as the hand smashes into the clouds with a disgusting plop. I scurry up an entire dune of puffy clouds before I look back. I jump from round puff to round puff, climbing the thirty-foot rise, my chest puffing and sore by the time I reach the crest. When I do look back, it’s with horror, because I find that the hand made of shit is dragging itself up the cloud dune after me, leaving a shit stain behind it.
Motherfucker! I try to tell myself this is a dream. I try to wake up. But it doesn’t matter that this is a dream, because my eyes won’t open and I’m stuck. I’m stuck in the awful mess, and these growling things are coming for me, and they’re so close now that I can see the sheen on their black eyes as they start to ascend the hill.
Something grabs my hand, and I shriek and whirl, my fist flying into a huge chest.
“Shhh, Katrina, love, quiet. It’ll only stir them up more.” Ziel’s gravelly tone instantly makes me turn soft and limp. My limbs become compliant, and I stare up at him with wide eyes, willing him to save me.
Tonight, his red cape billows out to one side, the wind whipping it up. His skin is bronzed, his lips thick, his hair a mop of brown curls. But his smirk is familiar, even if his face is not.
“Need a hero?” he asks.
And I don’t give a shit that it’s not modern of me. I leap in his arms and wrap my legs around his waist, whimpering, “Hell yes.”
Ziel jumps into the sky, blasting off like he’s Superman, a hook swiping under my stomach and yanking it up into my throat as we zip through the air, arching over the roaring shit demons beneath us, spiraling to dodge another shit hand they launch at us.
I burst into ridiculous, relieved laughter as my dream guy plays the hero and rescues me.
“Why are you laughing?”
I grin. “Because this is the most ridiculous dream ever. I mean, where did I even come up with shit monsters?”
“Katrina…” Ziel’s brow lowers. “I know you’re asleep, but you know this realm is real… Don’t you? I’m really here.”
“What?” I ask, my mind not quite processing. He can’t really be here in this cloud desert. He’s imaginary.
Suddenly, Ziel tucks me in tighter and shoots backwards so that we dodge another excrement missile.
My silly giggles come back as my stomach drops and we soar off, and I can’t help but compare the sensation to a wild roller coaster. Sometimes, my mind is ridiculous. Ziel shakes his head but smiles fondly down at me. I reach up, my braver dream-self ready to kiss him. But I don’t even get the opportunity to lean up and give his luscious lips a thank you because something grabs my arm.
I turn, worried a shit hand has grabbed me. But nothing’s there. The yanking continues. Harder. More insistent.
And then a tiny voice breaks through my dream. Adam says, “Katty.”
Ziel immediately disappears, and the dark shadows of the hotel room loom over me, deep blue and black like a bruise. Going from dream to reality feels like I’ve been punched, and I stare at Adam, disoriented and half-awake for a moment.
“Katty, I had a nightmare,” Adam tells me, his eyes wide. I can see they’re red-rimmed from crying.
“Oh, bud.” I lean down and kiss his unruly bedhead. I give a long yawn. “Let me get you a glass of water, and I’ll tell you a story, okay?”
He nods and sniffles.
I shuck off the covers and go over to the bathroom, flicking on the faucet to get him a drink. I scrub a hand over my face. This is his third nightmare in less than a week.
As I make my way back to bed and help him get a sip of water, then flick on the side light and start telling him about the time his sister got chased through the school by a poop monster (yeah, I’m not super creative at midnight, and poop is always good for a four-year-old giggle), I can’t help but wonder if what I’m doing, keeping Adam away from Mom and Dad, is the right thing.
Is he having all these nightmares because our family is broken?
Guilt rubs my insides like sandpaper, leaving me raw and aching. If he is…then it’s all my fault.
6
Raz
She disappeared. She was in my arms, and she just disappeared. Right as I was about to pour my