“Who are you?” my mother asked noticing for the first time that the lady’s feet didn’t quite touch the ground.

“I am a friend.  Save your child and return.”

“If I return, he will kill me.”

The Taupe Lady’s eyes filled with sadness.  “Yes, he will,” she agreed.

“Then, I cannot.”  My mother ran with me.

*    *    *    *

I woke lying limply against Luke’s back as he braked hard and turned into the parking lot of a small motel.

Instantly alert, I lifted my head. “What are you doing?”

“You keep twitching.  You can’t ride sleeping.  It’s not safe,” he said over his shoulder as he parked in front of the office.

Not safe?  My whole life was not safe.  Riding anywhere with one of them was probably not safe.  Adding my narcoleptic tendency to sleep didn’t really decrease my life expectancy that much more.

He loosened the strap as I argued. “Sleeping strapped to you is better than sleeping here.  We need to keep moving.”

“Believe me, I’m all for hurrying, but I’m not going to risk you falling off.”  He lifted the strap over his head so we were no longer pressed against each other.

I scrambled to dismount.  “I’m not tired anymore.”  I saw in his eyes he didn’t buy it for a second.  “I don’t want to stay here,” I said as I started to panic.

Taking a ride from him was different from locking myself in a room with him. I didn’t trust him—us—in a room.  There was too much pull going on.  My stomach went wild at the idea of a room with a bed and him in it.  And my eyes dipped to his snug fitting shirt.  Given his reaction when I got close to his neck, I didn’t see how this would end well for me.

“Too bad.  Inside.  Now,” he practically growled at me as he pointed to the door marked “Office.”

I met his eyes for another moment and then pivoted on my heel intent on walking if I needed to. I took one step toward the road.  He stood in front of me before I took the second step.  He didn’t look happy that I hadn’t immediately complied.  We scowled at each other.  A yawn ruined any hope I had of him taking me seriously.  His expression changed to one of concern.

In my crazy, sleep deprived state, all I wanted to do was lean into him.  If he happens to kiss me, I thought vaguely, I’ll just have to endure.  Wait.  What?  No!  No kissing.  It led to other things, which led to a life of misery.  I shook my head to clear it.

He sighed and tilted his head at me.

“You are so tired, luv.  Please.  Sleep a few hours,” he said.

My stomach went crazy with the pull.  Disgusted with myself that a caring tone and a few nice words could cause such a reaction, I snapped at him.  “As if sleep is what you really have in mind.”

His eyes widened, and he held up his hands.  “Sleep.  That is all.  I can’t drive fast with you sleeping.  Too many things could happen.  I might not be able to catch you in time.  If we keep going as we are, snow will cover the roads before we reach the Compound.”

“Compound?” I asked, wondering why I was even listening to him.

“It’s where Gabby said to bring you.  She promised she would be there.”

The way he worded it gave me pause.  “No one is holding her there?”

“Holding her there?  No.  She...visits.  Honestly, she doesn’t seem to like it very much.”

I looked down at the faded blacktop.  If they didn’t hold Gabby as a prisoner and she remained free to wander as she pleased, it probably meant Luke truly wanted to help me get to her.  Though, it could all be a lie.  Calling the number he had given me wouldn’t prove anything.  Any woman could answer, and I wouldn’t know the difference.

“I don’t trust you.  But...”  I looked at the motel.  Sleep tugged at me.  I was doing what I thought the dreams wanted me to do.  Maybe they would leave me alone, and I would actually get some real sleep.  “I’ll stay.  Just not with you in the same room.”

“Fine.”

His easy agreement didn’t help settle my nerves, but I still followed him into the office.  He paid cash for the room and led the way back outside.  A sidewalk, protected by the eves, ran along the building.  We didn’t follow it far.  He stopped at the door marked with a two.  Too close to the office for my comfort.

“I got kicked out of one hotel already.  He’s going to hear me for sure.”

“Maybe you won’t have bad dreams,” Luke said as he unlocked the door and stepped aside so I could enter.

I snorted but didn’t bother disagreeing with him.  I entered the room then turned to look at him with an arched brow.  He still stood there with his hand on the doorknob.

“I’ll sit on the bench outside and wake you in a few hours.” He started to close the door.

“The key?” Seriously.  Did he really think I would be okay with him keeping it?

He smiled.  “I’ll hold onto it.  Better I wake you when you start getting too loud than the owner.”

I scowled and opened my mouth to argue, but he closed the door too fast.  I started at it for a moment.  Could I do this?  Could I fall asleep with one of them close by?  What could he do to me while I was sleeping that he couldn’t do while awake?  Nothing, really.  It just made me feel so vulnerable.

Behind me, the mattress sang its siren song luring me enough to turn toward it.  It didn’t matter that Luke had a key.  He could easily break through the door without it.  After all, he’d snuck into one hotel room already.

Kicking off my shoes, I did my usual belly dive into the quilt and closed my eyes with my feet still hanging off the end of the bed.  This wouldn’t last more than a few...

The dream that claimed me had a new twist. It split into four views of the same thing.  I was my current self, yet at the same time, I was all three of other girls in the dream.  Disoriented by all four viewpoints, I struggled, trying to focus on just one.

I crouched in my pen with three other girls.  Branches, thicker than any of our arms, jabbed into the ground to make the walls of our pen.  Trees towered around us.  Sunlight occasionally speckled the ground as the canopy above shifted.

The stench of our feces and unwashed bodies clogged my nose.  We’d been kept in the pen for seven days.  The youngest girl, with the strawberry blonde hair, had been first.  She placed the earthen floor as she glared at our captors who lounged languidly beyond our pen wall.  Her tiny stature and youth didn’t make her very menacing, yet.  But when she hit puberty, she would be a force to reckon with.

The most recent captive sobbed softly.  Still in her teens but older than all of us, she’d been made to Claim then mate with someone.  She kept her eyes fixed on the ground.  I sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders.  And, like the youngest, I watched our captors.

The fourth member of the party slept and twitched as she did so.

I felt the pain and anguish of the one crying, the rage of the one pacing, the determination of the one holding her sister, and the pure terror of the one dreaming.  We were all the same yet different.  Sisters of the same womb.  Daughters of the Taupe Lady.  Pieces in a game we never wanted to play.

The branch door of our pen drifted open in the breeze.  None of us moved to run, but it still caught the attention of the men watching us.

“If she is old enough to look at us with hate, she is old enough to mate,” one said as he stood.  He towered over all of us.  A scrap of leather covered his loins.  The rest of him remained dusty and bare.

The sister who paced stopped moving and stared at him, her chin tucked close to her chest so she watched him from under her brow.  He strode purposely toward her.

The dream narrowed so I no longer felt the other three.  Just her.  Just her anger.  Her fear.  She knew what he wanted.  What he intended to do.  She would die.