I was running, searching for an escape when I knew there was none. His face kept popping up out of nowhere and making me rethink my next move.

He cornered me in the back of the room and all at once I saw my life flashing before my eyes.

A shock of lighter hair, green eyes with slight wrinkles and time worn yellow spots swimming in them.

"What do you want from me?"

He grew three sizes before my eyes and his teeth elongated into fangs large enough to slice me in half with a single bite.

I screamed as he descended upon me and I was lost to him.

I awoke in a startled sweat, my throat raw from the scream that had ripped through me and pulled me out of my slumber, surely waking the rest of the house with me.

Sure enough, not two seconds later and a hard knock sounded on my door.

"Lydia! Are you okay," Lucas called through the other side of the door.

"I'm fine, just a nightmare, go back to sleep."

Susceptible to vulnerability and in turn even more nightmares, I cut my losses after my third attempt to fall back to sleep without imagining the dark spots in my eyes as ghosts of my past out to get me and took my self pity party to the bathroom for a three A.M. soak in the bathtub.

The water was a perfect match for my heated skin. I let it flow over me like air, pouring in bath salts and stayed in until my skin was pruny and the water had gone frigid.

My reflection was cold as my hair against my back as my mind tried to force the bad memories down, down, down until they were as concealed as government secrets.

The longer I stared at myself the longer I wanted to punch the girl looking back at me in the face. I knew why I'd stayed so long in a toxic relationship with Nate, and it wasn't because we had gotten comfortable with each other and I was scared to leave what I'd known.

He made my relationship with my mother strained and isolated me from all of my real friends who didn't mean me harm like Layla had.

My body physically didn't want me to remember, because then it would all be too real.

But it was real, because Layla and Nate had read everything in my journal...the only place I could ever be honest with myself about anything.

Thinking about saying the words out loud about what had really happened made me feel the urge to vomit, the pressure under my chin growing until the morbidity of the situation dawned on me and flashes of the repressed moments from my childhood began playing in the back of my head.

It was like when you have a disgustingly awful thought that you didn't want to have but it pushed itself through anyway, forcing you to realize how terrible of a human being you really were.

Swarms of bees exploded in my stomach and the anxiety in my body reached a fever pitch, the invasive thoughts becoming invasive scenes and finally I had to run to the toilet as the bile escaped from the back of my throat.

I pretended it was my dark, intrusive thoughts that were expelling themselves from my body and once I was done I could go back to pretending it had never happened. I didn't have to remember. I couldn't remember.

Dark green eyes spotted with yellow...Light brown hair...

I threw up some more until I was flat out dry heaving.

Light knocking sounded at the bathroom door and I checked my phone to see that it was already five in the morning.

"Just a second," I called out, knowing that I wouldn't be able to face anyone in the condition I was in.

I changed into the leggings and t-shirt I'd brought into the bathroom with me, brushed my teeth and hair, threw on some deodorant and came face to face with Emmett as I opened the door, expecting it to be Reed or Lucas...anyone but Emmett.

"Lydia, what's going on?"

He was dressed for an early morning workout, looking perfectly put together and not like he'd just spent all night partying and drinking with God knows who.

"Nothing," I said, edging past him even though every nerve in my body was begging me to go back to him and throw myself into his arms despite the obvious warnings that yelled out at me anytime he was near.

I knew he had the power to destroy me even more than Nate had, and the thought of me becoming more broken was something that I couldn't even fathom in that moment, especially not after the destructive repressed memories that were seemingly coming back to haunt me because of my current emotional volatility.

"It doesn't seem like nothing..." he trailed off, catching my arm with his hand before I could fully turn away from him.

Icy blue eyes pierced directly into my soul and those eyes were such a welcome change from the green ones that were haunting my dreams...and my waking consciousness too it seemed.

"Yeah, well why don't you go ask that girl from last night what she thinks and leave me out of it?"

I cringed internally, knowing how jealous that sounded even before it came out of my mouth but it wasn't like I could take it back.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, his hand still on my arm doing strange things to my thoughts and emotions. He really needed to let go, or I might feel the need to edge closer to him, tilt my head to the side...

"That was Marnie. She's my ex that cheated on me. I didn't want her to mess with you because she can be really rude and I didn't want her to say anything to you because of the night you'd already had."

That made a little bit of sense, but it still didn't negate the fact that I was trying to make excuses for him even after how he'd treated me a few nights ago, regardless of the fact that he hadn't acted sleazy in the slightest bit since then.

"You know what, it doesn't even matter. I have to go..."

He let go, albeit reluctantly, and I escaped to my bedroom to throw on my tennis shoes.

I needed a run to clear my head and erase those memories once and for all. I didn't say goodbye to Emmett as he passed me on the way out the door.

"Hey, is your sister okay?"

Lucas looked exasperated, his hands raking through his hair over and over again like he thought doing so would alleviate his stress.

"Honestly man, I don't even know. She seemed fine yesterday and last night but when we got back in the car she was quiet and then she woke up screaming, then she just left to go on a run which only means she'll be out pushing her body to the breaking point by running all day, who knows how many miles she goes for. I know I need to call my mom but once I do that she'll hate me forever."

That was...not what I was expecting. If I was being honest, I was expecting him to say that she would be fine and just needed to blow off some steam with a run. I knew about the nightmare but I didn't realize it was affecting her so much.

"Well, what can you do then? And why would calling your mom make her hate you?"

He brought his fingers to his eyes and put pressure there as if he had a monumental headache that could never be cured.

"She had a falling out with her a few years ago, she basically told her to choose between her family and Nate and I guess the guy had her so isolated that she chose him over my parents. They've hardly spoken since. I know Lydia doesn't want her to know that she was right. That's one thing about my sister- she's stubborn as hell and has too much pride to admit when she was wrong, but she's the most compassionate person you'll ever meet, until you cross her or her family that is."

I laughed to myself. Of course she was stubborn and prideful, not to mention full of passion and fire despite all the awful things that have happened to her in her life.

"Lydia said something about her ex and his new girlfriend stealing something from her last night at the club...can't we call the cops on them or something? What did they take?"

A flash of fear appeared in Lucas' eyes but he masked it almost immediately, making me question if I'd really seen it there or not.

"Oh, they didn't steal anything. They just threw out one of Lydia's journals and it meant a lot to her, that's all..."

"Okay," I said, drawing the word out on the account of the suspicious way that Lucas was acting. I needed to remember to ask Lydia about it later because the way her brother was acting about it made me more than curious to find out what was so important that she could've written in her journal to elicit such a strange reaction from Lucas when I was just simply asking about it.

"Yeah man it's no big deal, I wouldn't ask Lydia about it though, it might really upset her."

Reed walked in at that moment and brought the conversation to a close when he began asking Lucas about his independent study for graduate school and I completely checked out of the conversation.

One thing was sure, though.

I was going to find out what happened that made Lucas so scared of that asshole Nate and his home wrecking side piece of his.

And if they still proved a threat to Lydia I was going to make sure they knew just who they were messing with.