When she tried to walk through the snow, she dropped through it almost up to her knees. Makenna wondered if it was possible to be blinded by snow because she could barely see anything and the snowflakes made her eyes hurt. There had to be a way out of this, she thought and put her arms in front of her. She knew this was Daniel´s doing.

  He was trying to scare her again, but she wouldn´t let him. She would find a way to wake up…Makenna gasped when her foot almost slipped of the edge of the mountain and the gratitude she felt for not falling made her head spin.

  “Ever been on Mount Everest before?” Daniel was standing right next to her and she flinched.

  He was wearing his black coat and this was the first time she´d seen him out of bed in weeks but then she reminded herself that this wasn´t real.

  “You´re in my dream, aren´t you?” She brushed of the snow from her eyes and blinked at him.

  “I am and you´re in mine,” he said. “Just like in the old days before you decided to try to escape me.”

  The blizzard stopped as if he had turned on a switch. In the distance a weak sun was shining, its rays crawling up the mountain tops like it was desperate to reach them.

  They were on the highest altitude, so near the clouds that Makenna thought that she could reach them with her hand and it made her nervous. She glanced at Daniel and he seemed harmless enough, but now she knew what he really was like. If he tried anything, he would regret it.

  “Seems like I can´t escape you,” Makenna muttered. “Seems like wherever I go, you´ll be there, you´re even in my head.”

  And he was in her head because she´d given him permission. Had she known that this was what it was going to be like, she would´ve never said yes.

  “Does this mean you give up?” Daniel asked, his perfect mouth curving with satisfaction. “Because that would make everything a hell of a lot easier.”

  “Easier for you, not for me.”

  “It´s not easy for me,” he almost snarled. “You don´t think that I wish that I wasn´t a sleepwalker. This curse had destroyed my life and it’s trying to pull me away from you.” He shook his head and his icy blue lips thinned. “I can´t let that happen.”

  “You mean you won´t let that happen. You act like you don´t have a choice.”

  “I don´t care if I have a choice or not. I want what I want.” His eyes wandered over her, like he was aching to touch her but then abruptly averted his gaze and said. “You should see what the night sky looks like from up here. It´s really something special. Do you want me to make it night?”

  Makenna didn´t want that, she wanted to scream that she didn´t want anything from him and wondered if it would unleash an avalanche if she did.

  Daniel seemed unbothered by her lack of reciprocity and he sighed.

  “I´ve always loved a cold like this. It blazes through and burns everything that’s in its way.”

  “I can imagine you would like something like that,” Makenna muttered. Daniel slowly shook his head.

  “You know I´ve never felt really at home in the real world. I always felt like this was my true home, the place where I belonged.” He hung with his head a little. “And then I met you and I told myself that I would give up the dreams as long as I got to stay with you.” He refused to look at her, just stared out at the mountains but his voice was strenuous.

  “But you won´t be able to stay with me,” she murmured and he sneered.

  “Turns out that I will,” he said. “Just not in a place that will be to both of our liking.”

  Anger flared in Makenna and she rowed.

  “I don´t want you in my dream anymore. Get out.”

  “There´s no need to be rude,” Daniel said and suddenly his tone was soothing, almost tranquilizing. “I just thought you´d like to see a view like this, before you follow me into the dark.”

  Makenna glared at him.

  “I am not following you anywhere. I think you´re so used to your dreams that you don´t separate them from reality. You can´t just force people to do what you want.”

  “Can´t I,” he said and she thought she heard him mutter “watch me.” He crossed his arms. “And I am not trying to make this hard on you, but I don´t think you understand.” His voice lowered. “You don´t know what it’s like, to wander down there all alone. The past times I could at least tell myself that in time I would wake up but now there´s no hope for me anymore.”

  “Maybe there is,” Makenna said, trying to sound encouraging even though he didn´t deserve it. “Just because that specialist said you wouldn´t wake up, doesn´t mean he needs to be right.” If only Daniel believed her then maybe he´d stop doing this.

  “He is right, I can feel it,” Daniel said and looked her in the eyes and they were shining with a peculiar light. “My only comfort is to know that you will be there with me.”

  “But. I. Will. Not. Be. There.”

  Makenna thought she´d made her hostility to what he was doing quite clear but he barely seemed to notice.

  “Don´t you understand?” he asked, sounding almost like he was scolding her for her inability to get the bigger picture. “I will never give up. You can try and run away and you can tell your stupid friends about me and my scary tricks but you´ll see that it´s useless. In the end it will only be you and me.”

  “No it won´t, because I won´t give up either,” Makenna said and he smiled but it looked more like a snarl.

  “Fight it as much as you like, but there´s no way out.”

  He looked down the mountain top and Makenna did the same. It was such a long way down that it made her dizzy. And not to mention how painful it looked to be crushed against those cliffs, if she ever suddenly slipped.

  “I´d like to wake up,” she said and tried to sound assertive but her legs were shaking.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Now.”

