It beat against her thin flesh, outside her rib cage. As she grew more and more frightened, it pulsed faster and faster, her skin protesting, miniscule tears rupturing across her breastbone.

“What did you do to me?” she asked the bear.

It stood on its hind legs, its head scraping against the ceiling.

When it reached its paw toward her, she watched a black claw extend, resting above her fluttering heart.

“I can do this,” the bear said.

The claw punctured her heart, but there was no blood. Just a loud, wet hiss, like when Andrew bled the radiators at the start of winter.

* * *

Kate scrambled in the bed, gasping for air. The first breath refused to come. Panic seized her spine. When she thought her lungs had closed for good, they miraculously unlocked. She drew in a great, desperate breath. She sat up with her hand at her throat, but it took her several minutes to settle down.

There’d been a dream. A weird, bad feels kind of dream.

For the life of her, she couldn’t remember it.

Maybe that was a good thing.

Just another nightmare log for the dream fire. She could burn down the world with her nightmares.

Goddamn meds, she thought.

It was dark outside.

Andrew was asleep beside her, Buttons by her feet.

Her tablet was on its cradle with a note: “All ready for your browsing pleasure. Surf responsibly.”

Swiping the screen, she checked the time. Half past two.

She’d slept through everything.

Again.

Her cheeks burned, hands balled into tight, painful fists. Kate cried silently, angry and disgusted. When she settled down, she propped herself up on the pillows and meditated. She fixed her intention on her nightmares, giving them the form of a black, pulsating blob. She meditated on plucking pieces of the blob away, bit by bit, until it was gone.

The problem was, she was so tired, she kept falling asleep, the blob morphing into strange visions. When she realized she’d dozed off, she tried again, except the blob was bigger. It went like that for a while, until her last attempt at meditation revealed half of the cottage missing, the wood blown outward and splintered.

The nightmare blob was gone, rampaging into the impenetrably dark woods.

Chapter Ten

Andrew’s bladder ushered him out of bed. The floor was cold on his bare feet, waking him even more. Kate was snoring, but he noticed that the channel had been changed, meaning she’d been up at some point in the night.

He went to the bathroom and stubbed his toe on the cabinet. Cursing under his breath, he emptied his bladder. He had six or seven beers’ worth in there, so it took a while. His mouth was tacky. Slipping his head under the faucet, he lapped up cold water just like Buttons would, before heading back to the living room.

There was still an hour until sunrise.