I couldn’t get her face out of my head, and I couldn’t get that tortured look from the forefront of my mind. I was obsessed, to say the least. I even lied to my mother; telling her I was worried about the apartment situation instead of telling her the truth.

If I just could get to sleep, maybe I could rest a little bit. But every time I closed my eyes to sleep, I just thought about Isabel’s rejection of me. Why would she just run out? It was driving me crazy, like a puzzle you think you’ve solved before, but just can’t manage to do it again. Like a Rubick’s cube, almost.

I got up from the bed, and went into the bathroom. When I turned on the light, Tess snorted and rolled over into my space, sprawling her arms out. I wonder how Kyle can ever find a place in the bed to sleep with her rolling around like a cow all night. Okay, that was a little unfair…maybe not a cow….maybe a fish, or a weasel or something.

I sat down on the edge of the sterile white bathtub and took a deep breath, thinking that if I relaxed, I would be able to sleep. But instead of starting the water, I slowly eased my panties off my hips and down around my ankles, sitting on the very edge of the fiberglass. My fingers trailed through the damp hair at the apex of my thighs, and I spread my inner lips to take my clit between my thumb and forefinger. I gasped loudly and bit my lip, continuing to caress myself with long, burning strokes from my fingernail. Michael Guerin entered my mind’s eye, and it took only a few minutes of me visualizing his hips between my thighs, pumping into my body, to get me so horny and hot that I came all over my hand, moaning almost loudly enough to wake up my sleeping…bedmate. Sated, I cleaned myself gingerly with a hot wet, washcloth, and turning the light out, I ducked over to my suitcase for fresh underwear. I got back into bed, and pushed Tess’s limp body across the mattress, as far away from me as I could without pushing her off the bed entirely. Easing back into bed, I soon drifted off to sleep.

I’m walking down a long, dark hall, towards what, I’m not quite sure. From the stainless steel walls, I hear whispers, and it sounds like a name, but it’s no one that I know, so I don’t pay much attention. Under ordinary circumstances, this would seem odd and maybe a little frightening, but something—someone is telling me not to be afraid.

Whispers float around me, the same name, over and over, floating over my head, echoing off the walls, bouncing like a ricocheting bullet over and over. Vilan…landra. Vilandr…Vilandra.

Vilandra, Vilandra.

At the end of the hallway, a door opens, and Isabel appears, only, she’s not Isabel. She’s sitting on a throne, sitting as straight as she can, and she’s got a crown on her head, but as I come closer, I see her crown is made of thorns instead of fine jewels.

“I wear this to remember,” she whispers. “I am the forsaken. Vilandra.” Her dress is blood red and as I get even closer, I see the dress is made not of cloth, but entirely of blood itself. It’s shimmering and floating over her like real fabric, but it drips off and leaves a path in its wake. Isabel held her breasts with her hands, her look pained. “I bleed the blood of the innocent. I never stop bleeding…Vilandra never stops bleeding.”

Like a green light at the end of a dock, I can’t help but watch her, and draw closer when I can. She is walking towards me, but every step she takes, I watch her turn into a dusty shadow of what she started, and by the time we meet, she’s nothing but a pile of ashes. The damned.

Vilandra.

I awake, unable to catch my breath. I’ve seen the future, I think. No. I’ve seen the past. I know who Isabel is—who Isabel was. Whether she meant to or not, Isabel had been to my dreams, she’s told me her secret. She is Vilandra.