Final Target(15)
“But you didn’t.”
“You wouldn’t let me. It was okay for you to be the one who loves and serves, but you never wanted me to . . .” She shrugged. “But that’s okay. It just took me a little while to get up the gumption to handle you.”
“And now you have?”
“I hope so.” She took her plate and went over to the sink. “Go and check on the kid.”
“Why this sudden outpouring?”
“It was time.” She put the dishes in the dishwasher. “Do you think the President’s ban on the hunk in the gatehouse includes me?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Pity.”
Jessica was smiling as she went upstairs. It was difficult not to smile when she was around Mellie. Her joie de vivre was nearly palpable. It was a pleasure to be in the same room, on the same planet with her.
Her smile faded as she reached Cassie’s room. Come back, sweetheart. See what joy life can bring.
The scream tore through the night like a knife blade.
Jessica had been expecting it. The nightmares had occurred the last three nights in a row.
“It’s okay, Cassie.” She gathered the little girl close. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
She kept on screaming.
“Wake up, baby.”
She kept on screaming.
Oh, God.
“Cassie.”
The screams didn’t stop.
“Shall I prepare a sedative?” Teresa asked.
Jessica didn’t want to use a sedative. She had tried it with Mellie, who had told her later that at times it had frozen her in the nightmare, tearing her apart. If Jessica increased the trauma, it might drive Cassie deeper into withdrawal. “Not yet.”
“Cassie.” She rocked her back and forth. “Wake up, Cassie.”
Five minutes later Cassie was still screaming. Then, suddenly, she went limp.
That frightened Jessica even more.
The child was lying still, but her eyes were open.
“Cassie?”
She checked her heart and vital signs. Rapid pulse, but in no danger—this time.
What was she thinking? This whole episode had been fraught with danger.
“I thought we’d lost her,” Teresa whispered.
Lost her mind or her life? Jessica had been afraid of both.
“You have to do something,” Teresa said.
“I know that.”
A half hour passed and Cassie’s color gradually returned.
“Go and get some air,” Teresa said. “You’re paler than that child. I’ll watch her.”
“Just for a few minutes.” Jessica stood up and arched her back to ease the tension. “Call me if there’s any change.”
She stopped in the hall and leaned back against the door.
“Is she okay?” Larry Fike asked. “She scared me to death.”
“Me too. But she’s resting now.”
“All that screaming and sobbing . . .”
She nodded and started down the hall. Sobbing? Cassie hadn’t been sobbing.
But there was sobbing, low, broken, barely audible. She could hear it and it wasn’t coming from Cassie’s room.
The blue room.
She moved slowly to the door. “Mellie?”
No answer.
She knocked and opened the door. “Mellie, are you—”
“I’m okay. Go away.”
“The hell I will.” In the darkness she could see Melissa in the big bed. “What’s the matter?”
“What do you think? I’m pissed because you won’t let me go after the hunk in the gatehouse.”
“If it means that much to you, I’ll serve him up on a silver platter.” She moved across the room and sat down on the bed. “Now you don’t have any excuse, so tell me the truth.”
“I hate this stupid blue room.”
“Mellie.”
She launched herself into Jessica’s arms. “We’re hurting so bad,” she whispered. “We almost died, Jessica.”
“What?”
“They keep coming after us and we can’t get away. And there’s so much blood. . . . We have to go deeper and deeper in the tunnel, but we still can’t escape. There’s only one way to escape.”
Jessica froze. “Mellie. What are you saying?”
“What you don’t want to hear. We’re going to die, Jessica. We can’t go on, we can’t get away any other—”
“Mellie, shut up, you’re scaring me to death.” She reached over and turned on the lamp. “You’re talking crazy.”
Melissa didn’t lift her head.
“You were just dreaming, right?”
“ Yes . . . we were dreaming.”
“Why do you keep saying we?”
“I think you know.” She sat up and brushed hair out of her eyes. Her lips were trembling as she tried to smile. “After all, it’s happened before.”