Carefully peeling back the dressing, she eyed the angry red puncture wounds decorating her shoulder, a stark contrast to her pale skin. She re-covered the wound, glad to conceal the nasty sight.

A bone-deep weariness closed its fist around her. She clumsily removed the rest of her clothes. Kicking free of her khaki pants, she stumbled, instinctively stretching a hand to the nearby closet door for support. Only her hand groped a fistful of air. She caught herself just before falling into the open closet. Straightening, she stared in silence at the dark hole of her walk-in closet. She was sure she had closed the door this morning. As usual. Otherwise, Molly tended to shred her clothes.

Claire shook her head, trying to shake the not altogether unpleasant fuzziness that appeared to be rendering her stupid. She probably forgot. No surprise, considering the kind of day she’d had. Hopefully, her clothes had fared better than the ones she had just removed. She would check for casualties later. For the moment, a bath beckoned.

With a delighted groan, she lowered herself into the tub, taking care to keep her shoulder above water level so she did not soak the wound, per the emergency-room doctor’s orders. She forgot to pull her hair back and was too lazy to get out of the tub for a hair band. The ends of her hair tickled the tops of her shoulders, skimming the surface of the water like pale brown seaweed as she sank lower into the tub. She sighed, welcoming the codeine’s effect as the burning in her shoulder subsided into a mild tingling.

Steam wafted from the water like tendrils of smoke, surrounding her in a protective shroud. Her tongue darted out to lick at the salty sweat beading her upper lip. Incapable of resisting, her eyes fluttered shut. And she began to dream.

Or maybe hallucinate. Too real to be a dream. All five senses were alive, stretched taut and sizzling with awareness despite the dulling drugs coursing through her blood. If this was a dream, never had she dreamed so vividly. Trees and brush surrounded her, their branches grabbing her like clawing hands. Whenever a break in the brush appeared, a thick fog rose to fill the space.

But she wasn’t alone.

The others weren’t visible, but she felt them just the same. In the wild thrumming of her blood, they called to her, summoning her wordlessly. Impossible to resist. She answered their call, running to meet them, propelled through yellowed fog. The moon glowed overhead, a huge pearl in the black sky, guiding her, revealing where to place her feet on the opaque forest floor.

Shadows crowded her, widening and lengthening as their presence grew. She felt their silent breaths, smelled their heat, tasted their hunger. Their eyes, tiny torches of silver fire, glinted like beacons of light through the hazy mireland of fog and forest, signaling her home.