  “Did you know?” Daniel began and she bit her lip, because she could see it in his face that he was planning something. “That if people dream that they´re falling they always wake up before they hit the ground? Apparently the brain reacts as if you´re in actual danger and gives you a nice, little adrenaline rush.”

  Makenna looked down at the steep. She knew what he was thinking. If she fell, it would feel real, not real as if in a dream but real as in reality.

  “Daniel…” she warned him but even before she could finish her sentence, the piece of the mountain that she was standing on crumbled. She was falling and she screamed and his striking face, with the cruel mouth watched her fall. She screamed again at the thought of hitting the bottom and braced herself for the pain…

  “Miss Lestrange,” a heavy touch pressed down on Makenna´s shoulder and it took her a few seconds to stop screaming.

  Her face was in her hands as if she had tried to cover her eyes. She was still in biology class and Mr. Thompson was standing in front of her, looking both stern and worried. Her classmates were staring at her, some with curiosity and others with pity. No doubt they thought that this was a reaction to what was going on with Daniel. And they were right, just not in

  the way that they thought.

  “I´m…I´m sorry,” Makenna muttered and confused she blinked at the pale light, shining through the windows. Mr. Thompson was kind enough to ask if she needed to go to the school nurse. She nodded and ignored the frightened looks that both Flora and Parker gave her as she ran out. But she didn´t go to the nurse, instead she went straight to Daniel´s house.

  This needed to end. Now.

  “What are you doing?” Makenna shouted and slammed the door behind her, thankful that Mrs. Barlow wasn´t at home. “Stop this.”

  “Gladly,” Daniel said immediately “As soon as you agree to do as I ask.”

  “Never,” Makenna said and shook her head. “And I want you to end your twisted game. You won´t get what you want.”

  “I will, you´ll see,” he said. “There is no way that I´ll accept being down there while you´re up here.”

  “This isn´t you,” Makenna said. “You´re not like this. I know you´re not.”

  “You´re wrong, this is me,” he said. “And I warned you from the beginning. I told you I wasn´t as sweet as you thought. You should have listened to me.”

  He made it sound like this was all her fault and Makenna wanted to slap him but then the IV injection caught her eye. That thing would be in his arm, nourishing him while he struggled in a place that to him felt worse than death. It really was a cruel joke. She brushed a hand through her hair, ignoring the longing look he gave her when she did that and took a step closer to him. There had to be a way for her to make him see reason.

  “I know you´re scared of that place but…” she began but he broke her off.

  “I´m not scared,” Daniel snapped but she could tell it wasn’t true. “And it’s not about the place. Not anymore anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It´s you,” he said. “I don´t want to be without you.” Deep emotion flickered across his face. “You´re the only one for me and you always will be.”

  Makenna looked away. In a couple of hours it would be the fourteenth day. She remembered how horrified she´d been at the thought of growing old without Daniel but now that didn´t seem so bad. It would almost feel like a relief to return to a normal life and yet the notion made her feel sad.

  “I know what you´re thinking,” he snapped. “You´re probably thinking that it´ll be nice to get rid of me. Have me out of your life forever because I´m not the only one for you, am I?”

  Makenna tried to shrug but her shoulders felt heavy.

  “I just miss how you were before you started tormenting me.”

  “This is the only way I know how to make you come with me. I asked you nicely but you refused.”

  “And you should´ve accepted it. You almost scared me half to death with that painting and I can´t believe you pushed me off a goddamn mountain. I didn´t think you could be so mean.”

  “It´s not like you´re getting hurt,” he muttered, “you´re just perceiving it that way. I would never hurt you.”

  “You´re doing it now, I always knew in the back of my mind that I shouldn´t trust you,” Makenna said. “And I was right.”

  “You can trust me,” Daniel said and he sounded almost pleading.

  “No, I can´t because you planned this all along, didn´t you? All this time what you wanted was for someone to go with you to the dark place.”

  “It wasn´t like that,” Daniel said. “Every day I kept hoping for the coma not to happen. This isn´t how I wanted it to be.”

  “Then it doesn´t have to end like this,” Makenna begged and he sneered.

  “But unfortunately it does. If you wanted some happy ending then maybe you should´ve stuck to your beloved Parker, because you won´t be getting it with me.”

  “I know,” Makenna murmured and she was sad because of it. “So stop trying to enter my dreams, giving me nightmares. I´ll hate you for the rest of my life if you do it again.”

  He stared at her and she couldn´t tell what he was thinking. The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the hallway and Makenna didn´t know if the sound of time passing made her feel sick or relieved.

  “I´m sorry, you´ll have to go through this,” she said and he sharply looked away. He was too young to disappear like that and despite of all that he had done, she had seen goodness in him and she wanted to remember him that way.

  “You´ve already said that several times but if you really meant it you wouldn´t just say it, you would prove it.”

  “And accept that you want to drag me down into some dark place? I can´t accept that.”

  “Then you don´t love me. If you did you would make a sacrifice and I already told you that I´ll never give up.”

  “Daniel it’s over.”

