Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Laura Kearney came back wrong.

She’s accepted it now, after months of staring at herself in the mirror and watching the color drain from her eyes.

Her eyes that Max used to compliment, the ones her mother would always comment on.

She’s accepted it now as her collarbones just out, and her fair skin turns ghastly.

Now that dark circles appear on her face and her cheekbones have hollowed out.

She came back wrong, and that’s just the way it has to be from now on.

Food doesn’t taste right anymore.

Before the summer, she could have devoured a greasy bacon cheeseburger and fries with Max. Maybe downed a milkshake too, then swam in her family’s pool and burned off all the extra calories.

But now she has to force herself to eat.

And even then, it’s something quick from her campus food hall. Nothing she indulges in.

The vet school she’s at is the best in the country. She definitely didn’t apply for it, and she definitely didn’t even try to get a scholarship, but she was offered a full ride anyway, complete with a personal call from the dean.

There had been a stunning recommendation for her, he had said on the phone.

She was too in shock to say anything but yes, and now Laura is in the best vet school that the country has to offer.

And she’s fucking wasting away.

She doesn’t want to know who sent the letter of recommendation, or what it means. If she thinks too far ahead, or goes down that path, the nausea starts.

She doesn’t want to think about who could have pulled strings like that, or who was in law enforcement that could have called in a favor.

No. She’ll puke.

Then, she can’t eat anything, and she spends the rest of her day lightheaded.

In short, Laura is a ghost.

No one else gets it. Not her classmates, not the boys that try to talk to her and ask her out.

Because, despite the light expiring in her eyes, Laura knows she’s still pretty.

It’s not vanity talking—it’s a fact in the way the grad school boys leer their predatory eyes at her.

Like they only want one thing, and even then, she can’t give it.

So, she stumbles through school and stops looking at mirrors unless she absolutely has to.

Not only is she a ghost, but she’s a murderer.

She wonders what the boys would think then. If they would look at her like she’s something to feast on if they knew she blew off the face of an old woman.

If they knew she killed someone’s father, someone’s niece.

If they knew she was responsible for the death of an entire lineage.

No, she supposes if they knew the truth, they wouldn’t look at her again.

Her outward beauty is a lie.

She’s fucking ugly on the inside.

##

Not only is she a murderer, but she’s a liar.

She lies with sweet smiles, a polite laugh, basic, empty conversation, and stories she has rehearsed in her head.

And everyone around her buys it.

She lies every day to her professors, to the vet techs, to the people in her dorm.

To her parents.

To the police.

She knows better than almost anyone how to lie.

After all, she learned how to keep secrets from the best.

##

Today’s a bad day.

She tries to get out of bed in her tiny dorm room but falls, her head smacking painfully against the hard floor.

When she collapses like this, she doesn’t try to get up for a few moments. She teeters between the line of consciousness and unconsciousness, enjoying the peaceful moments where nothing matters and she isn’t the murdering, lying piece of shit.

Until the memories come into her head, unbidden.

She finds Max first.

Everyone else is dead. That’s fine, she didn’t know the counselors that well. But Max stayed on the island, so he’s okay.

That’s why she stayed. That’s why she helped Travis break the curse.

Max is at the island, waiting for her, and they can go home.

Except he’s not.

The figure slumped over the dock can’t be him, and she ignores her captor’s call to stay back, to let him check it out first.

No. That prick sheriff doesn’t ever, ever get to tell her what to do again—

It’s Max.

He didn’t listen to Laura.

Her limbs are cold as little needles of ice dance along her skin as she stares at the corpse.

She stops at his body, frozen and staring down, while Travis curses behind her.

Max is dead.

It was all for nothing.

Max is dead.

She shot all those people, killed that boy…

Everyone is dead but her and…

“Laura.”

Travis spins her around gently, his arm tentative as he touches her. Always so gentle, even when he locked her in that cell.

“Laura, look at me.”

But Laura can only look back at Max, staring at her boyfriend’s lifeless corpse.

“Laura.” Travis’ hand, more insistent and jolting her. “Laura, we don’t have much time.”

Time? Time doesn’t matter, anymore.

Travis should have turned the shotgun on her.

Why doesn’t he, actually? She killed his family. She’s the reason he has no one.

Yet, instead, he’s shaking her, yelling at her until she cranes up her neck to look at the only other breathing person in the area.

“You’re in shock,” he says. “You’re in shock, and you have to snap out of it.”

Laura doesn’t want to snap out of it. Why should she?

“You can blow my head off, if you want,” she whispers, a pathetic broken remembrance of his earlier words to her. “I won’t stop you.”

And for the first time that night, Travis looks…horrified. But he shakes her by the shoulders again, harder, digging his fingers into her skin. The terror is replaced by grim determination, his lips pulled into a thin line.

“This place will be swarming with cops at any moment. We need to get our stories straight,” he snaps. “And unless you want to end up in prison with me, you need to snap the fuck out of this. Now.”

He shakes her one more time for good measure, as if trying to yank her back into reality, and finally, Laura comes back.

She nods solemnly and shakes herself out of his grip.

“Tell me what to do.”

The lies were so, so easy.

Travis and she worked together so well, and he covered for her, blaming the deaths of the Hackett’s on intruders that he couldn’t stop in time.

And Laura easily gave the investigators the stories Travis fed her, repeating them perfectly word for word.

The sheriff, being the upstanding man he is, was believed easily. He just lost his entire family, and he managed to rescue the camp counselor that was almost mauled to death by bears? He’s a martyr. A hero.

And Laura…Laura is the girl he saved.

It’s so stupid, so sick, and so twisted.

She needs to get up off the floor of her dorm room. She needs to get up and ignore the memories that play in the back of her mind like films she’s forced to watch in her peripheral.

But their final conversation is her mind’s favorite memory to torture her with.

Travis drives her back home.

It makes no sense. She agrees to it easily though, preferring to be in a car with him instead of the investigators that look at her strangely.

Travis doesn’t look at her strangely, because Travis gets it.

And now, he’s the only one that will get it for as long as she lives.

She huffs out a little laugh in disbelief.

She half expects him to pull over and kill her for what she did to his family.

Wouldn’t that make sense? That would make sense to her, she thinks.

So why hasn’t he?

It’s an hour before Travis speaks. He’s kept his eyes on the road the whole time, gripping the steering wheel too tightly.

“This is so fucked up,” he mutters.

“Which part?” she croaks.

