Free Sweet Unrest by Lisa Maxwell Page B

she seen them, she would have moved to the other side of the road. Had she been more aware, she would have instinctively avoided the two men who were crouched down examining something in the reedy wildflowers.
    But she didn’t notice until it was too late to look away. Too late to move to the other side. Too late to miss Alex glancing up at her, holding a knife darkened with something unspeakable. Too late to avoid seeing Lila’s body crumpled in an unnatural pose, her eyes blankly staring at the heavens, her blood blooming dark as death from a line across her once-elegant throat, from wounds across her bared and bloodied chest.

Nine
    My mom was already at the table working on some papers when I made my way to the kitchen that morning on unsteady feet. She looked up when she heard me.
    “You’re up early.”
    “Couldn’t sleep.” I shuffled over to the coffee pot, ignoring her usual insistence that I wasn’t old enough to drink coffee. My nerves were still strung too tightly with the residue of the dream about Lila’s death for me to give my usual counter-arguments.
    It had seemed so real . I could still almost feel the heat of the morning and hear the buzz of the flies that had already found her. And I couldn’t stop seeing the girl’s body—the way her dress had been left torn open, the angry map of strange symbols carved into her chest and arms.
    Suppressing a shudder, I tried to let go of the image, but when I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, it became even more vivid. The way her body had been left like a broken doll, each dark mark glinting with blood that had gone thick in the morning sun.
    My mom must have noticed something was wrong, because when I finally settled myself and turned back around, she’d propped her glasses on top of her head and was watching me. “Have you been having problems sleeping since we got here?” she asked gently, pausing to give me a chance to respond. When I didn’t, she tried again. “Your dad heard you get up a couple days ago, even earlier than this.”
    I took a sip to give myself time to control my expression, but I drank too quickly and inwardly cursed when the hot liquid scalded my tongue. “Yeah, well,” I said, trying to recover. “New place and all that. You could always send me back home if you’re worried.” I’d tried to make it sound like a joke, but my voice came out strained.
    My mom frowned. “Are you really that unhappy here?”
    I wondered what she would do if I said yes. I wondered if these new dreams would follow me back to Chicago the way the old Dream had followed me here. “No,” I told her. “I’m fine.”
    “You’re sure?”
    I wasn’t sure. But admitting it meant also admitting that my dreams had gotten the better of me. I wasn’t ready to let myself accept that. “Yes,” I said, nodding as surely as I could, but my mom is the master of the silent interrogation. After a few moments of uneasy silence, I couldn’t help but talk. “I mean, Chloe seems really nice, and I’m enjoying my work up at the house.”
    “Really?” my mom asked dryly.
    “Okay, maybe ‘enjoy’ is too strong a word. But I enjoyed it when Byron let me have the afternoon off the other day.” I lifted up the laptop I’d brought with me into the kitchen. “Finally gave me a chance to take some shots for my senior project.”
    My mom stared for another few seconds, taking me in with eyes that had uncovered every lie I’ve ever told. Finally she put her glasses back on and turned back to her papers, the clear signal the interrogation was over. “Get any good ones?”
    “I’m about to find out.”
    I opened up my computer. I’d already downloaded the memory card onto the hard drive, but I hadn’t taken a close look at the images yet because I wanted to see them for the first time with fresh eyes. It took a second to pull up the files. Once I did, I started going through them, looking for material for my senior project and for the book my dad was