Rafe’s bedroom.
It was faint, a muffled moan, barely audible words I couldn’t make out.
I froze, wondering if someone else was in Rafe’s room, then jumped when a scream tore through the house.
I flattened myself against the wall instinctively, my heart pounding like a jackhammer, adrenaline flooding my body.
“What the fuck… What thefuck?”
Rafe was screaming, the sound reverberating through the house.
Something was wrong. Something was happening to him.
My hand went to my knife as I hurried toward his room.
I had my hand on the door when I heard Nolan’s voice behind me. “Don’t.”
Now Rafe was crying inside his room. I couldn’t even comprehend it. My brain couldn’t even process something so out of the realm of possibility, not with everything happening so fast.
“But he’s?—”
“Having a nightmare,” Nolan finished, covering my hand with his own so I wouldn’t turn the knob.
“A… a nightmare?” He might as well have said Rafe had rescued a puppy from the side of the road. That Rafe delivered meals to the elderly in his spare time. That he dressed up as Santa for kids in the cancer ward at Christmas.
It was that hard to believe.
“It happens sometimes,” Jude said, yawning and scrubbing a hand down his face.
“What… what?” I wasn’t sounding very smart here, but what could I say? This whole conversation was exploding my brain.
“I’ll go,” Nolan said, removing my hand from the door. “You go with Jude.”
“But… is Rafe okay?” I asked. “Will he be okay?”
I don’t know why I cared. I shouldn’t have cared.
Nolan touched his hand to my face. “He’ll be fine, sweetheart. Go with Jude.”
Jude took my hand and pulled me toward the stairs as Nolan slipped into Rafe’s room. For a split second, the sound of Rafe’s crying got louder. Then the door was shut and I heard Nolan, his voice soothing as he talked to Rafe.
“I don’t understand,” I said as Jude led me down the stairs.
“Nothing a grilled cheese won’t fix.”
27
LILAH
I satat the island while Jude went through the now-familiar grilled-cheese prep: putting the pan on the stove, getting the mayo and cheese from the fridge, slathering the bread with the mayo.
“I’m really confused right now,” I finally said.
“I know.” Jude turned on the burner. “Want tea?”
“Uh… sure.” I was only half in the kitchen with Jude. The other part of me was still in the hall, listening to Rafe scream, to his keening cries.
I sensed that Jude wasn’t quite ready to talk, so I let him move around the kitchen, boiling water for the tea, flipping the grilled cheese sandwiches and putting them on plates.