The part where he held her hostage, the part where everyone died but them, the part where she killed his family…which part?

“All of it,” he sighs, resigned. “All of it.”

Laura nods and looks at her hands. There is still blood under her fingernails.

She doesn’t know whose blood it is.

Then, she bursts out into giggles as an awful realization hits her.

“My parents will want to meet you,” she huffs, as he finally glances at her, his brow furrowed. “The hero cop that saved me.”

His jaw ticks, and she could swear he pales.

“That ain’t fucking happening,” he mutters.

But Laura finds it hilarious. “Come on, you sure? My mom would love it. I’m sure she’d send you a Christmas card and everything. You’re a hero, Sheriff.”

“Shut up.”

She does.

When he pulls into her neighborhood, his car idling at the beginning of the street, he finally speaks again.

“Anyone ever comes to you with questions; you know to tell them to contact me. Right?”

She nods.

“They ever try to pry you for information; you keep your damn mouth shut and tell them to talk to me.”

She nods again.

“Forget about all this,” he tells her, his voice low. “You have…” he swallows, “you have a whole life ahead of you. You survived for a reason.”

Her eyes narrow. “Fuck you,” she hisses.

But he continues. “Live your life. These last two months never happened.”

She doesn’t care about him, she really doesn’t. “And what about you?” she asks, not knowing what prompts her to do it.

Maybe because they’re the only two people who know what happened there.

They both have a secret they’ll hold for the rest of their lives.

“I have a mess to clean up,” he answers.

“And a whole life ahead of you?” she snaps. It’s shitty, she knows it.

His answer makes her heart stop.

“You took my life, Laura.”

##

When she finally stands back up, struggling on her hands and knees, tears are running down her cheeks.

She’s a murderer.

She killed his family.

And he still made sure she got into the best vet school the country has.

This time, Laura does vomit.

Chapter Text

No one knows he sleeps at the station.

The people of North Kill don’t need to; for all they know, he lives in the small property on the outskirts of town he purchased years ago.

For all they know, he’s a hero.

He’s the man who lost his entire family, yet somehow still managed to save Laura from unimaginable horror.

He’s still the sheriff with impeccable work ethic that the town trusts—but now, there are hushed whispers around him.

Their greetings are more polite smiles that hide unvoiced questions.

He prefers it that way, though, if the town fears him just a little.

There is no more small talk to be had with anyone.

There’s nothing to be had with anyone.

He has nothing.

So, he stays at the station, spending his nights on the couch in the filing room on the second floor, shotgun against the wall.

And he waits.

And waits.

Some nights, it’s waiting for the FBI to show up and handcuff him, sending him away forever.

Other nights, he expects the ghosts of his family to finally come and drag him down to Hell where he belongs.

But on the worst nights, the nights where his self-loathing and isolation start to tear at his soul, he waits for her.

He’s surprised she hasn’t marched back here yet and blown his head off like he offered her all those months ago.

She should.

Because despite what he told her on that ride back to her house, he took her life.

He’s the one that stole two months of her summer, kept her locked in a cell, and exposed her to horrors no one should ever see.

Forced her to keep a secret no one else would believe but him.

Before they found Max, after the curse was lifted, he thought maybe she would be okay.

After all, that’s why she stayed in the cell so long. It’s why she reluctantly agreed to work with him and did something he had struggled to do for six years.

Then, Travis could let her go, she could be with her boyfriend, and she would never have to worry about this place again.

He told himself that she would be okay.

But Max was dead.

After she turned away from her boyfriend’s corpse, what he saw on her face made his stomach twist.

And the words she spoke to him that night, her invitation to shoot her…

He shakes his head in the dark.

Horrible. He caused that.

All of it.

She’s a fucking kid. She shouldn’t have had to go through this. Shouldn’t be the only survivor left.

Shouldn’t have had to lie over and over to the authorities.

And she did it so easily, too—because of him.

His stomach sours, and guilt weighs heavily on him.

What she became in those two months was his fault, entirely.

So yes, he deserves to die.

She should have pulled the damn trigger on him after she killed Silas.

And why did he make her do it?

Why put her through the trauma of watching a werewolf turn to the corpse of a boy?

Why, why…

For the last six years, Travis had a mission. A goal.

To find the white wolf and put an end to the curse that had haunted his family.

And now, it’s done, but there’s no family left.

There’s no one left, except the girl that he traumatized for seemingly no fucking reason.

He hisses through his teeth and turns over onto his side on the couch in the filing room, the only light coming from an old computer monitor.

When he closes his eyes, he always sees their faces.

Kaylee. Chris. Bobby.

His mother. His father.

Max. The kids left at the camp.

Laura.

“What the fuck,” he growls. He reaches for the bottle of whiskey on the floor next to him and takes a swig, hoping that it will dull the horror in his head.

He tries to drown out the worst of his thoughts, the ones that tell him he should just turn the shotgun on himself.

But that’s the coward’s way out, and Travis is done being a fucking coward.

The only way he’s leaving is if Laura takes him out, he’s decided.

He won’t take away that opportunity from her.

##

One thing about Travis that’s always been true: he’s a good fucking sheriff.

And now that the white wolf is gone and he’s not devoting every full moon to smearing blood on his face and lurking through the woods, he gets even more work done.

It’s the only thing that keeps him going.

He even works with the neighboring towns if they need backup. He assists in missing person cases.

Fuck, he even got a missing cat out of a tree once, and the owner, a fragile elderly woman, baked him a plate of cookies.

He shared them with every other officer. They tasted like ash to him.

For every case that gets solved, every bad guy that gets put away, he’s pat on the back.

It’s right before Christmas when the mayor gives him the key to the city, and he chucks it into the lake where so many bodies have sunk.

He wants nothing to do with it. None of it is deserved.

He wants to join those bodies in the lake. Maybe swim down there with Max’s corpse, weighed down by bricks, and stay under the water.

But no, his death is his gift to Laura if she ever wants it.

It’s the little things that startle him still. He sees a flash of blonde hair at the diner and his heart rate jumps, and his fingers twitch for his gun before he stops himself.

It’s the dog that howls outside in the middle of the night that has him reaching for his shotgun.

It’s the woman at the post office with Laura on her name tag that sends him into a panic.

Laura. Laura. Laura.

He fucked up her life, and she fucked up his.

But who is really to blame, here?

Some nights, he hates her. He can’t get her angry eyes out of his head as she defiantly kills everyone he loved and struggled to protect.

