“Erik,” she said, repeating the name in a way that made me flinch. For, though there was one other person who insisted on referring to me as such, to hear that name uttered aloud was to be reminded of everything I had lost. Everything I no longer was, and could never be again.

“I must go,” I told her, my central aim now achieved. “But you should heed my warning. Get out. Leave Moldavia. Or, one way or another, he will make you.”

I ended the dream there by opening my eyes—casting their glow upon the hearth I had seated myself in front of prior to my meditation.

And now I was back. On my side of the house. Once more locked within the shell of the thing I had just warned her against.

SEVEN

Stephanie

I woke up at four fifteen that morning—right after the dream ended.

I didn’t even try to go back to sleep, either. I wouldn’t have been able to. Not with that face—that voice—still echoing in my mind.

With the hope of grounding myself in reality, I got up. Clad in T-shirt, pajamas pants, and robe, I padded downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee. Four sips in, though, and I was still asking myself the same ludicrous questions. Why, for the first time since I’d entered it, did the house feel so . . . off? And why had that dream felt more real than this moment that was real?

I pressed the tips of my fingers to my lips, where the sensation of his touch lingered. Though no one had touched me at all.

The mind was a funny thing. Scientists wanted to say that outer space was the final frontier, but I would argue that it was the human brain. And mine? Between yesterday and today, well, it had somehow fallen into a black hole.

Two cups of coffee and almost a half hour of total silence later, though, and I managed to sort the dream out in its entirety. Well, nearly.

The tall, dark, and molten-hot stranger standing at the lockers? Nothing more than a fancy chimera Frankensteined together by my subconscious, which had excavated the parts both from yesterday’s interaction with Lucas and those freaky faceless photos I’d found in the attic. How could I be so sure? Because Sir Steamy McDreamy had referred to the house as “Moldavia.” And Lucas had been the first person to utter that name to me.

Boom. Mystery explained.

The dream had also revealed another layer of my inner world that I couldn’t help but examine now, too.

This Erik guy. I might not have even stopped to pay him any attention in the dream if he hadn’t been sooooo . . . Well, for lack of a better term, beautiful.

Even now that face reverberated through my memory as sharply as it had in the dream.

Gripping the handle of my coffee mug, I frowned into the cooled light-brown liquid.