CHAPTER 21

That night, she had a nightmare that left her shaking.
She had gotten home from work dejected and had thrown herself unto her narrow bed, tired and drained from all the emotional distress. Shana had not even taken off her shoe then she had dozed off. She had imagined she would not be able to sleep after everything that happened but somehow, she did and as she drifted off, she was grateful she could escape all her thoughts and abandon reality with a few hours of dream.
Then she had felt the room grow cold, like she was waking from a trance. She had sat up in her bed, looking around frightfully, not daring to make a sound. She had reached for the bedside lamp to switch it on.
The bright lights had flashed into her sleepy eyes and she had held up her hand to cover her face then dropped it and she had screamed in terror, the translucent figure standing right in her face scaring ten years off her life and chasing away the remnant of sleep.
Shana had grown so used to seeing the Dead she had grown so immune to fear, no matter what form in which they appeared before her but this, right before her was no ordinary ghost.
It was Adam alright, but a different Adam, different from the one that had appeared to her the last time. He was more menacing, frightening and disfigured beyond measure and the scariest part for her had been his action.
No Dead ever tried to make physical contact with her but as she continued to scream, Adam stretched a transparent arm towards her and all the air left her windpipe as she started to choke, thrashing around and trying to get his hand away from her neck but it was futile. He was a ghost, without substance and there was nothing to grab not to talk of dislodging from her body so she continued to choke helplessly, hoping and hoping that someone was going to burst in to her rescue.
He continued to squeeze and she looked helplessly, the fight beginning to go out of her and she felt like she was going under when a force out of nowhere, threw Adam off her and she gulped in the much needs air.
She came around to see Asher bending over her. "Are you OK Kitty?," he asked with concern all over his face. She was so happy to have him there but when she stretched up her hand to feel if he was actually real, there with her and rescuing her from Adam, the face before her morphed into that of Adam, meaner than ever and she screamed forcefully, this time waking up to find herself on the floor in her room.
Shaken, her hand went to her throat and she realised it had all been a dream, a very bad one.
She rose from the floor on shaky legs and stripped as she went into the shower.
She could not decide if the dream was better than an actual trance but one thing she did know was that it was the truth.
Adam must be dying a second time from his desire to kill her. She was ruining his perfect revenge by getting emotionally involved with Asher. If she was him, she was not going to like herself at that point. She wished she could get some kind of immunity against Asher.
And the worst part of it all was realizing that he was never going to be her saviour, never going to be her knight; in shining armor or otherwise. She was nothing to him, nothing to anyone.
If she eventually failed in fulfilling Adam's wish and he eventually took her life, no one was going to miss her. Not a single living soul was going to notice she was gone.
Shana dropped her head against the shower stall and cried at her pitiful life.
She was red eyed and cranky the next morning. After crying till there was no more years to shed, she had left the shower and went to her bed, knowing there was no way she was going to fall asleep so easily after the nightmare. But she had tried nonetheless. And she had woken up with a lot of questions swimming around in her head.
A dead only appeared to her twice; once to give her the message and when the message was completed and they go to rest.
Never once had one tormented her dreams but she reasoned she had no experience with a vengeful Dead in the past. The experience was taking its toll on her.
Not for the first time since her grandma's death, she wished the wise old woman was there to help her and give answers to her questions.
She wished for someone she could confide in about who she truly was but she could not burden just anyone with it, someone like Quinn but she did not want him cutting himself off from her.
She felt so alone. Fate was so unkind to her she did not even have someone like herself to confide in.
But one thing she did not need her grandmother or a confidant to tell her was that she had to hurry up her assignment on Asher Anderson because Adam was definitely no going to keep calm for much longer.
She was scared, the feeling making her all the more angry at Asher Anderson
He had made her more vulnerable than she normally was and he had used her vulnerability against her.
In spite of her woes, she walked with her head held high as she made her way through the ground floor and made for her office, ignoring the stares and smile. She was not feeling any of the confidence she as trying to exude but no one knew that, only her did and it was none of their business if she felt like a bag of potatoes at that moment.
To her relief, Asher was not in and she finally took calming breathes. She had been dreading facing him after what happened the day before. She had absolutely nothing to dread, he was the wrong party but her actual fear was the awkwardness that was going to accompany their first meeting after yesterday.
But that, had all been in her head.
About an hour after she settled in on her desk, she had heard the ding of the elevator and like a psychic, she had known he was the one. She arranged her plain clothes around her and smoothed her hand nervously over her hair just as he walked in, bright as the morning sunshine in his Italian cut suit.
And what more? His mood was bright; make that overly bright.
"Good morning Kitty" he said flashing her his roguish smile. If he expected her to smile in return and answer him in his bright voice, he had another thing coming. She also hated the way he continued to use the pet name for her, the name he had shared with Nicolette probably while he was laughing about how she had fell for his act.
"Morning Mr Anderson ," she replied stiffly with a stony face. Then she thought better of it and tried to force her face to relax.
She was supposed to be eating out of his hands if she wanted Adam's revenge done, not attacking and opposing him every step of the way. But she had to give it to him, he was one cold son of a bitch. He was standing before her, feeling not even a tiny bit of guilt about how he had played her and dumped her so fast when another woman came along. If he noticed her stiff reply early, he completely ignored it and made no mention of it.
"Could you report in my office for a sec?," Asher asked with the smile still plastered all over his face. "I need you to run me over my schedule for today. I'll be having some important business out of the office," he added and left before she could say a word.
The gut!
He must think her so easy to trample on, she thought and scoffed. Asher had just subtly informed her he was going to be busy with Nicolette, and he had said it so calmly...and so normal, like she was a nobody and she had no reason to care.
She was obviously a nobody but the day before in his office, when he had been asking her out, he had made her feel like somebody and them crashed that feeling before she could really bask in it and all it had taken was a leggy, beautiful woman.
Shana rose and went into his office, deciding Asher Anderson was not worth her emotions.
Shana could not meet his eyes as she stood stiff and straight before him as she entered and noticed he was reclining against his desk with his arms folded over his chest and staring right at her. It was just like the position he had been the first time she ever entered his office and just like the first time, she did not feel any less awkward as he continued to stare at her for a long time.
She cleared her throat several time attempting to speak and each time, no sound came forth. She was supposed to be going over his schedule with him not standing there like a scared little mouse like his girlfriend had described her. She felt so ashamed of her vulnerability towards him.
"Did you miss me Kitty?," he asked suddenly, in a solemn voice and a gentle smile that seemed so real she almost fell for it and went into his arm.
Instead, she remembered the scene from the day before when Nicolette had been all over him and he had been revelling in the attention while treating her like she was nothing and had said nor done anything intimate to her. The scene got Shana so fired up that her eyes snapped up to meet sexy gaze, her brown eyes spitting curses at him.
Then she raised her hand, aiming for his face.