He can’t stop hearing her voice in his mind, calling him every name imaginable, all because she couldn’t see that he was trying to save her from becoming a casualty in all of this.

He didn’t pull the trigger on her when his mother ordered him to.

He never would, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

Other nights, his anger turns to sorrow.

He swore an oath to protect, but he kept her prisoner instead. Forced her to watch as her boyfriend turned into a fucking werewolf, then had the nerve to ask her for help.

He put the weight of the world on her shoulders at twenty-two years old, simply because he couldn’t handle it anymore.

And look what fucking happened.

It’s the end of his shift and far too late when he strips out of his uniform and into a fresh undershirt and heavy dark sweatpants. He washes his face and brushes his teeth in the tiny bathroom and tries not to think of the blonde woman that’s haunted him since she left months ago.

He tries and fails.

He’s not supposed to use his resources for nefarious purposes, but as he sits at the small desk on the opposite wall in the filing room, he tells himself he needs to check.

Just once.

And when he does, he breathes a sigh of relief.

She’s still enrolled at school.

Her grades are good.

She’s still alive.

Him and Chris oversaw the family finances—and Constance and Jedediah had kept more than a comfortable amount of money in their bank accounts, along with generous life insurance policies.

In short, Travis is well off in a way that makes him sick.

The least he could do is pay for her tuition and make it look like some fancy scholarship.

Let her start new.

It’s the only way he knows how to apologize.

  It’s also the last time he’s checking to make sure she’s alive.

He’s done searching the police reports in her hometown and college. She can take care of herself, and it’s not his business.

What he needs to do, truly needs to do, is forget about her.

He did his good deed, and now he can wash his hands of her.

Liar, a voice like his brother says to him. Fucking liar. You’ll never wash your hands of her.

You ruined her.

Fuck that.

Laura is a strong girl. She’s got her whole life ahead of her.

Yes, trauma is a bitch, but she has access to therapists that will help her.

He’s seen her strength, her bravery. She will be fine.

A therapist that believes in werewolves? Good fucking luck, Hackett. His brother again is at his ear, the voice mocking, because Travis knows he’s right.

I would say that you’re the only one that knows what she’s been through.

A voice like Kaylee, sweeter and gentler than his brother, enters his head.

Kaylee would have liked Laura.

Too bad Laura killed her.

He makes his way to the couch, after powering down the computer in shame.

It’s the last time he’s checking on her.

He will never, ever check on her again.

He won’t think about her.

A flash of blonde hair won’t startle him anymore.

The name Laura won’t have him automatically bracing for the barrel of a gun to be pointed at him.

No.

Tonight was the last night.

Settling on his back, he closes his eyes and breathes slowly in the dark.

Unfortunately, Laura doesn’t even leave him when he sleeps.

She’s there in every dream, lurking in the shadows and haunting him.

The worst dreams aren’t the ones where she kills him.

It’s the ones where she lets him live.

Where she smiles at him. Laughs.

Where they met under different circumstances, where she waves a friendly hello to him as she works at the camp.

Those are the dreams where he wishes she would just kill him.

When he finally succumbs to sleep, he hopes he sees the Laura that turns the gun on him.

The other Laura is much more terrifying.

Chapter Text

It’s Thanksgiving break when it finally comes to a head.

Laura’s grades are great, her work is stellar, and her professors love her.

No matter how she got this opportunity, she won’t waste it, even if she herself is wasting away.

When she walks through the door of her childhood home, the warm scent of her mother’s cooking wafting in the air, devastation hits her.

She thought the two-story cozy home in suburbia would trigger some type of comfort in her. Some reprieve from the pain that keeps clawing its way to the surface.

Murderers don’t deserve to enjoy the holidays.

When Laura’s mother sees her standing in the living room with her duffel bag, Mrs. Kearney lets out a quiet gasp that she tries to stifle with her hand.

But Laura saw it.

Her mother looked at her like she was a ghost before pulling her into a too tight hug.

“Geez, Mom, don’t cry,” Laura scoffs. “I’ve only been gone for a few months.”

Mrs. Kearney sniffles. “I know,” she says, her voice tight. “I know, honey.”

She crushes her daughter to her like it’s the last time she’ll see her, and Laura isn’t having it.

She acts like Laura is dying in front of her, and it infuriates her.

Her mother never used to look at her with pity or terror.

“Mom.” Laura steps out of her hold and tries to give her a small smile. “I’m fine.”

Laura’s father enters the front room holding a beer, a smile on his face until he meet’s Laura’s expression.

“You doin okay, kiddo?”

“No, she’s not doing okay, Paul!” her mother snaps, whirling on her husband. “Does she look okay to you?” Frantically, she turns back to Laura. “Have you eaten? When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”

“I haven’t been hungry, Mom—”

“Have you been going to your therapy appointments? Taking your meds?”

“Yes, Mom.”

It’s a big fat lie. The psychiatrist her mother dragged her to gave her anti psychotics, and she flat out refused therapy after her first session.

Who the hell would believe anything she says about what happened at Hacket’s Quarry?

The minute she mentions ‘werewolf’ she’ll be thrown into a padded cell.

“Laura…” her mother crushes her into another hug, and Laura breathes in her floral fragrance.

She’s always been a good kid. Good grades, a decent head on her shoulders, and a hard worker.

Never been grounded once. Laura’s known what she’s wanted since a young age, and that was to help animals and make the world better because of it.

She was the perfect daughter.

Her mother has never had to see her child like this, and it makes Laura feel even worse.

She’ll never, ever, be able to tell her mom what happened over the summer.

“Leave her alone, Janet,” Paul says gently. “Let her get unpacked, for god’s sakes. Then, she can get some food in her stomach. Girl’s at the best school in the country; she needs a break.”

Laura swallows.

“Right, you’re right,” Janet sighs, tucking a lock of hair behind Laura’s ear. “And I’m so, so proud of you for that. After everything you’ve been through, you still managed to get that scholarship.”

Laura’s stomach twists.

“Yeah,” she says weakly. “I’ll go get unpacked, now. I’ll be down in a bit.”

Laura hurries out of the living room before her mother can say anything else and up the stairs to her childhood bedroom. As she heads down the hallway and passes the large antique mirror her mother loves, she stops to view her reflection.

No wonder her mother cried when she saw her.

It looks like grief has eaten Laura alive.

