“Please.” It was my voice but I didn’t recognize the rasping, raw, agonized noise.
“Oh my God.”
Somewhere far away, the phone rang. My prison moved and I struggled to no avail.
“Lucien, thank God. Something’s wrong with Leah. She can’t breathe and I can’t find out why. She’s fighting me and if I let her go, I fear she’ll do herself more harm. You need to call an ambulance.”
I gasped for breath. My lungs were burning. The blackness was encroaching.
“What? Are you mad? She’s choking, goddamn it, call an ambulance!”
The noose tightened sharply. I feared it’d snap my neck and I sensed the sickening strangled noise I heard came from me.
“Listen, Leah, honey, please, listen to the phone…” the female voice implored urgently.
“Sweetling…” His voice sounded in my ear.
Breath filled my lungs.
I took it in in gulps.
“Hold on, I’m coming.”
My mind cocooned, nothing came in, nothing went out, nothing went on.
Catatonia.
Then he was there, his arms sliding around me, lifting me. I was cradled in his lap, his heat enveloping me, his hold fierce and protective.
The aftereffects of the hideous living nightmare still held me in their thrall and, although my senses were returning, I was utterly powerless. A blind, mute ragdoll in Lucien’s arms.
“How long has she been like this?” I heard him ask tersely.
“Since you talked with her on the phone but trust me, this is better. Before that, I swear, Lucien, it looked and sounded like she was dying,” Stephanie replied.
“Christ!” Lucien’s word was a subdued explosion. His arms got tight, painfully so. It hurt and at the same time it felt beautiful.
“Has this happened before?” Stephanie asked.
“She has bad dreams,” Lucien answered, his hand beginning to stroke my back.
“Bad dreams? Luce, that wasn’t a bad dream. That was completely f**ked up. I’m seven hundred and fifty years old and I’ve seen some serious shit in my life but that was f**ked up!”
Stephanie was in a state.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Lucien demanded.
Stephanie didn’t hesitate.
“I heard her scream. It was intense. I came running just in time to catch her leaping out of bed. She was choking, crying. I thought she was just upset about what happened earlier,” Stephanie explained. “Then I realized it was something more. The crying stopped, the choking continued. She fought me like no mortal has fought me before. I almost couldn’t hold her. It was like she was being strangled by something invisible. She was fighting it and she was losing. Then you called and talked to her, the strangling stopped but she went limp and unresponsive. Honest to God, for a minute, I thought she was dead but I heard her heart beating and her breathing. I put her in bed and she just curled up, eyes open and staring at nothing. I think it’s safe to say she freaked me out!”
Lucien said nothing but he stopped stroking my back, his hand went under my hair and curled warmly around my neck.
“She’s still messed up. We need to call a doctor,” Stephanie announced.
“I’m fine,” I whispered and wished I didn’t.
My voice scared me. It scared me because it sounded like I’d just survived being strangled.