Page 74 of Lost to Thievery
We made our way through the corridors, and I stopped at the nurse’s station to greet the orderly who I’d been so nasty to because she had reminded me of Gemma. I handed her a gift—a bottle of my homemade lotion. She had once chittered on about how her hands were always dry due to the excessive handwashing she had to do—her way of trying to get me to participate in a conversation, to no avail.
It amazed me that I even remembered it. Most of my time here was a blur.
When we reached the gardens, Doctor Aspen gestured towards a bench underneath a few old oak trees. “How have you been sleeping?” She gave me a quick sidelong glance, but I didn’t miss the worry in her eyes.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as we settled onto the bench, not sure of how I was going to talk about it out loud. But I had to. I had felt so unsettled by my dream that I’d called Doctor Aspen immediately, not having the guts to confide in Owen, or even Rach.
“I slept like the dead. But it’s the dream I had… It’s messing with my head,” I admitted, shifting on the bench, feeling as if ants were crawling over my skin.
Doctor Aspen nodded. “Tell me.”
I clamped my eyes shut, a tremble running through my body as I recounted the dream. “In the dream, I was in an unfamiliar round room, but it was with the Russians. The room was filled with all those men, and I was pinned to the desk again. By Vlad. And I was screaming for Owen. They were about to shoot him.” I swallowed hard. “But then I looked past him. The door had slowly swung open. But it wasn’t Volkov’s door. It had a smallwindow at the top. And there was nothing behind the door. Just darkness… shadows I couldn’t see through. Then everything went still. No one moved. Like they were frozen in place.” I sat frozen for a few seconds, trying to find the courage to go on. I cleared my throat. “I couldn’t look away from the shadows. It…” I shook my head, not willing to tell her how it pulled me in. How my heart urged me to run into it. “He… Grayson, stepped out of it. With thatstupidfucking smirk on his face.” I winced as the irritation of the situation made me cuss in front of Doctor Aspen. “Sorry,” I said impishly, giving her a quick, apologetic glance. I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
She only smiled. “You don’t ever have to worry abouthowyour emotions come out in front of me, Ava. Now go on. What happened next?”
I inhaled deeply. “Grayson’s eyes glowed red and there was this dark smoke coming off him, swirling around him. And as I watched him move into the room, I realised that everyone in the room wasn’t frozen. He was just… I don’t know…Faster.”
Doctor Aspen nodded as if she understood, making me pause.
“Why did I dream it like that?” Did she understand it?
“Dreams, Ava, have a funny way of twisting your thoughts and feelings. You may have dreamt him as faster than everyone else because in the real world that’s how you feel. You’ve been chasing him all this time, trying to catch him, but he’s always one step ahead. Just out of reach.”
I sagged back into the bench. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Doctor Aspen waited quietly for me to go on.
“Grayson started killing everyone in the room. They weren’t capable of fighting him off. They could do nothing to stop his knife from cutting across their necks. And I did nothing. I couldn’t look away from him. In fact, I didn’twantto look away. I… I enjoyed watching him as he slaughtered all those people, one-by-one.” I clamped my eyes shut, my hands wringing in mylap. It would do me no good if I wasn’t completely honest with Doctor Aspen. “He was so graceful in the way he moved. There was something beautiful in the way he didn’t hesitate in his brutality. Each cut was quick and flawless, and in my dream, I was in awe of him. How messed up is that, Doctor?”
Doctor Aspen gave my shoulder a quick squeeze as my stomach turned at my confession.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Ava. It was a dream. Not reality. If Grayson was here, right now, killing the people in this garden, would you enjoy watching it?”
I shuddered at the thought. “No. Never.”
“Exactly. I think that you are still in awe of how he moves through the world. How he makes everything seem effortless and without consequence. Isn’t that what you once told me?”
I remembered admitting it to Doctor Aspen in the few days after agreeing to work with the FBI. I had told her everything. It came bawling out of me, until there was nothing left inside me. But that couldn’t be how I still felt, could it? I hated him for it. He was getting away withmurder.
I chuckled darkly. “That wasn’t even the worst part of my dream.”
“Then tell me.”
I sighed, the heaviness on my chest I was always battling making it difficult to breathe. “He came to me. I felt Vlad’s blood pour out onto my back. Ismelledit. But I didn’t care. I only felt nervous. Not scared-nervous. Nervous like speaking to your high school crush nervous.” My cheeks flushed as I admitted it. “Then he lifted me off the table and…” I couldn’t say it. “I never dream of him like this anymore. I don’t know why I dreamt this.” I shook my head in denial. It was agonising having to speak it into existence.
“He was sweet to me. Like he always was. Or how Ithoughthe was. He was whispering to me again, how much he loved me.Owen was screaming at me to run, but I couldn’t. It was like I was hypnotised when he looked into my eyes.” His eyes still haunted me. The longing in them had stolen my breath. “But then he noticed Owen.” I swallowed against the bile trying to escape my throat. “I was suddenly standing in front of Owen. Grayson had him on his knees, with his head tilted up.” I blinked against the mist in my eyes. “Grayson handed me his knife, and I watched the blood drip from the blade onto my shoes. Then he told me I had to choose.” I struggled with the memory.
“What happened next, Ava?” Doctor Aspen prompted.
My breathing sped up as I willed the words out of my mouth. “I… I pushed the knife into Owen’s heart,” I choked. “Twisted it. He was bleeding out. And I watched the life leave his eyes.” Tears were streaming hot down my cheeks. I couldn’t see anything, except the dream haunting me—Grayson’s cruel laughter as Owen finally toppled over.
I couldn’t breathe. I tried desperately to heave oxygen into my lungs, doubling over. “Then we… we…” I heaved, as the panic knotted my throat, “fucked in Owen’s blood,” I finally got out in nothing more than a whisper, feeling like my heart was going to stop beating any moment. I could still feel Grayson on top of me, his hands slippery from Owen’s blood as he touched me all over, covering my naked body in crimson smears while Owen’s dead, glassy eyes stared at me.
I heard Doctor Aspen soothe me, her voice sounding far off. “You’re all right. You’re having a panic attack, Ava. I need you to focus on your hands, can you do that?”
I lifted my hands before my face, noticing how they were shaking. Doctor Aspen placed something in them.
Lavender?