Her collarbones jut out where they shouldn’t, and her face is sharp and angular from losing unnecessary weight. Her hair is limp and lifeless, and the dark circles under her eyes age her at least ten years.

She holds her own gaze for two seconds, then turns away and hurries to her room, vowing to not look in a mirror unless she absolutely has to from now on.

It isn’t five minutes into her unpacking that her mother enters the room behind her.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Janet says. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that, honey.”

Laura shrugs and does her best to give her mom a smile. “It’s fine, Mom. You’re right, it hasn’t been easy recently.” She puts a sweatshirt on a hangar and grabs two more from her closet. “I’ll read that book you gave me, too. I promise.”

Trauma and Grief in Young Women sits at the bottom of her suitcase, untouched and unread.

Janet stands in the doorway for a few beats of silence, and Laura can feel her eyes on her as she continues to organize her belongings. “I’m so glad he saved you,” her mother whispers.

Laura freezes, then continues to rummage through her closet. “Yeah.”

“Some women aren’t so lucky. Some disappear into the woods forever.” Janet is crying again, her voice breaking. “I just keep thinking how lucky you are that he was there.”

Laura bites back a bitter laugh and slams a hanger on a hook harder than necessary. “Super lucky,” she deadpans. She digs through her hamper that sits in the corner of the closet, pretending to be busy. Hoping the conversation will end immediately.

But Janet doesn’t notice her daughter’s distress. “Your dad and I tried to contact him,” she continues. “We called the police station and left voicemails, but he never returned them.”

At that, Laura spins around to face her mother. “You did what?” she snarls, stepping out of the closet. “Why would you do that?”

“To thank him, Laura. Sheriff Travis Hackett—”

“Don’t.” Laura hisses, and Janet shakes her head in bewilderment.

“Laura, we just wanted to thank him. He saved your life. He brought our baby back home.”

And Laura, despite not wanting to, breaks.

Her laugh is bitter and ugly, devoid of any humor. “Mom, don’t ever contact him again.”

Her entire body shakes while ice shoots up her spine. The room spins, and she never, ever wants to hear the name Travis Hackett again.

“Honey, what?” Janet reaches for Laura, but she steps out of her grasp. “What’s going on? Why shouldn’t we tell him we appreciate him?”

The trembling doesn’t stop, but it only confuses her mother more.

In this moment, locking eyes with her mother, Laura is faced with a choice.

She could tell Janet a kernel of truth. Tell her about the two months he kept her and Max locked up at the station. How he wasn’t a hero—he was a captor, a coward, and she was his hostage.

How she hates him with every single fiber of who she is. How she had his blood in her mouth, and he had every opportunity to kill her, but he didn’t.

How he’s just a fucked up broken man that broke her, too.

She could tell her mother that truth, see where it goes—or, she could take the easy way out.

“Mom,” Laura sighs. “Trav—Sheriff Hackett--lost his entire family during all of this. I doubt he wants to remember any of that time or be reminded of the horrors he saw.”

Bile rises in Laura’s throat as she defends him.

She shouldn’t defend him—he doesn’t deserve her defense.

But Janet’s face softens. “You’re right,” she murmurs. “Oh, the horrible things the two of you went through.”

Laura chews her lip. “Yeah. So, please…just don’t try to contact him anymore, okay Mom?”

“Okay, honey.”

She’s horrified at her mother’s admission. He received voicemails from her parents? Thanking him?

Of course, he never answered them or called them back. What kind of conversation would that be? How much more lying would the both of them have to do?

And now he knows she never told anyone the truth about their time up there.

Now he knows for sure she’ll never rat him out.

They each have a putrid secret that they’ll take to the grave with a twisted mutual understanding.

She hates it.

She hates all of this.

She should have stayed on campus.

##

Laura’s mom drags her to another doctor during her Thanksgiving break.

She admits nothing again—but she’s encouraged to gain weight and given sleeping pills.

The doctor warns her about side effects, including enhanced lucid dreams.

Laura doesn’t give a shit, though.

If she could go one full night of just resting, maybe she could start to get better.

Maybe come Christmas her mother won’t burst into tears when she sees her.

Maybe she can look in the mirror in a month and not see something that should be at the bottom of a lake.

But they’re barely out of the doctor’s office when the receptionist says, “hello, Sheriff.”

Laura freezes.

Why is he here? Why would he come here, of all places?

He’s come back to kill me finally, to pin the murders on me, to arrest me…

But the man that enters view isn’t Travis.

It’s some short, stout man with white hair and a handlebar moustache.

Just a random officer coming into the building.

If Laura’s mother noticed her daughter’s reaction, she says nothing. She simply waits for Laura to start walking again and keeps conversation light as they head to the parking lot, Laura clutching her new bottle of sleeping pills.

She’ll try them tonight.

##

Sleep comes far too easy that night.

Her sleep clothes barely cling to her, but she’s toasty and warm as she burrows under the covers in her childhood bed.

Her head swims, and her pulse slows as the medication takes hold, and soon, her limbs are too heavy to even move.

Laura succumbs to the drugs and enters a realm of drug-induced sleep.

Almost immediately, she’s back with him.

He’s her jailor, not telling her anything, shoving her a tray of food as she begs him to talk to her.

Max is dead in the next cell, slumped over like he was on the dock, blood dripping on the floor.

She screams and screams at the sheriff to help, but all she sees is his back as he walks away.

Eventually, the food stops coming, and Laura has to lap the blood off the floor that trickled into her cell.

She dies of dehydration before Travis comes back.

Travis is dead in the cell next to her and he has the keys.

She can’t see his face; only the back of his uniform as he’s curled up in on himself, not breathing.

He’s sitting on a chair in front of the cell, his back to her as he drunkenly laments about his family and talks in riddles she doesn’t understand.

She hates him.

She reaches through the bars to grab his gun from its holster and shoots him in the head. He falls from his chair, but the keys have slipped just out of her reach.

 Laura starves to death in her cell as Travis bleeds out in front of her.

They’re facing Silas together.

“Shoot, you stupid girl!”

She turns and shoots him instead, and he falls to his knees. Silas wakes up and tears her head from her body.

Laura wills herself to wake up.

Everything is too real, and she knows she’s dreaming, even though every sense is activated.

In her dream, she closes her eyes and smacks her head, screaming at herself to wake up.

But she doesn’t.

Travis has the gun pointed at her while Constance screams at him to shoot her.

He looks to Laura, trepidation on his face.

