Dream Weaver (Dream Weaver #1) Read Online Free Page A

battered body and dragged myself across the bare cement floor, groped blindly back to the light of the stockroom. As my quaking hand reached for the door, a flood of fear gushed through me. What if he’s still out there? What if he’s waiting for round two? I don’t think I can survive round two.
                  My racing heart thundered blood through my head. My brain throbbed. I curled up on the floor, cradled my head in my arms and relinquished myself to the darkness again.
     
    *              *              *
     
                  Finally, a fuzzy light pushed through my darkness and stayed. How long had I been unconscious? Minutes? Hours? Surely the attacker had slunk away by now—content with his conquest.
                  I shambled back to the stockroom, and scrabbled under the wooden shelves where I was sure I’d heard my radio clatter to the floor. My fingers, swollen and bloody, found only air and dust bunnies. And this little effort exhausted me. I stuffed myself into a corner, wrapped in a tight cocoon and sobbed into my knees.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3 Chemical Dreams
     
                  A soft creak penetrated my grief and my eyes darted to the door. The silhouette of a man prowled toward me. The man?
                  “Oh, God.” I raised feeble hands to fend him off. “No. Please don’t…” The words a strangled mewling of an injured animal. I struggled, powerless and pathetic as his hands clamped my wrists. I had nothing left to fight him off, but refused to surrender without at least some sort of resistance.
                  Oh God. Please. Not again.
                  “Please!” I begged. “Please don’t…” I sobbed, struggled—uselessly depleted. Resistance was futile, fighting was useless. I bowed my head and bawled, relinquished myself to my nightmare. I surrendered myself to the tow of the darkness.
                  “Emari. Sweetie.” Someone gently hushed me.
                  Ice and hope froze me. Sweetie? Only my friends use that endearment.
                  The hands held my wrists gently, carefully not hard and confining. “It’s okay, Em. It’s me, Jesse. I won’t hurt you, honey. I promise.”
                  I squinted up into his face, searched the blur before me through the swollen slits of my eyes. Jesse found me as I slogged through the mire of my head, grappled back to the light of day.
                  I whimpered and cringed like an abused animal as Jesse kneeled in front of me, and coaxed me to safety. Finally, I fell into the shelter of his arms. “You’re safe now. I got you,” his reassuring voice bathed my wounded heart and his arms became a place of asylum. My body quaked uncontrollably, but his arms held me tight, kept my tremors from ripping me apart.
                  Finally, when the convulsions and my breathing ebbed, he stroked my hair and whispered, “Em. I need to call someone,” as if even this small sound would shatter my crystalline composure.
                  “I know.”
                  “I’ll call Blake…”
                  “No!” I batted weakly at the radio Jesse raised to his mouth. “No. Not Blake.”
                  “Okay Sweets, but I gotta call someone. You need to go to the hospital,” he gently protested.
                  “Collin. Please. Just Collin. I—I don’t want anyone to know…” I pleaded.
                  His body solidified around me and his warm brown eyes burned dark and fierce, as he realized the extent of my damages. Rape had not yet occurred to him. His eyes focused on something deep in the caverns of his own heart and an unfamiliar pain contorted his face. Tremors heaved through his body as he wrapped himself around