The front door splintered and snapped open.
Liam’s face appeared in the hole and peered through at me.
He wasn’t grinning and wore no expression.
Frankly, any expression would have been better than his vacant one.
I slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.
Another temporary obstruction.
Clint stood on the edge of the bath and pulled himself through the wide but narrow window.
For a moment, I feared he would get stuck.
I was relieved when his broad shoulders slipped through and his legs leaned upward.
He fell out.
My turn.
Smash!
The bathroom door splintered inward.
Liam’s arm reached through and grasped for me.
“You’re mine, slut!”
“I don’t think so, asshole!”
It was terror more than courage that summoned the retort.
I snatched up Clint’s drying shirt, jammed it in my bag, kicked off the side of the bath, and sailed toward the window.
My hope had been to time it just right so I sailed through the window unimpeded but grace had never been my strong suit.
My stomach caught on the edge of the window.
Damn those extra pounds!
I pulled myself through, my shin barking against the frame as I fell in a heap on the other side.
It was fairly high and Clint wasn’t there to catch me.
“What the fuck?” I spat at him. “Why didn’t you catch me?”
He stood stock still, barechested in the cool night air, that vacate expression still plain on his face.
“Oh right. Hypnosis. Hurry up and get in the car!”
I bolted toward my pop’s old hunk of junk, scrambled for the keys in my bag, found them, dropped them, and then scooped them up again.
I unlocked the door—totally unnecessary as I doubted anyone was desperate enough to try and swipe this piece of shit—and climbed inside.
Clint wasn’t beside me.
He stood beside a different car.
I wound the window down and bellowed at him:
“This car, asshole! This car!”
I reminded myself to be clearer in my instructions next time.
Clint climbed in.
He barely managed to shut the door before I hit the gas and took us onto the country road toward the motorway and headed north.
“Clint,” I said, swerving around a vehicle in the slow lane. “Please come back to me from wherever you are. I need you. Clint? Please wake up! Please!”
But his eyes remained shut and my hope stayed shuttered along with it.
Ras
I found myself in a large cavernous space that I’d only ever seen in my dreams and that moment right before waking up in the hospital.
It was filled with mist that writhed in concentric circles.
There were no walls and seemed to go on forever.
Above me, nothing but empty sky and endless black.
I wondered if it was normal to feel uncomfortable in your own mind.
“Hey, Clint? Clint? Can you hear me? Clint?”
The voice echoed and reverberated off into the infinite darkness.
“Clint?”
It was Isabella’s voice.
It echoed through the space I found myself in.
“Isabella?” I said. “Are you there?”
“Clint?”
“I’m trapped in my own mind!” I yelled. “It’s amazing!”
“I guess you must really be under, huh?”
Huh?
“No. I’m right here. Can you hear me?”
“Bwah!”
My hopes deflated.
It was no use.
She can’t hear me.
I was alone in here, with no way to communicate with her.
She was speaking to me… but on the outside of my body.
I felt something touch my chest.
I placed my fingers where it occurred and sensed it was Isabella touching me.
She was up there, out there, touching me.
Her warmth boosted my courage.
The sooner I uncovered my memories, the sooner I could return to her.
I edged cautiously into the mist, preparing to shirk back any moment it made a move to snag me in its foggy entrails.
One inch after another, I descended into the darkness with nothing to guide me but my instincts.
I had no idea where I was heading.
The deeper I descended, the thicker and denser the mist became, until I was smothered by it.
I paused a moment and turned to look back the way I had come.
It was no good.
I could head back but there was no clear path, no sign I had even passed through it.
Trying to return to the spot I had begun was a lost cause.
I needed to push on because there was no going back.
Isabella needed me to push on.
And I’m not about to let her down.
I wandered through that curling mist for what felt like hours.
Was time different here? I wondered.
Was it different from the regular passing minutes of each day in the conscious world?
I sensed it was but there was no way to tell.
And so I pushed on.
And on.
And on.
Every step revealed another field of endless mist.
I began to wonder if I would ever get out of that place, or if I was doomed to exist here for all time.
Most of all, I feared I would never get to see Isabella’s face again.
I had descended into some form of internal hell without end.
I began to panic.
“I want out!” I said to no one in particular. “I want out! Let me out!”
I didn’t know who was supposed to be listening, if anyone was meant to be listening, and what could anyone have done even if they were listening?
But I had to do something.
I sped up and ran into the mist, consuming it stride by stride as I powered through it, certain I would come to its edge…
At some point.
I ran and ran and ran…
And still found no edge.
I shifted and bolted in a random direction.
Surely there was a way out of there?
I’d managed to put myself in there, after all.
There had to be a way out.
I came to a stop, puffing and panting, eyeballing the mist like it might attempt to infiltrate my body at any moment.
I gasped with exertion and cast around again.
I jumped, leaping like a performing dolphin as high as I could to peer over the mist.
I saw nothing but endless darkness that stretched beyond the horizon.
I was imprisoned.
A prison for my mind.
There was no escape because there was nowhere to escape to.
Or from.
I was in a snowglobe, traipsing on a treadmill that never ceased or gave way to anything new.
I fell to my knees.
“Please let me out of here!” I begged. “Please show me the way out! I swear I’ll never come back in here again!”
There was no response.
The mist continued to curl and