He’s afraid.

Laura yanks the gun from him and shoots everyone in the room but him, firing easily.

His family members lie dead before him, and Travis just stares at her.

He finds Max before she does, and he returns to her, his expression softer than she’s ever seen it.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

“Kill me,” she says.

He shakes his head.

He finds Kaylee, kneeling over her corpse with a blanket thrown over it.

His dark eyes are glassy as Laura stands over him, tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

“Kill me,” he says.

She shakes her head.

She breaks out of her jail cell and Travis finds her at the computer, listening to the podcasts. She spins the chair until she’s looking up at him.

“You should have told me,” she tells him simply, and he nods.

“You’re right.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Travis.”

“But you will, Laura.” His voice is soft. “S’okay. I’ve done it more than enough for both of us.”

She’s floating on her back in the lake in the middle of the night. Everyone is dead but him. Travis swims out to her, his uniform soaked.

“You have to get out of the water,” he says. “You’ll drown out here. You’re not that stupid, Laura."

“Then why are you out here?”

“If you go, then I go.”

“That’s insane.” She stares at the starless sky, the water sloshing around her.

“It’s all we have.”

Constance tells him to shoot.

Travis hesitates, and Jedidiah encourages it.

Travis shoots everyone in the room while Laura just stares.

His entire family is dead in the house. She watches while he dumps gasoline on the first floor, soaking everything in it, including himself.

“Don’t go with them,” she finds herself saying. “Stay with me.”

Travis almost smiles. “You’re just a child. A stupid girl who doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“Just come outside with me.”

He glares, then huffs and steps onto the porch.

“I could never say no to you.”

“You’ve said ‘no’ to me plenty of times.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanted to. Doesn’t mean I meant it.”

The book of matches is in his hands, and he toys with them. She snatches it from him and steps in front of him.

“I’ll do it. Not you.”

He scoffs. “You still think you know what you’re doing after all of this?”

“You’re not dying in there with them,” she snarls, struggling to light the match.

“Why?”

“Because you’re the only one that understands.”

The match catches, and she tosses it through the front door.

The house goes up in flames.

They walk through the woods, him keeping pace easily with her.

“I’m dreaming,” she announces, and he nods.

“Congratulations,” he mutters. “I can’t even escape you when I sleep. Can’t let me have a moment of peace. I can’t even die in my own house without you being a pain in my ass.”

“Yeah, well—” she pauses. “Wait. What did you say?”

He stops and turns to her. “I can’t even escape you when I sleep. Get out of my dreams, Laura.”

“This is my dream, Travis,” she snarls. “You get out, asshole.”

He narrows his eyes. “This is my dream, Laura. Mine. And you do this shit every night, and every night, I tell you to leave, and you don’t.”

“No!” she shoves him, and he takes a step back. “I know when I’m dreaming. And this? This is a very lucid dream that belongs to me.”

He shakes his head and looks away. “Every night. We go through this every night,” he murmurs, rubbing at his forehead.

“What does that mean?” she turns away from him to try and slap her face again, to do anything she can to wake up.

“You won’t wake up like that,” he sighs. “And you’ll only hurt yourself in the process.”

“I can’t hurt myself in dreams, asshole.”

“So why did you pull me out of the fire?” he taunts.

Laura stomps away and deeper into the woods with a growl. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

“And you’re a pain in the ass,” he calls out. “A brat that doesn’t know how to follow directions. You should have gone to that goddamn hotel, Laura!”

He keeps taunting her, keeps yelling at her and calling her a pain in the ass until she walks straight into Silas.

He’s injured, just like that night she ended the curse, curled up and breathing heavy.

She’s frozen in terror.

A deep sigh, then Travis is at her side, pulling the trigger like it's nothing.

“These shared dreams have to stop, Laura. I fucking mean it.” He has the shotgun in his hands and grim determination on his face. “Whatever you’re doing, however you’re trying to torture me…just stop!”

She gapes at him. “This is the first time I’ve taken sleeping pills! This is the most I’ve slept in months, and the first time I’ve had lucid dreams!”

Travis frowns. “Sleeping pills?” he mutters, then tilts his head back and laughs. “Oh, Christ. They’re going to get worse.”

“I have to sleep,” she argues. “Not that I should have to explain this, but people need sleep to live, you grade A asshole.”

“People also need to eat, but you don’t seem to be doing too much of that, now do ya?”

Laura scowls.

“That’s how I know this is your dream. If it was my dream, I’d be taking you to get a burger. And you would stop haunting me like a goddamn ghost.”

“You’d dream about taking me to dinner?” Laura deadpans, and Travis’ mouth falls open.

“I—no, it’s not like that, I—Christ, why do you always ask stupid fucking questions? Just fucking eat, will you?”

“I…I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit. When you wake up, get some food.”

“Fuck you, Dream Travis! You can’t tell me what to do!” Laura paces and smacks at her head again, anger and frustration surging in her chest.

The sky above them rumbles, and Laura freezes.

Travis curses behind her, and suddenly he’s spinning her around, his hands on her shoulders.

“Wake up,” he orders. “You have to wake up, now.”

The ground shakes. “What’s going on?”

But his voice is frantic, his dark tired eyes haunted.

“Just wake up now.” Lightning flashes above them. “Wake up, come on, you can do it.”

“I don’t know how,” Laura snaps, irritated and stepping away. “What’s happening?”

But the shotgun is back in Travis’ hands. “Laura…” his voice is desperate. “Laura, please.”

She’s never heard his voice with that tone before.

He raises the shotgun. “The worst ones end like this,” he says, the gun trembling in his hold. “If you can just wake up and end this before I…”

But Laura stays frozen. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

Travis is fighting himself. He groans and grits his teeth as he struggles. “I won’t kill you. Wake up. STOP PUTTING US THROUGH THIS.”

Laura can only watch horrified as Travis points the shotgun at her.

“Why do you think I wanted to stay in that house?” he hisses. “So I wouldn’t have to do this. So I wouldn’t have to relive this. But I can never, ever say no to you again. You’ve made that very clear, Laura.”

Laura stays rooted in the ground, shocked at his pained confession. “Travis?” she asks, her voice small.

“I won’t…” he pants. “I won’t…”

But then there’s a shotgun blast, and Laura closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, Travis is the one on the ground, his face obliterated.

Laura wakes up shrieking with tears streaming down her face.

She grabs a pillow and screams into it, weeping heavily as she processes everything she just witnessed.

