Free Souls of Fire by Vanessa Black Page A

which suited him just fine, seeing as he wanted nothing more to do with her. It was true that he had deeply regretted his behavior toward her and would have taken it back if he could. It was also true that he still wanted her.
    But he knew better than to act on want!
    He would stay away from her as well as he could. He would see her again, of course, since she had to come to class eventually, but he was sure she would ignore him as he would ignore her.
    It was Friday evening, and most of the student body was getting ready to drop in at one of the parties some of the students always threw.
    It was only eight o’clock, but Aaron felt strangely exhausted. Taking off his shoes, and vowing to rest his eyes only for a minute, he fell fast asleep.
     
     
    The room was mostly dark. The only light came from a blazing fire opposite the bed. His fireplace, he realized, looking around the dimly lit room.
    Suddenly sensing he wasn’t alone, his gaze shifted to his right and came to rest on the figure lying beside him on the bed.
    She was on her stomach, her head resting on her arms which she had folded under, using them as a pillow. Her body lay wrapped in his white bedspread, covering her otherwise naked skin, concealing every bit of her but the part above her breasts.
    Her fiery red curls were spread out around her pale delicate face, the color even paler than usual in comparison with her hair which was glowing like embers from being lit up by the dancing flames.
    She was so hauntingly beautiful at this moment that it took Aaron’s breath away.
    He wondered vaguely if he dared reach out and touch her. He wanted to so badly that his body started trembling!
    Afraid to do anything to distress her, he started to pull away his already extended hand when he suddenly realized none of this could be real. Nothing in this world would entice her to share his bed! Not after the way he had treated her.
    With the realization that he was dreaming came the notion that he was free to do whatever he wished. She was, after all, only a figment of his dream. Therefore, nothing he did had the power to hurt or distress her.
    Delighting in the thought that he could at least touch her in this vivid, realistic dream, that he could have what his body yearned for, which was denied him in reality, he reached out to touch the soft bare skin of her back. His fingertips were a hair’s breadth from her skin when her image shifted right before his eyes.
    Her eyes flew open at the same instant as her right hand shot out from under her head and wrapped itself around his wrist, her fingers clawing at his flesh with such desperate strength that the tendons stood out on the back of her hand.
    Her terrifyingly distorted face had gone from pale to ghostly white, dark bruises marring the skin under her eyes, making them seem even larger on her suddenly skeletal face.
    Her movements had been so sudden, so inhumanly fast, her appearance so appalling, that Aaron was shocked out of his senses. He felt like a kid, secretly watching the horror movie his parents had forbidden him to watch, feeling exhilarated at first and traumatized the next moment; suddenly wishing he’d listened to his parents.
    As he sat and stared in disbelief, unable to move a muscle, she turned her whole body toward him.
    He only had a moment to wonder about the strange mark on her chest above her left breast ― was it a rose? ― when she opened her mouth, only just managed to get out the words she so desperately needed him to hear, and then disappeared in a swirl of color and motion as Aaron’s dream went up in smoke, and he came crashing back to reality.
    Turning on every light in the room in a feeble attempt to chase away the nightmarish image of her, Aaron paced frantically up and down his room; his apprehension for her warring with his inability to believe any part of the dream to be real.
    Ignoring his first stubborn impulse to bury the dream in the darkest recesses of his mind, the part of his