All He’ll Ever Be (Merciless World Series Book 1)

I used to dream of things I’d bet all girls dream about.

I would dance so beautifully, my hair swinging in the air as I landed a perfect pirouette. In my dreams, I could be and do anything. I’d dance in a ballet center stage, and amidst a crowd of thousands, I’d perform beautifully.

I’d climb the mountains and find a magical field of flowers where they came to life like the story of Alice in Wonderland. I could talk to the animals and drink tiny cups of tea that would make me small enough to follow the rabbits down the rabbit holes.

I could be anyone I wanted to in my dreams. But those visions were from long ago. It’s funny how they come back tonight.

Each of the scenes flashes through my head as if on fast forward. I see myself as a young girl performing the arts I wanted to before I realized my insecurities would keep me from even trying. I watch as I remember a dream I had of kissing a boy in my class. I imagined my leg would kick up behind me as he deepened it.

But even as the memory of my dreams from long ago comes to life before me, I’m aware that they’re only dreams. I never kissed Paulie. I never had the courage to and if I had, I know it wouldn’t have happened the way I pictured it.

For a moment, I question if I’m dreaming or awake. Everything is so vivid. So real.

But the scenes keep going. They don’t stop for me.

The hairs at the back of my neck prick as I know what’s coming. They’re all in order, like a timeline of my hopes as I watch the scenes play out. I know I’m getting older. I know what’s to come, and I want it to stop.

My head shakes. Make it stop.

But they don’t.

I watch as I dream about my mother and me in the park. She’s there with her friend like she always is. And I’m there drawing instead of playing with the other girls. I dreamed of drawing something that day, but when I look down at the paper it’s blank. I can’t remember what it was. But it doesn’t matter. All I can focus on is her face. This is the dream that turned into a nightmare. The first dream of so many I had over and over again.

Make them stop. My throat closes, and I want to scream. It’s too real, too vivid. And I can’t stop it.

I can feel my nails digging into the sheets. I’m awake, but I can’t open my eyes. I can barely move, and I can’t stop the images.

My heart races as I see myself in the closet.

Please stop, I whisper in my dreams, but my throat doesn’t feel the words. Not like my chest feels the pounding of my blood.

There she is standing with her back to me, facing the door. My mother’s standing there and I’m terrified. Why did she tell me not to leave? Not to scream. Not to move except to hide.

Terror races through my veins.

I wish I could move and go to her. To help her.

Please make it stop. I don’t want to see it again.

I don’t want to see him push the door open and force her down on the ground. She barely fought him and now I know why.

I can feel the tears leaking down my cheeks and I try to scream, but my words are voiceless.

Stephan looks so young. So much younger than he did when I stabbed him. When I murdered him and put an end to the sick smile on his face.

I can’t watch, but I can’t close my eyes. I can’t turn it off. There’s nowhere to run in your dreams.

Please, I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to remember.

The pain grows in my chest and it paralyzes me. The shaking overwhelms me as he pulls out the knife. It’s only a small knife, one like Daddy has for fishing.

Run! I try to scream to myself. Save her! I will my limbs to move, but I’m victim to my dreams.

She’s still on the ground with her back to him. She’s crying so hard but trying not to. She’s pinned beneath him as I cover my screams with my hands over my mouth in the closet.

Please, Mom, run, I want to say, but my plea is only a whimper. I know she won’t. I have no control here and I’ve seen this nightmare so many times. The memory haunts me in my waking hours just as much as it does in my sleep.

I didn’t know what he was doing to her. Not when he held her down and pushed himself inside of her and not when he pulled out the knife. I didn’t know it was over until he sliced her neck open. I knew what death meant and when I saw the bright red blood leaking from her and the way she covered it with her hands as she tried to keep it from flowing, I knew what was happening.

But what he did to her before, I didn’t know. It wasn’t until a month later when I told my cousin Brett that he explained it to me with a pained expression I’ll never forget. I told him everything, but he didn’t want to hear. He said Talverys don’t cry, we get revenge. He was wrong about both of those things.

Nikolai would listen to me though. He let me cry and didn’t make me feel ashamed of that fact.

Even the thoughts of Nikolai don’t stop the visions before me. Of my mother with her hair pulled back by Stephan as he slit her throat, of her looking toward the closet where I hid when the life left her.

Her lips are moving.

I can’t hear what she’s saying.

She’s saying something. A chill flows down my arms. This isn’t what happens. This isn’t what I’ve dreamed before.

Is this real?

The hairs on my body stand on end. My breath is caught in my throat. I don’t watch Stephan like I have before. I know the look of triumph on his face as he wipes off the knife on her bare back. I know what he does next. But my mother is still alive as her face falls to the floor. The blood pools around her cheek like it always does. But this time she blinks slowly and looks at me.

“Mom,” I whisper, wanting to move but not able to. Move, I will myself hopelessly.

My mom blinks again and she speaks. I know she does. “I can’t hear you, Mom. Please. Please don’t die,” I beg her.

Is this real?

Am I breathing? I can’t tell anymore.

I watch her lips, the right side of them covered in her own blood.

But the movement from the man standing behind her steals the attention from her.

Stephan stole what used to be and I can never have it back. Him dying doesn’t mean anything.

No, I whisper and shake my head as my small fingers of the child I was, reach out and grab the closet door. I can feel it. I can feel exactly what the edge of the closet door felt like.

My shoulders shake violently; this isn’t what happens in my dream. The chill leaves and I feel hot, too hot. “Wake up!” I hear Carter’s voice and it begs me to open my eyes, but before they obey, I hear my mother’s voice say, “You can’t forget me.”

I suck in air as my eyes shoot open and I stare at the ceiling of Carter’s bedroom through a haze of tears. The lights are bright, so bright it hurts, and I close them just as quickly.

With both of my hands covering my eyes, I feel the wetness and try to rub it all away.

My chaotic breaths are matched with Carter’s as I slowly come back to reality. Back to Carter’s bed. Back to the safety of this moment and not the nightmare of the past.

It was so real. Again, those goosebumps flood every inch of me as I reach Carter’s gaze. His eyes are dark as he stares back at me.

His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I was screaming?” I ask him, although I know it’s true. My throat feels raw and my words are hoarse.

“For almost half an hour,” he tells me with nothing but concern and then visibly swallows as my blood chills. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

It’s been years since I’ve slept through the entire nightmare. Or even since each second played out as if it were an eternity.

Years have passed, but I know the terror was never like that before.

“I don’t know what you need,” Carter intimates to me, sealing me from my thoughts like he’s confessing a sin. I watch his throat as he swallows again. Pulling his arms around my chest I try to lie back down as if this is normal. As if this is okay.

“Hold me,” I tell him although I stare at the ceiling, seeing the vision of my mother looking at me in the haunted memory. Her still alive on the floor even though I know she was dead.

“Please, just hold me,” I plead with him and turn my head, so I can look at him.

Confusion mars his face, but he doesn’t say anything. He only climbs closer to me on the bed and pulls me tighter to him.

I need him to hold me more than I’ve ever needed anything. Other than my mother to come back to me.