She hates him. She hates him so, so much.

She hates those pills even more for bringing him back to her, for forcing her to relive their fucked-up dynamic over and over.

Shared dreams, he had said.

Is that even a real fucking thing?

You didn’t think werewolves were a real thing a year ago.

Apparently, anything is possible.

Did she just imagine an entire conversation with Travis where she spared his life and then he took his own for her?

His voice felt so real as he told her to eat something, as he pled with her to wake up so he wouldn’t have to watch her die.

It takes Laura less than five minutes to do an internet deep dive on shared dreams.

Of course.

Of course, they’re a real thing, and of course they’re unexplainable.

Stop putting us through this, he had told her.

Has he been experiencing those same dreams?

And for how long?

What if she’s wrong? What if all of this is her mind torturing her, and Travis Hackett sleeps peacefully every night?

She blames what she does next on delirium from the sleep medication.

It’s an absolutely insane thing to do.

It’s irrational, dangerous, and stupid.

But she does it anyway, because nothing makes sense anymore. Because he made sure to get her into vet school even though he owes her nothing after what she did to his family.

And if there’s the off chance that he’s suffering as much as she is…

It will give her a sick sort of comfort.

She had swiped his business card from the station before he took her home.

At the time, she didn’t know why. She didn’t need his personal contact information. What she needed was to forget about Hacket’s Quarry and North Kill for the rest of her life.

But now, it’s exactly what she needs.

She texts the number printed on the card, holding her breath as she presses send.

It’s one question, and it’s read immediately after she sends it at three in the morning.

Do you believe in shared dreams?

Chapter Text

Travis stares at his phone like it threatened to kill him.

Do you believe in shared dreams?

What. The. Fuck.

He knows who it’s from; he has that number memorized by heart, even though he shouldn’t.

And why the fuck is she texting him at three in the morning?

Isn’t it bad enough that she won’t leave him alone even in sleep?

Isn’t it enough that her fucking parents called him to thank him?

Sweet Jesus fuck.

The irony is not lost on him that Laura’s parents think he’s a hero that saved their daughter.

Which also means Laura never bothered to tell them the truth.

Fuck fuckety fuck.

It’s just a text message. He never has to answer.

But there’s only one reason she would be texting him that.

He had hoped that maybe he was mistaken, that his dreams were more lucid because of all the bullshit he’d been through.

Maybe imaginary Laura was his mind’s way of punishing him for everything he had done.

But…

If they’re sharing the same dreams…

She stopped him from perishing in that fire with his family.

She saw him struggle to not kill her, instead killing himself just so he wouldn’t hurt her again.

It was Laura, the real Laura, who dreamt of him begging her not to drown, because then no one would understand the horror he’s faced.

“It’s all we’ve got,” he had told her.

How. Fucking. Embarrassing.

Six years ago, Travis Hackett wouldn’t have believed in any of this shit.

Werewolves, curses, psychics, any of it.

But he’s done enough research in the past few years to know that there’s a kernel of truth to all of it.

Werewolves are real. Curses are very fucking real.

Witches? Of course. Vampires? Who fucking knows, probably, though.

Shared dreams were a given, the least of the supernatural elements he thought he would have to worry about.

But now, he’s back on his phone at three in the morning, scrolling through stupid conspiracy videos and confirming everything he had researched before.

It’s been the real Laura in his dreams.

He doesn’t know for how long—but if she’s been present in every dream, not just an imaginary Laura, he’s going go back on his promise that she will be the only one that can kill him.

Hopefully, they’ve only been sharing them since she started taking her sleeping pills.

“What the fuck,” Travis mutters, tossing his phone to the side.

It was bad enough that she haunted his dreams.

But now she’s remembering them, too.

##

He drinks himself to sleep the next week and can’t recall any of his dreams.

But his hangovers kill him, and by the end of the sixth day, he’s worried he’s going to turn into an alcoholic just like his father is—was.

“You alright, Sheriff?” Dexton, one of the younger officers ask. He’s around Laura’s age, fresh from the academy, and Travis has the startling thought that the girl would like him.

“I’m fucking fine,” he snarls, and Dexton’s young eyes widen. “Did you want anything?”

“Uh…no sir,” the idiot boy stammers. “Ah, just checking in.”

“Check in with your paperwork, not me,” Travis hisses.

He knows he sounds like a bitter asshole, and he can’t figure out why, but suddenly, he hates Dexton.

Hates him with a fucking passion.

He’s young, has his whole life ahead of him, is smart…

And would be good for Laura.

The hangover is messing with his head.

He doesn’t give a shit about what’s good for that girl.

But Travis’ knee bounces under his desk at the station as he struggles to keep his thoughts at bay.

Why did Laura text him? Why?

What is he supposed to text back?

Why, are you having them, too? Wanna burn down my parents’ house with me again?

Travis is in his forties—a very rough forties—and that twenty-something year old shouldn’t be taking up so much space in his head.

But then his pocket vibrates, and he’s pulling out his phone with a quickness.

It’s another text.

From her.

Do sleeping pills make it worse?

He rereads the message, staring at it.

Why would she willingly contact him?

You’re the only one that understands, she had said in that dream.

That’s why.

Travis is the only one left that can help her relate.

This is so, so fucked up.

But he gives her a quick reply, hoping it will silence her, and that she’ll leave him alone.

Travis knows that’s a lie, though.

He’s been hoping for another text from her for a whole week, like an idiot.

Because after everything, Laura is the only one who understands.

##

She’s shocked he replies.

She thought maybe she texted the wrong number; that he had changed it after all these months. But she rereads his message, her stomach flipping.

Yes and yes

He didn’t even put a period at the end of the sentence, like he couldn’t bother to message her except for the bare minimum.

What an asshole.

Her anger flares out of her, a beacon of red light shooting out of her soul and directly aimed at Travis Fucking Hackett.

“Asshole,” she mutters. “Thanks for nothing.”

As Laura chews over his answers, she’s horrified.

They’ve been sharing the same dreams.

They’ve been sharing the same dreams and remembering them together.

Another buzz of her phone, and this time, her stomach drops.

Eat something.

Fuck this.

Fuck him.

Angry tears fill her eyes, and she bites her fist to keep from screaming.

The nerve of that stupid old man.

A nervous huff of laughter escapes her as she remembers he never forgot to feed her while she was in that cell.

