Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,14

my fist to keep me from stroking him anymore. My hand was sticky, but I didn’t care. And I didn’t care when Thorn rolled to my side and warmth trickled out of me and along my thighs.

Eyes closed, I smiled as two of the men I loved curled next to me and wrapped their arms around my waist. We fell asleep, just like that, sweaty and sticky. And it was perfect.

I walked through the desert. In the distance, Mr. Chee stood over an open grave. He looked at me as I approached, and I stared down at the grave, now just a hole, with no body inside of it. I turned to him.

“What happened here?”

His mouth fell open. “Can you see me?”

“You’re standing next to me. Of course, I can see you.” Seemed a really odd question. Above my head, crows cawed into the night. Truth was, it sounded more like a rattle. There were four of them, and they buzzed overhead, swooping down like they wanted my attention. One got too close, and I waved my hand to keep it away.

That seemed really unusual behavior. But I ignored them and turned to Mr. Chee instead. “What happened here?” I asked again.

“You can’t always see me.”

I sighed. We were going round and round on this. I asked a question, he talked about seeing him. “I think we’ve determined this already.”

He pointed at the hole. “I was trying to change what happened, to undo. There are things that control time. I thought I could put it back, I thought I could be the one to kill Erdirg and then you could have a normal life. The boys wouldn’t hate me. They’d stay around. Everyone’s future would be better if I could just be the one to take care of Erdirg. And now this has happened.”

I rubbed my eyes. “You can’t change time. It moves from start to finish. That’s what it does.”

“Oh, Lacey. That’s not true. You should know about Brahmaloka. Or how about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity? The Einstein-Rosen Bridge? Ask Oliver to tell you about it. Tell him that if he can’t save me from this, to take care of his mother. Tell Aaron that—”

I jolted upward, my heart racing. The room was quiet around me except for the sounds of Thorn’s snores. They were loud. Not that they bothered me. I liked the sound, but that was it. Aaron’s inhalations were easy in my ear, quiet. His hand pressed into my stomach. Thorn practically pinned me to the bed with his leg.

What had that been about? Weird dream. Mara was gone. I wasn’t being tortured with nightmares. But what had that meant? What was Brahmaloka? And Einstein?

I shook Aaron gently, and he opened his eyes, groaning a little bit. “It’s not me. It’s Thorn. Shake him.”

I might have laughed if I weren’t so confused at the moment. “I had a dream about your dad.”

He lifted his head, clarity coming into his gaze. “And you’re worried it wasn’t just a dream.” He rubbed his eyes. “Is he dead, Lacey?”

“No… what is Brahmaloka?”

He sat all the way up. “Fuck me.”

“What’s wrong?” Thorn came awake instantly. “What’s going on?”

I took his hand. “I had a dream of Mr. Chee. And he used a word that’s upsetting Aaron. He said to ask. What is Brahmaloka?” My voice rose louder and louder, increasing with my worry.

A sound from the doorway caught my attention. It was Oliver. He took a bite of an apple. “It means many things in Buddhism and Hinduism. But this is my father. He’s not concerned with religion. He likes to talk about it in terms of time travel. One of the first mythos to deal with that. The story follows a king, his daughter, and how they went about finding the perfect suitor.”

“Dad liked to talk about how much it had in common with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity,” Aaron said. It took a second for his words to penetrate my discombobulation. Aaron had pulled the sheet to cover us, but I was pretty aware of how this looked. Me, naked in bed with Oliver’s brother and Thorn. But when he spoke those final words, I jolted.

“Einstein-Rosen Bridge.” I whispered the words I’d heard. The dream came back with a rush, and I forgot all about my current state of undress. “Your dad said…” I tried hard to remember every detail. The empty grave. Mr. Chee’s surprise at me seeing him. His message. “He tried to kill Erdirg so you