Chapter 103
CADE
I started to reach for her hand, but I kicked a stone out of my way instead. She seemed to have gotten over the worst of her anger. Still, things between us had been a little tense lately after I had been an ass to her.
But who could blame me? I loved Hannah with every cell and breath in my body.
Thinking about her kissing the prince had made me... snap.
"I hardly ever leave the Estate. It feels good to do that today," she said, dragging me out of my unpleasant thoughts. “Isn’t it amazing?”
I turned, and she was smiling at me a little. I sighed in relief. My plan of making it up to her by taking her sightseeing around the pack was working.
I touched her hand. "I'm glad you like it."
"I do. It's..."
When she didn't say something for a long time, I pressed. "It's what?"
"I really needed this to clear my head. I’ve had a lot to think about lately."
"If it's about the other day," I began.
"Oh no. No, it's not. I'm over that. It's just-" She paused as we walked past a cluster of busy stores. "Lately, I've been feeling so down and out of it. I've been scared to sleep because when I do, I would always have nightmares. It's the same dream over and over again every single night. It’s scary, terrifying and I can’t figure out if it’s a warning or just a nightmare. It's driving me crazy."
This time I took her hand. She didn't pull away but squeezed mine. When I saw how worried she looked, I wondered why I hadn't noticed it sooner.
"Are you sure your dream doesn't mean anything? Because in my experience, repeated dreams can be your subconscious trying to tell you something. Tell me what this dream is about."
She sighed. Her eyes took on a haunted look. Though she stared straight ahead at the road in front of us, it felt like she was seeing something totally different, maybe reliving the nightmare.
"The dream always starts with a fire," she finally said. "There's a building burning—a very tall building. It’s a green building, and it’s always burning. That's not the worst part of the dream. The worst part is that there are children trapped inside, screaming and crying. There is no one to save them because to the people standing outside, it's too dangerous to go back in." The faraway look left her eyes. "That's what I have to relive every single night."
My heart sank as she exhaled. She looked scared and tired. I was definitely terrible to see such a nasty dream over and over again. But what could it mean? Like her, I was also confused.
I thought hard.
A fire.
A burning building.
Trapped children.
There was no connection between all these and what was going on in Hannah's life. Maybe if her dream had been about her failing at something, then I could have linked it to the pageant she would no longer be competing in. But a burning building had nothing to do with anything.
After brooding on it for a couple of minutes more, I shook my head. "Maybe it's really just a dream. Maybe you're just stressed. You really need to relax, stop stressing yourself, stop worrying so much, and then you will be fine."
Hannah nodded. "I think you're right, which brings us back to why this stroll came at the right time. It's a perfect way to de-stress."
She closed her eyes and breathed in the warm summer air.
Her eyes flew open when we both heard a loud scream. Still holding hands, we turned towards the source of the sound.
A large group of people came pounding up the street, with buckets full of water in their hands. A woman stumbled along behind them, shouting "Fire" at the top of her voice.
Hannah and I exchanged a loaded look. This was no coincidence. It was no coincidence that there would be a fire on the very day we would leave the Estate for a stroll. No.
Her dream hadn't been just a dream. It was a prophecy.
And if there was really a building on fire, then there would be-
"Children... trapped inside," Hannah said, finishing the horrifying thought like she had read my mind.
Before the words were out of her mouth, she was sprinting down the street, running faster than I had ever seen her run.
She got to the scene of the fire before I did. I tried to catch my breath and almost instantly inhaled a lungful of smoke.
The building we stood in front of was exactly what Hannah had described: a large, tall building painted green, with other smaller buildings surrounding it.
What Hannah didn't know was that the building was one of the pack's orphanage homes. It housed over two hundred children. I could see some of the children being taken away from the scene by some of the adults. The other adults rushed frantically around, trying to put out the fire.
"It's an orphanage," Hannah whispered, pointing to the sign outside the building. "And there are-"
Her words were drowned out by a loud crash from inside the building. The glass windows imploded.
"The children!" shrieked the woman from earlier. "The children are in there."
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