Okay, so Kalona can get into your dreams, but you’re awake now, so pull yourself together! I told myself sternly as I petted Nala and let my cat’s familiar purr soothe me. Stevie Rae stirred in her sleep and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Then, still sleeping, she smiled and sighed. I looked down at her, glad that she was having better luck with her dreams.

Gently I pulled back the blanket she’d curled up under and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw no blood seeping through the bandage that covered the terrible arrow wound that had pierced her.

She stirred again. This time Stevie Rae’s eyes fluttered and opened. She looked confused for a second, then she smiled sleepily up at me.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” she said groggily. “Don’t worry so much.”

“It’s a little hard not to worry when my best friend keeps dying,” I said, smiling back at her.

“I didn’t die this time. I just almost died.”

“My nerves are telling me to tell you there’s not a big difference in that ‘almost’ to them.”

“Tell your nerves to be quiet and go to sleep,” Stevie Rae said, closing her eyes and pulling the blanket back up over her. “I’m okay,” she repeated. “We’re all going to be okay.” Then her breathing deepened and I swear in less time than it took for me to blink, she was asleep.

I stifled my big sigh and scooted back on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Nala curled up between Stevie Rae and me, and gave me a disgruntled mee-uf-ow! that I knew meant she wanted me to relax and go to sleep.

Sleep? And possibly dream again? Uh, no. Not likely.

Instead I kept an eye on Stevie Rae’s breathing and petted Nala absently. It was so darn weird how normal everything seemed here in the little bubble of peace we’d made. Looking at sleeping Stevie Rae I found it almost impossible to believe that just a few hours ago she’d had an arrow sticking through her chest and we had had to escape from the House of Night as chaos tore our world apart. Unwilling to allow myself to sleep, my exhausted thoughts circled back, replaying the events of the night. And as I sifted through them, I was amazed anew that any of us had survived…