King of Me (The King Trilogy #3)(16)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

I felt a sharp pain and heard my cries fade into the distance.

~~~

The gentle sound of waves caressed my mind in a peaceful dream, a dream where my body lay resting on powdery sand, the warm sun cocooning me in a blanket woven from clouds and tropical air. I couldn’t recall ever feeling so at peace or so comfortable. Was I dead? Was I somewhere inside my mind, hiding from King?

I rubbed my eyes and slowly sat up to take in the long stretch of sand and deep green forest skirting the pristine beach. The sun was high in the sky, about noonish, and I wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

No clothes. I winced and then closed my eyes, pushing away the dark images of King, of that horrible island. If this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake. Not ever. I would rather die na**d in a strange place than return to that nightmare.

How could he do that to me? How? It didn’t make sense. Not when King needed me to free him from his torment.

Mack had been right, that’s how. That had been a monster back on the island. And that monster wanted me to fall into some dark, delusional state where I’d learn to love him. After he’d beaten and raped me.

No. I shook my head slowly. That had to be another one of those strange visions like I’d had in Vaughn’s cell, or like the time of Justin’s death when my mind had been there but my body hadn’t.

Maybe I’m having a vision now.

But as I surveyed my body, the burn marks on my wrists and ankles, which were red and raw, certainly felt real.

I blew out a heartbroken breath that hurt just as badly as my wounds. I suddenly felt the bile creep from my stomach and launch over my na**d chest. “Oh God.” I flipped over and heaved.

After a minute or so, the pain subsided. I stood and stumbled my way to the water. Dream or not, I didn’t want to be covered in my own sick.

The warm ocean water simultaneously stung my fresh wounds but felt soothing on my trembling body. I walked out as far as I could and then dove head first into a cresting wave. Yes, the water felt real. The salt in my mouth tasted real, too. But how did I get here? This couldn’t be right.

Another of King’s tricks? After all, the man had powers I couldn’t begin to comprehend, one of which was the ability to crawl inside my body and show me his memories. He’d done it once before.

Yes. That had to be what was happening. The only issue was that this felt real, not like a memory or watching a movie.

My head pounded and my stomach began to cramp again, but I held it together. And that’s when it hit me. My nausea and headaches only came when my mind didn’t want to accept reality. It’d happened on the day I’d learned about being a Seer and I’d felt my two conflicting realities collide.

Christ. It just happened when Mack tried to warn you about King.

But this can’t be real. I felt my face turn hot and more bile creep up.

There was my proof: more resistance, more nausea.

I dove underneath the waves, allowing the ocean to pacify my angry, frayed nerves. When I brought my head up for a breath, I spotted a young woman with dark hair and skin, wearing a white dress, standing on the beach and staring at me.

I stared back but didn’t speak. Besides, what would I say? “Hey! I’m naked. Got any idea where I am and how I got here?” Instead, I waded in the water for several moments and then hesitantly lifted my shaky hand to wave.

A look of surprise overtook her face, and she sprinted away, disappearing into the forest.

At that moment, something sharp jabbed my toe as I bounced along the bottom. “Shit!” The pain seared its way up my leg, and I paddled back to the shore where I crawled from the water.

“Oh no.” Blood seeped from a small puncture wound. My vision blurred, and I tried to blink it away, but the burn traveled quickly into my chest, cramping every muscle I had.

I fell onto my back. Real. Not a dream. Real, Mia.

~~~

Sharp-toned words, spoken in a loud hiss, were what woke me this second time around. I couldn’t understand a single damned thing, but a woman and man argued over something.

Cautiously, I popped open one eye and found myself lying on a wooden table. The home looked to have three rooms without any doors. The walls were made of smooth white plaster and a thatched roof with wooden beams. Wherever we were, these were very simple people who lived without electricity or running water.

I slowly began to move the rest of my body, surveying the damage. Someone had draped a flimsy piece of fabric, too small to be called a sheet, over most of my torso. My leg throbbed, too, but my foot burned like a sonofabitch. Both had been bandaged.

Shit. What happened? I wasn’t sure what to do or say because the situation had zero explanation. Not only that, but I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there. I only knew I didn’t ever want to go back to the hell I’d run from. There would be no saving myself in that place, which meant there’d be no redemption for that evil bastard I’d trusted like a fool, which meant there’d be no saving Justin. What would happen to my poor parents now?

Simply put, everything was f**ked. Fucked up beyond salvation.

And if I ever get the chance, I will hunt King down and end him. What King did to me, whatever the reason, there would be no forgiving. No amount of hate in this world could measure up to the rage I felt. Evil bastard. I hope you burn in hell.

The only questions now were: Where the hell was I? And how long would it take for King to find me?

I hope never.

I then realized I still wore the silver cuff on my left wrist. Was there some chance that the bracelet had worked and taken me somewhere “far, far away where King would never find me”?

I sat up slowly, and the young woman shrieked and jumped back, as did the man. It was the same woman who’d watched me on the beach.

“Anyone happen to speak English?” I ground out my words, my brain throbbing against the inner walls of my skull.

The man with deep brown skin, in his late forties perhaps, wearing a simple-looking, cream-colored tunic that hung down to his knees, pointed at me and barked a few angry words.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He grabbed a clump of my blonde hair and shouted as if accusing me of some wrongdoing. Was I in a country where women showing hair was a crime? But no, the young woman in the room wore hers loose, and her dress, though long and unrevealing, showed plenty of shoulder and neck.

He looked at the young woman—also with dark skin and hair and perhaps in her late teens—and screamed at her again before storming outside.

“What was that about?” I asked.