Two meals a day, more than enough food than she needed, most of it decent for a prisoner.

Oatmeal, apples, and granola for breakfast. Chicken, rice, and vegetables for dinner, along with a can of soda or box of juice.

He was likely taking it from the camp.

She had tried the hunger strike, once, but he had seen through it and rolled his eyes, then slid a wrapped brownie through the bars.

“Have fun starving when you have that there,” he had muttered, then turned and left.

And once he did, Laura had gobbled it down, her two days of starving herself officially over.

She hated how he had won that power struggle.

It feels as if he’s winning another one, now.

Laura punches her pillow, grits her teeth, and chokes down her sleeping pills.

##

The dream isn’t as bad tonight.

They’re walking through the woods, the full moon shining, but the curse has been lifted.

He doesn’t have his shotgun, only a backpack he carries over his shoulder.

He’s not in his uniform. He’s in jeans and a dark flannel, and they’re walking side by side through the woods.

She’s not as scared today.

But she still doesn’t like it.

“I want to go home,” she says, and he stops walking.

“Be my guest,” he says. “I ain’t stopping ya.”

Then, he takes off ahead of her, leaving her alone in the woods.

She checks her pockets. She doesn’t have her phone, and she certainly doesn’t have a compass.

“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath. She tries to retrace their steps but ends up going in circles.

Travis is nowhere to be seen, but it’s fine that way.

There’s nothing dangerous out here besides the two of them.

No werewolves will get her tonight.

Laura tries to follow the trails, but they disappear as soon as she thinks she’s headed in the right direction.

No matter how much she tries, Laura is lost.

Logic doesn’t work in dreams.

She gives up trying to leave.

Instead, she follows the sound of a babbling brook until she finds him sitting on a tree stump, his backpack opened in front of him.

“Couldn’t find your way out?” he guesses, and she joins him on the adjacent stump.

“This is nice,” she answers instead, gesturing to the brook. “Peaceful.”

Travis nods. “It used to be like this before the curse,” he says quietly. “I would take Kaylee and Caleb out here.”

Her heart aches at the mention of his dead niece and nephew.

She takes in the open backpack, his relaxed posture, the lack of his sheriff’s uniform…

“This is your dream,” Laura breathes, and Travis nods solemnly.

“I can’t drink you away,” he mutters, and she frowns. “No matter what, you always come back.”

There’s a bitterness in his voice that irritates her. “I’m not trying to, Travis,” she snaps. “I don’t have any control over this.”

He sits back on the stump and looks up at the sky. “I know you don’t,” he says quietly. She takes in his features—his face is too angular to be conventionally handsome, but not exactly ugly.

Just…different.

“I tried to leave. I walked in fucking circles for an hour, to get away from you,” she mutters.

He scoffs and leans down to reach into the backpack, producing something large and wrapped in white paper.

Food.

“If it’s your dream, you can let me go,” she tries. “That way I won’t bother you.”

He turns and looks at her strangely, as if she’s speaking a different language. “It doesn’t work like that. I’m sure you know that by now. Smart girl like you knows how to use the internet.”

Her eyes fall to the wrapped paper that’s in his hands, and he extends it to her. “Eat.”

She stares at it. “I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit. This is my dream, so you’re gonna eat it.”

A savory, garlicky aroma wafts from the paper, and Laura huffs and snatches it away from him. “Fine.”

She unwraps the white paper, and inside is some type of smoked meat sandwich, the smell absolutely divine. He has one of his own, and he makes a point of not paying attention to her as she takes her first bite.

“Holy shit,” she murmurs. “That’s good.”

“There’s a place an hour from here that makes them,” he says, looking anywhere but at her. “Haven’t been there in years.”

They eat in companionable silence, Laura enjoying the sandwich far more than she thought she would in a dream.

She glances over at Travis. He’s still not looking at her, his gaze set far off into the woods as he eats. She notices he’s not a messy eater, either. He uses a napkin to wipe his mouth and fingers while Laura continues to drip sauce onto the paper in her lap.

“So, now what?” she sighs, once she’s finished. Their trash and Travis’ backpack have mysteriously vanished, leaving just the two of them sitting on their stumps.

Travis shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Laura looks around them. “So…we just…hang out until one of us wakes up?”

He huffs. “Looks like it.”

She scowls. Something about his tone is resigned, as if he wants to be anywhere but with her. “I didn’t ask to be here. You’re the one dragging me into this. I try to leave, but every path leads back to you. I try to wake up, and it doesn’t work. Instead, I’m stuck on a fucking stump with the asshole that held me hostage for months!” She leaps off her seat and stands to face him. Even sitting, he’s just as tall as her, and it’s infuriating. “Hey!” she snaps her fingers in his face. “Look at me, Travis.”

Slowly, he turns his dark eyes on her, and his lip quirks. “There she is,” he mutters. “The Laura I know.”

And something inside her breaks.

“Are you even sorry?” she yells, her voice echoing in the woods. “Do you understand how fucked up what you did was? Do you not care? Who holds someone captive for two months?”

Her finger is still in his face, and he grabs her wrist, his long fingers halting her movements. “I kept you safe!” he shouts. “It was the only way to keep you alive!”

“Safe from who? Huh? Because the minute I got out, your entire family was trying to kill me!”

He sneers and releases her wrist. “There’s your answer,” he says. “Safe from them.”

Laura steps back, her feet crunching on leaves and twigs. “Fuck you.”

“You were safe in that cell. Since you knew our secret, Chris…” he huffs out a sigh and closes his eyes, “…Chris wanted you gone. Both of you. And I wasn’t going to do that.”

Laura laughs bitterly. “Oh good, so you kept me locked up. You couldn’t have dropped me outside of town?”

“My family would have hunted you down,” Travis says, looking at her like it’s obvious. “But if the curse ended, there would be no reason for that. There would be no secret of ours that you could expose. So, if you have stayed in your fucking cell like you were supposed to, not drugged me, not killed my brother—”

“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?!” Laura screams. “Was I supposed to believe you? Some crazy old sheriff that wouldn’t tell me anything—"

“I thought you would have gotten the fucking picture when your DEAD BOYFRIEND RIPPED OUT YOUR EYE!” Travis bellows. He’s standing up now, advancing on Laura, and she’s going to kill him.

She’s not afraid of him anymore.

She hates him.

She doesn’t even realize she’s crying as she swings at him, scratching and slapping and doing everything she can to leave a mark on his face. She pulls back for a punch, but her body is weaker than it used to be, and Travis catches her fist easily.

