13. Lorraine

Chapter Thirteen

Lorraine

“ L orraine?” Oscar’s voice echoed through the house. “Where are you?”

I curled deeper under the covers in my bed, hoping he wouldn’t find me. I knew it wasn’t going to work—I couldn’t hide from a monster in my bed. He would find me. “Are you home?” Oscar called again. “Come on, Lorraine, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

I lifted the covers and peeked out into the room. My room was a mess—the laundry basket overflowed, and I hadn’t had a chance to sweep the floors or wipe down the surfaces. I’d been working my ass off just to make ends meet, and we never seemed to have enough money to get by. I refused to let Cat drop out of college and get a job to help me. If someone was going to have a good life despite the hell that had broken loose after my parents had died, it was her. She deserved it. The accident had been my fault. I was the one who had to pay the price. “Lorraine!” Oscar was getting pissed off that he couldn’t find me. “Where the fuck are you!?” The more upset he got, the more terrified I became of what would happen when he finally found me. I heard him stomp his way through the house, his footsteps sounding as angry as his voice. The front door creaked, and his footsteps left the house. I stayed under the covers for a short while longer until I knew the coast was clear. When I was sure Oscar had really left, I peeled the covers away. I glanced around. I wasn’t in the home I’d grown up in. I was in the cabin in the forest where Ash had helped me hide away. I frowned, trying to figure out what was going on. How had I gotten here? Why wasn’t I home? A shadow moved outside the cabin window, and I rolled off the bed and ducked beneath the windowsill. I glanced up, watching the shadow as it slowly crept around the house. Oscar was here, looking for me. He’d called and shouted, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d pretended to leave. Now, he snuck around silently, trying to catch me. He knew I was here. How did he know? Ash’s magic and the magic of the realm should have protected me, hidden me. “How the fuck those assholes could have fucked this up is beyond me,” Oscar grumbled. “How many places in this godforsaken place can she be?”

I swallowed hard and crawled across the floor toward the closet. I had to hide before Oscar came into the cabin again and found me here. I wanted to call out to Ash to help me, but that would give away my location. I had no way of fighting off Oscar when he found me. Was he alone, or did he have people with him? I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t know anything anymore. I’d thought I knew my boyfriend, but so much had changed since he’d sold me to pay off his debts. I didn’t know what to expect anymore. I didn’t know who that man was. The door crashed open again, and Oscar was suddenly in the room. He grabbed me by my hair and yanked me up. “Did you think you were going to get away?” he sneered, his face so close to mine his breath was hot in my face. “Think again, sweetheart. You’re mine, and I can do whatever I want with you.” He raised his hand and brought it down hard and fast. I jerked up in bed, gasping for air, struggling to get enough oxygen into my lungs. My cheek stung where Oscar might have hit me, although I’d woken up before that. I looked around, straining my ears for a sound. The light was bright outside, streaming into the window, and everything was peaceful and quiet.

I swallowed hard, my heart still racing. “Hello?” I called out in a small voice. Fear threatened to choke me. I expected Oscar to jump out from behind the door at any moment. “It was just a dream,” I told myself. “It was just a dream; he doesn’t know where you are.”

There was no way Oscar knew where I was. I’d just had a nightmare. I still had nightmares about Oscar, even though so much time had passed. I shook my head. It hadn’t been that much time, had it? Time was strange here, but it had only been a little more than a week. Maybe two weeks at the most. I’d only been here a short while, so it was no wonder the trauma of what he’d done to me was still fresh in my mind. I carefully got out of bed and tiptoed to the closet. I knew I was safe, but the dregs of the dream still clung to me. I got dressed quickly, keeping my eyes and ears open. Anything that creaked in the cabin made me jump, my heart racing again, and it took my breath away. I hated being this afraid. I had no reason to be so terrified of someone coming to get me—least of all Oscar. When the men had come to find me, they’d had magic, and someone had given away my location. I still didn’t know how that had worked or why it had happened, but Ash had fought for me. He’d saved me and killed them all. No one else knew where I was. Oscar wasn’t coming for me. When I was dressed, I walked to the kitchen and made coffee. My upgraded cabin was so much more like home now, with all the luxuries I was accustomed to. I still didn’t know how Ash had done it. It was so different from when I’d gotten here and the cabin had been nothing more than a medieval hunting cabin. Now it was modern, with everything I needed. The magic around here wasn’t something I would ever understand. It was crazy to think that it had become normal to me, who’d never believed in magic before. I guessed anything could happen, everyone could be taught something, and anyone could be proven wrong. If I wasn’t the poster child for that over the past couple of weeks, I didn’t know who was. I was waiting for the coffee machine to stop gurgling out my coffee when someone knocked on the door. I jumped, and my heartbeat in my throat again. The door slowly opened, and my body ran cold. Terror took over, and I couldn’t think straight. I should have fought my way to safety or fled, but I was frozen in place and I couldn’t move. If Oscar was here now to take me, it would be easy as fuck to just grab me and leave. I was pathetic. Philippa stepped around the door. “Oh, good, you’re up,” she said with a smile. When she saw me frozen in terror, she frowned. “Is everything okay?”

