch, a snack, and a real dinner, every day. Healthy food, not processed crap.”

“And you’re going to cook all this for me?”

“I’m going to teach you how to do for yourself, without exhausting yourself. That’s a balance you’re going to have to walk for the rest of your life, might was well start now.” His voice was deep, velvety, and totally unsympathetic. Emma wanted noting more than to throw him and his tea and his lists out the door he’d come in through.

Instead she made a “whatever” gesture with her left hand, and let him continue taking over her kitchen.

Two weeks. She could survive two weeks.

By the end of the next day, Emma wasn’t so sure of that.

“Keep moving.”

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will. Or you’re going to curl up and die.”

Emma would have snarled, if she knew how to do it. “I hate you.”

“Good. Hatred is powerful. Hate me enough to kick me out. But you’d better be strong enough to do it first.”

They were out on the patio, Matthew standing in front of her like a carved statue of Italian marble dressed down in blue jeans and a dark red T-shirt that fit like it had been tailored to fit. His feet were bare, and Emma focused on his toes; they were almost too perfect, each nail a pearl-white curve against paler skin. Everyone in Southern California spent hours in the sun, and yet his skin was still so pale…

“Again. Keep moving.”

Emma lifted the weights and shuffled around the patio. Each weight was only three pounds, but after ten minutes it felt like a ton. They had been doing this for an hour. Her arms were sore, her heart was racing, and all she wanted to do was lie down and cry.

“You need muscle to keep your body going, Emma. Muscle and fuel, sunlight and sleep, everything in balance.”

“I hate you,” she said again.

I will consume you.

The voice ripped through her, even as a cloud passed over the sun. The hollow pit returned in her gut, inching upward into her heart. She dropped the weights, and sat down, hard, on the patio. The stones were warm under her butt, almost too warm, but she couldn’t move.

“Emma.”

“Leave me alone.”

Thankfully, he did.

“God, please,” she whispered. “Make it stop.” The exhaustion she could deal with. The bullying caretaker she could outlast. The sleepless nights and shuddering muscles, she would work around. But that voice in her head, the cold fingers of something digging in her soul, spooning out everything inside…she couldn’t stand that. She couldn’t survive that.

The cloud passed, and the sun warmed her skin again. A hand touched her shoulder, gently enough that she didn’t jump.

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