As she fidgeted in bed and tried to calm her mind, she remembered another thing from Brookshire. He had told her if she ever had trouble falling asleep, she should start with A in the alphabet and name something she was grateful for that also began with an A. Then onto B and C until she fell asleep, usually a cinch to happen by the more complicated letters like K. She tried to relax her body and breathed deeply in and out a few times. She struggled for a few minutes to come up with her first word until she remembered Alvarez, a kind teacher she had in school. Then, her mind quickly shifted as she remembered Alvarez was also a strict follower of President Everett. Could she trust that anymore? Davis no longer knew. Eventually, she decided it didn’t change the fact Alvarez was a kind person and a great teacher. After a moment, she realized she wasn’t going to solve this conundrum tonight, so she tried to push it from her mind and focus on her next letter: B. That was easy, Brookshire, of course. C. Cats, she thought with a little giggle. She never thought that would be what she’d pick; she wasn’t even wholly comfortable with Buster yet. But he was cute and did rub her legs, so she was grateful for the random kindness if nothing else. She got to D and couldn’t think of anything. Her mind went blank. She sunk into her thoughts, her brain filing through the different people and places in her life as she drifted off to sleep.
Her sleep came in restless fits. Even though Davis was exhausted, she surmised that she had trouble sleeping because of her anxiety. She was also afraid to sleep through the night and miss her meeting with Ringo. After tossing and turning for a while, she got up and started pacing in the room, trying to organize her thoughts and questions. She went over to the door to crack it open to see if she could hear anything, but she couldn’t. After a few minutes, Buster came into the room and started pacing right beside her. As she reached the end of the room and before she would turn around, Buster would look up at her as if saying, Are we doing this again? Buster would then turn around a few seconds after her, do a little trot to catch up with her, and then repeat the scenario at the next turn. Davis found great amusement in it at first. Then she started to worry that maybe she was teasing the cat, which wasn’t very nice. She knew nothing about animals and didn’t know what they might and might not like. For a reason unbeknownst to her, she wanted to try to pick the cat up. Leaning down and putting her hands around the cat from a few different angles, she attempted to figure out what the best way to pick him up would be. Losing all her confidence after Buster gave her a tough-sounding “Meow!” Davis walked over to the bed and sat down instead, to see if he would follow her. He did, jumping up on the bed, sitting next to her, waiting for her to make the next move.
She mindlessly started petting Buster’s head and listening to the soft, rumbling purr that came from him. Buster kept bumping his head against her hand with gentle force. His tail held high and slightly twitchy. She leaned back down against the pillows, and Buster curled up next to her, nestled into her side. Before Davis could even think about anything, she drifted off, lulled to sleep by Buster’s soft purrs.
It wasn’t a deep sleep, but it never was for Davis when the recurring nightmare started. She told herself to wake up—she was always somehow aware when this dream started again, and the last thing she wanted to do was relive this traumatizing nightmare. However, as usual, she stayed asleep. It was the same as always. Darkness and shadows were encompassing everything. Then, out of the dark, a boy’s face appeared, he was dirty, and his face was streaked with tears and paralyzed with fear. As he’s dragged away from her, he starts begging, reaching out to her for help as she backs away. Screams and shouts are coming from below. As she continued to step back, getting further apart from the boy, the fear and the darkness, she trips backward. Looking down at what tripped her, she sees a black, bloody beating heart. As she screamed in her dream, her brain started to yell at her wake up, Wake up, WAKE UP!!! She finally woke up, sitting straight up with a gasp and scaring Buster straight off the bed. Feeling pain, she looked at her palm, where three crescent-shaped marks bled. She had clenched her fist so hard she dug her nails into her hand, making cuts into her palm. She was familiar; this had happened before, too.
Davis rolled over on her side and saw Buster on the floor, giving her a look to let her know she had greatly inconvenienced him; then he left the room. She was glad. Anxiety choked her throat, and sweat beaded her forehead. She wished she knew why this dream haunted her. It always made her wake up depressed, tensed, and full of anxiety. She supposed she had simplified the problem to herself. After all, she knew the reason she had the dream. What she was really after was how she could forget it and make it all go away.
Since Quinn had brought her some more clean clothes and fresh towels, Davis