  She walked over to him and he stiffened, but she bent down and hugged him and he carefully wrapped her arms around here and stroked her hair. She could tell that he was barely breathing. Makenna was probably stupid for letting him do this and she should have probably run screaming out of the room but he had a spellbinding effect on her. It felt soothing, just like it had done in the beginning.

  “You know that the first time I saw you I wanted your eyes too look at me without flinching, the same way you looked at that fire,” Daniel whispered. “I didn´t want you to be afraid of my secrets. Or me.”

  “But your secrets do scare me,” Makenna whispered back and he stopped stroking her and she could feel his frustration and anger, barely contained.

  “I know you want me,” he said heatedly. “I can feel it when I´m with you.”

  “I do want you but not like this.” Makenna wanted to look up at him but he was holding her in place, probably because he didn´t want her to see the emotions on his face.

  “That time in the park when I asked you if you would stay with me no matter what, you said yes.” His voice turned daunting. “I understand now that you lied.”

  “No, I didn´t, I…” Makenna began. She thought Daniel had a nerve to accuse her of being the liar but he put his hand gently over her mouth as if her trying to defend herself would only make it worse. Slowly he took away his hand.

  “Do you really wish for me to leave you alone?” He sounded hoarse and her heart almost broke at the agony in his voice.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He removed his arms from her and pushed her away with a rejected and compulsive look on his face. It reminded Makenna of an addict who tried to stay away from drugs and she stared at him in surprise. He refused to meet her eyes and the tension in the room was so heavy that it felt as if was about to turn solid and she held her breath. This was farewell, he´d realized that what he was trying to do was wrong and she could feel his pain but this was how it had to be and she was relieved that he had come to his senses. But then his eyes turned to her and there was a determined streak around his mouth.

  “I´ll leave you alone,” he said and she breathed out and he almost seemed offended by her relief.

  “I knew you wouldn´t do it. I knew you wouldn´t be able to go through with it.” She resisted the impulse to touch his cheek.

  “You didn´t let me finish,” he said and his voice was punishing. “I´ll leave you alone in this world.”

  Makenna flinched involuntarily, hoping that she had heard him wrong.

  “What…what do you mean?” she stuttered.

  “I mean that there is one thing that you´ll need to do, if you don´t want to see me again.”

  “What´s that?” Makenna asked and her voice croaked and a challenging glimmer showed up in his eyes.

  “Don´t fall asleep.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Her friends stared at her as if she´d gone insane. Makenna paced back and forth in Jacinda´s room and wringed her hands. It was late in the evening; a Friday and luckily there was no school tomorrow. She glanced at them and wished they´d say something. It felt like they´d been sitting like question marks forever now.

  “Guys, I know what it sounds like,” she said. “And…I didn´t know whether to tell you or not, but I don´t know what else to do.”

  Makenna had broken her promise to Daniel, but it didn´t matter because he had broken nearly all relationship rules there was. In fact she even wondered absently if he had beaten a record.

  “I believe you,” Hugo said to her surprise. “I remember what you looked like that night at Jacinda´s party. I thought you acted cracked but now I get it.”

  “You did right to tell us,” Parker nodded. “I just wish you´d told me…I mean us earlier.”

  “So do I,” Jacinda said and placed her hands on her hips so that her golden bracelets caught the light from the street lamps. “I can´t believe you said nothing and here I walked around thinking that Daniel was this dreamy prince charming.”

  “And then he turned out to be a nightmare,” Flora squeaked and nervously pulled on her braid. “But try not to worry too much. We´ll do everything that we can to help you.”

  Makenna thought that Flora was way too optimistic. She´d told her friends what was going on because she couldn´t keep it in any longer, not because she actually thought that they were going to be able to do something about it.

  “How?” Makenna asked frustrated and Jacinda nodded in Flora´s direction.

  “We won´t let you fall asleep,” she said.

  “Yeah, I have the perfect solution,” Hugo suddenly said and everyone looked at him in surprise. “Energy drinks. I have several cans in my car and you can have them all.”

  Parker rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  “Great, that´s great,” he said. “And how long do you think she´ll be able to withstand sleep with only energy drinks?”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Hugo said and Parker pulled his hand through his brown locks.

  “I don´t know.” He seemed to be thinking intensely. “Let´s just do all those regular tricks that people do to avoid falling asleep like…loud music, moving around, coffee…”

  “Energy drinks,” Hugo mumbled as Parker walked over to Jacinda´s laptop and put on a playlist.

  A smooth ballad filled the room and Parker growled.

  “Maybe something a little less sleep inducing?” he said to no one special and heavy metal blasted through the walls, making Flora put her hands over her ears.

  “No,” Makenna said immediately. “Not that kind of music. It´s his favorite.”

  Parker quickly closed down the laptop, looking appalled.

  “And it´s fine right now. I mean I´m not tired yet.” A yawn formed in her mouth and she turned away slightly so that they wouldn´t see. She hadn´t slept the previous night, because Daniel had interrupted her sleep with that painting nightmare and because of everything else that had happened she had already lost a lot of energy.

 

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