That night, I dreamed of the house.
Not as it was, but as it had pretended to be.
White stone. Tall windows. Iron gates. A fountain in the circular drive. Rooms so beautiful they felt staged for strangers. Grant loved that house because it reflected him: grand, cold, designed to impress from a distance.
In the dream, I walked barefoot through the living room. The speakers played soft jazz. Bourbon waited in a glass on the table. Grant sat in his leather chair, smiling.
“You think you won?” he asked.
I looked down.
There was blood on the floor, but it was not mine.
I woke with a gasp.
Dr. Reed was there.
He had been checking the monitor, but he paused when my eyes opened.
“You’re safe,” he said.
That word again.
Safe.
It sounded like a language I had once known and forgotten.
“People keep saying that,” I whispered.