“Stop. Laura, just fucking stop.”

But she sobs and screams, the sounds so heartbreaking that she’s not sure if she’s imagining them. Travis captures both wrists easily, so she kicks and does everything she can to hurt him.

“Fuck you, you stupid piece of shit, you ugly fucking coward, fuck you and your dead family, you should die with them, I’m going to kill you...”

But Travis doesn’t hurt her. He just lets her cry and scream at him, throwing every vile thing she can at him until her voice is sore and her words aren’t coherent.

She weeps like a child, trembling in Travis’ grasp while tears stream down her face.

“Stop it,” he says quietly after a few minutes, his voice hoarse. “Just stop.”

“They’re all dead,” she whispers. “They’re all dead.”

“I know.”

“There’s no one I can talk to about any of this.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

“Damn it Laura, I know. Stop.”

Her breathing comes out shaky as she gasps for air. “Make these dreams stop. I don’t want to share them with you.”

“I can’t. I’ve tried.” He lets go of her wrists and steps back from her, rubbing at his cheek. “I…fuck…you don’t think I’ve fucking tried?”

“You’re the worst memory I have, Travis.”

The air grows colder. The barb has its intended effect.

He freezes, then nods curtly, his eyes empty. “I’ve tried. I can’t control it. I’ve tried to make this dream decent for you and keep you safe in it, but that’s all I can do until you wake up.”

He’s tried to keep her safe. He fed her. He led her somewhere peaceful.

Travis tried.

Laura lets out a deep, heavy sigh and wipes at the remaining tears on her face. “Okay,” she breathes. “Okay.” She nods to herself.

“Okay?” Travis repeats, his voice soft, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal.

“Yes.” Calm, rational Laura is back. “If we can’t figure out how to end these dreams, maybe we can figure out the reason why they’re happening. Based on what I read, it could be our combined grief and trauma. We’re the only two left that know what happened last summer. Maybe it’s…our unconscious mind trying to find a human connection with each other?” She grimaces at the last few words. She doesn’t need any more connections with the man.

He shrugs. “Could be. There could be other reasons, too. A hell of a lot that I can’t even name, each one more fucking crazy than the next.”

“Such as?”

“Another curse. That bitch Eliza punishing us for Silas. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could be fucking anything. Maybe we both died and we’re ghosts. Anything is possible”

But there’s something on his face that she doesn’t like. Something secretive. “What else?” she demands.

Travis shakes his head. “Your guess is as fucking good as mine.”

But an errant thought fills Laura’s head, one that she didn’t put there herself.

Soulmates.

The word is whispered to her with a low thrum and an intuition that makes her heartbeat stop.

And because it’s Travis’ dream, because she’s in his mind, she knows he’s thought it, too.

She knows it’s what he’s purposely not saying.

“No,” she whispers, swallowing. “No, I guess I don’t know, either.”

Travis chuckles humorlessly. “Yeah.” He returns back to the stump, weary.

Laura follows.

“So, what now?” she asks, sitting on the adjacent stump. “We just hang out until we wake up?”

She notices his backpack has returned as he opens the zipper. “You play UNO?” he asks.

“I…what?”

He produces a deck of cards, holding them almost sheepishly. “Something to pass the time, if ya want.”

And Laura almost smiles.

“What else is in that backpack?” But she grabs it before he can hand it to her and digs through the contents.

Snacks, water bottles, a detective novel, and a thick wool blanket are all inside using dream logic. She rummages underneath the blanket and finds a chocolate bar, gleefully opening the wrapper and taking a bite.

“I thought you weren’t hungry,” Travis says, amused. He hands her the playing cards as she savors the taste of chocolate on her tongue.

“It’s my favorite candy. Not sure how you managed to figure that out.”

Travis is silent for too long as he stares at his cards. “You…ah…mentioned it once. Before. Back when…”

“Oh.”

Back when she was his hostage.

The mood sours, and Travis shifts on the stump, scoffing.

“We don’t have to play if you don’t want to,” he starts, but Laura shakes her head.

“I’ll go first.”

##

The sun starts to peek over the horizon by the time they’re done.

“I’m going to wake up soon,” Laura says, the knowledge heavy in her bones.

Travis nods. “I will, too. I usually wake up before sunrise.”

“How very old man of you.”

“I’m not young, Laura. Not all of us are twenty-two-year-old kids.”

“Right, you’re like what, sixty-something?”

Travis freezes as he’s placing the cards back in the box, his mouth twisted in horror. “Christ. I’m forty-six.”

Laura quirks her lip. “I know. I’m just fucking with you, old man.”

Because what Travis doesn’t seem to realize is that now that Laura has been inside his dream world, she knows more about him.  

Like his age.

How he hasn’t dated in at least ten years.

That despite the detective novels he reads, he has a hidden stash of vampire romance novels that he stole from Kaylee.

It’s all just knowledge that Laura has. More facts about the man that turned her world upside down.

But it’s a double-edged sword.

She knows Travis has knowledge about Laura that he hasn’t had before, and she’s terrified to know exactly what he’s found out.

After all, he’s been in her dreams.

But before she can voice it, the world starts to spin, and she has trouble sitting upright on the stump.

The world lurches, and Laura closes her eyes.

“Travis, I’m going to fall,” she says in a small voice as she allows gravity to take hold.

But she never hits the ground.

##

Laura wakes with a gasp.

She kicks the covers off her and sits up, sunlight streaming in from her childhood bedroom.

She breathes slowly in and out, staring at the floral patterns on her comforter as terror races through her.

She played UNO with Travis Hackett.

He brought her a sandwich.

They laughed together.

She tried to attack him, but he kept her gently at arm’s length, begging her to stop.

He tried to make his dream better for her.

Gross. It’s all so gross and terrible.

She stumbles out of bed, nausea churning in her gut.

He wasn’t in his sheriff’s uniform. It’s the first time she’s seen him in plainclothes, and he wasn’t…terrible looking.

No, she found him objectively attractive.

“What the fuck,” she gasps, making her way to the bathroom.

She replays the dream in her head, recalling every bit of conversation they had.

With horror, she remembers that otherworldly voice in her head, the one that she was sure was speaking the truth.

Soulmates.

She and Travis can’t be…

It’s not possible…

Soulmates.

Laura empties the contents of her stomach into the toilet and vows never to take sleeping pills again.