“Get up, you lazy bastard!” Tony shouted at him. His face was red and bloated with anger. The veins stood out along the sides of his neck like thick ropes. “Get up and teach class!”

Tony’s words grew so loud he couldn’t understand them and the light on the ceiling seemed to grow brighter and brighter. He closed his eyes against the light, but it seemed to burn through his eyelids.

Then pain exploded through his chest and sides and for an instant he was back on the street. The coke dealer was ready with his Uzi. The first burst of slugs caught Ridgeway’s partner full in the face. The second burst slammed into Seth’s chest and twisted him around, hammering into his side and back as he turned.

Darkness had been quick in coming then, but in the nightmare there was only the light.

Seth opened his eyes against the light and saw his partner’s face on Tony’s body.

“You asshole, you should have warned me,” his partner snarled. “It should have been you; you should be dead, not me.”

Seth tried to stand up, he wanted to explain. But his legs wouldn’t move, nor his arms or mouth. He was paralyzed.

“You’re a disgusting mess!” The face suddenly changed to Rebecca Weinstock’s, but the accusing voice was still his partner’s. Seth felt the tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks; he could explain, he wanted to explain, but the words wouldn’t come and finally Zoe’s face replaced Weinstock’s and the voice was hers.

“You let them take me,” she said. “You let them take me away. Some cop you are!”

Then Seth felt himself split in two. One part floated to the ceiling and looked down on the second. He saw himself slumped in the corner with a bullet hole in his forehead and rats chewing gaping bloody holes in his body. Then he felt the grinding, searing pain, and the pressure of the clawed feet scratching at his eyes and the warm naked tails sliding across his belly and his groin. He awoke screaming.

Seth opened his eyes now and gazed at the luminous green display of the clock next to his bed. It was nearly 3 A.M. He’d had the nightmare nearly three hours before and still its vivid horror had not diminished. Sleep was clearly impossible.

He sat up on the edge of the bed and caught sight of his dim reflection in the mirror of Zoe’s dressing table. The carved wooden jewelry box he had bought for her during their voyage in the British Virgin Islands anchored one end of the dresser; a collection of bottles, nail polish, and other cluttery containers that seem to gather around women sat on the other end. They all seemed to accuse him of negligence.

He shifted slowly, then got to his feet. The bedsprings complained loudly as he got up, reminding him that Zoe had wanted the springs replaced to lessen the noise they created when they made love. Something twisted in his heart as he remembered the times they had lain together in the bed, their bodies cleaving to each other, arm in arm, breath against breath. Would it ever be again?