I swallowed hard and forced myself to move. The coffee had stopped. “I’m fine,” I said. Philippa narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re really pale. What’s going on?”

“I was just…” I swallowed again, feeling stupid. “I just thought you might be someone else.”

“Like who?” Philippa asked. I shook my head and waved her off. “It’s not important.”

Philippa looked like she wanted to argue with me, but she dropped it. “Coffee?” I offered. “Oh, yes please,” she said, her bright expression returning. “I’m starting to love coffee. It’s really bad for you, you know.”

I giggled, more out of relief than because what she said was funny. “I know, but that doesn’t stop it from being, like, the best thing ever.”

“I know,” Philippa agreed. I prepared a second cup, and Philippa watched in awe as the coffee trickled out of the machine and into the cup.

“This is magic,” she breathed. I laughed. “With everything all of you can do, you call this magic?”

“It’s amazing,” she said simply. “I mean, our magic is great, but it’s normal, you know?”

I shook my head. I guess in perspective I understood what she was trying to say, but it was still weird to think that Philippa could befriend anyone, Ash had magic that could be used to fight off bad guys and protect the forest, and they were in awe of a stupid coffee machine that didn’t even work unless I pressed the button. “Here,” I said, offering Philippa her cup of coffee. “I brought sustenance,” she said and produced a basket seemingly out of nowhere. “What is it?” I asked. When she opened it, the smell of freshly baked pastries filled the cabin. “Oh, where did you get that?” I asked, my mouth already watering. Philippa shrugged. “From the buffet on Mount Olympus. I figured no one would miss it since the food never runs out.”

She held out the basket to me, and I reached into it, finding a pastry. I bit into it, and it was like heaven in my mouth. “Whether they miss it or not, I’m not giving it back,” I said. Philippa laughed. “Let’s go outside,” she suggested. “The weather is amazing.”

I hesitated. I wanted to hide out in the cabin, just in case my nightmare had been real. Outside, we’d be wide open if something happened. “Are you sure everything is okay?” Philippa asked when she saw my hesitation. “Yeah,” I lied, and I took a step toward the door. “It’s great out.” I grabbed a blanket I left folded at the door to spread open on the grass, and Philippa and I walked around the cabin to the meadow behind it. The stream that ran through it babbled happily. We stretched out on the blanket and had our pastries and coffee, and it was the best breakfast I’d ever had. “Tell me,” Philippa said. I sighed and shook my head. “It’s nothing. It was just a dream. A nightmare.”

“Do you have them often?” she asked. I nodded. “Now and then. It’s everything that’s been happening, you know? It’s just riling me up, and I can’t always shake it, so it translates into my dreams. It’s really nothing.”

“Tell me what you dreamed about,” Philippa said. “It was just about Oscar.”

“Did you relive the kidnapping?”

I shook my head. “No. Usually it’s all about that, but this time it was him looking for me. First, at home, and then here.”

I explained to her what had happened in my dream, how it had changed locations, and how Oscar had found me. “It’s getting all messed up in my head because of where I am and everything that’s happening. You know how dreams can be.”

“I don’t really,” Philippa said. “Gods don’t really dream unless it’s a vision or something that has meaning or a message.”

“Oh,” I said. “Are you worried he’ll find you?” she asked. I shrugged. “Apparently I am. It won’t happen, though. Ash took care of it, so it’s silly.”

Philippa looked worried. “Now it’s my turn to ask what’s wrong,” I said. “Why do you look so spooked?”

Philippa forced a smile, and her worried expression disappeared as if it had never been. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?” I was suddenly worried, too. If Philippa had something to be worried about—a goddess with no troubles at all—was there something I should be aware of? “I’m sure,” Philippa said, and her poker face was so good, I nearly believed her. Nearly.

The problem was that since this whole thing with Oscar had started, since the night he’d come into my house with his henchmen to take me away, everything in my life I’d thought was stable had been turned on its head. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore. I felt like Alice who’d fallen down a rabbit hole, and nothing was how it should be. Everything was wrong, everything was upside down, and I didn’t know how to fix it until I could leave here. That was a whole different story, too. Leaving Ash was one thing—I’d fallen for him, and I really didn’t want to leave him—but going home was something entirely different. What if nothing had been fixed and the danger was still there? What if I went home and it happened again, and Ash wasn’t there to save me? Could I do it all by myself, or would I just walk right back into trouble, without a way to escape it this time? Philippa put her hand on my arm, and I looked up at her. Her eyes were warm, the flowers woven into her dark hair bright. “It’s going to be okay, Lorraine. We’ll figure out whatever is going on, and by the time you go back, it will be alright.”

“How do you know?” I asked. Philippa shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that everything will be fine in the end, and if it’s not fine, it’s not the end.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Where did you hear that?” It was some quote a human had made up. I’d seen it online a million times. “I don’t know,” Philippa said with a giggle. “But I love the sound of it.”

I smiled at her. Philippa was sweet and childlike, and she had the best heart. She just didn’t understand how everything worked all the time, and in her world, nothing ever went wrong. She was trying to set me at ease, and I loved her for it, but it didn’t work at all. In fact, I was more worried now than I’d been when I’d woken up.