In Your Dreams

12.

I was in disbelief at how indecisive Mark was being with the new information we'd found. If it were me I would be running to tell Lexie. Sure it would rip her wounds open, but wouldn't some kind of peace come in knowing what happened to her? Maybe they could finally find her remains and give her a proper burial. It was frustrating.. and in the frustration I went to go lie down.

That was a mistake. As soon as I closed my eyes I fell asleep, and I wish I hadn't. It was a black and white dream again. Only it was a much calmer setting, it looked like a small house or apartment, one that the person living there wasn't at much judging by the clutter on the counters and table.

The door opened and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the bright colorful blue scrubs. She sighed and set down her keys and sorted through the mail as she flipped a lamp on. It was the middle of the night and she must've just gotten off work. She walked slowly as she looked at each envelope and headed towards the back of the apartment where the hallway and bedroom/bathroom was. My eyes followed as she got just inside the hallway and stopped.

I felt alert at how suddenly she had stopped and then watched as she took slow steps backwards and dropped the mail as she looked straight ahead. I got goose bumps as another figure stepped into the room from inside the hallway. I recognized him immediately. He was the man from the shed, the man who abused all those women and he was moving towards Meredith. I was sick to my stomach.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded but her voice shook slightly.

"You know who I am." He said with an eastern European accent "So you think you can try to take my women away from me?"

"They're not your women." She challenged "They are women, but they are not yours. Women are not possessions."

"Women are weak." He hissed, she took a step back and gulped "They don't deserve air, they don't deserve food. They deserve what I give them, I treat them like they should be treated."

"You treat them like a monster!" she screamed.

He raised his fist and before she had time to flinch he swung it down against her cheek. I screamed but they didn't hear me. I tried to longue at him, oh how I'd love to get my hands around his neck. But I didn't exist, this was a dream. I watched as she struggled and fought like a champion against him as he threw blow after blow against her.

She managed to slip out of his grasp and jumped over into the kitchen. Everything on the counters went flying across the floor as she dove for the carving block holding all the kitchen knives. He had it knocked out of her hand before she had one in reach. She raised her hand in fight to smack him away but he brought a knife blade against her forearm. She cried out as the blood poured out from the gash that extended from her elbow to her wrist.

He punched her in the abdomen and knocked the wind out of her, she grunted and gasped to find her breath again as he knocked her to the floor. He leaned over her and placed the knife against her throat. I tried to force myself to wake up, I didn't want to see this. She looked up at him with hard eyes filled with fight. As if she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. He glared for a moment and then let out an eerie laugh.

"You know what." He said "I don't think I'll kill you."

"Why not." She gasped. Her voice was hoarse from the fight.

"Because, it would be too quick." He said "You deserve to suffer."

"You will never get that satisfaction from me." She promised.

He laughed and then stood up and pounded his foot against her leg, then grabbed it with his hand and pulled up. I felt every nerve in my body go unglued as I heard a loud snap and her blood curdling scream. He laughed and then repeated the act with her other leg. She cried from the pain she was in. After breaking both of her legs he picked up her foot and pulled her out of the apartment. She tried to hold onto the carpet, her blood smearing a trail behind her. But she was so weak, physically speaking, and he was so big. He stopped at the door and looked down at her.

"You are mine now."

"No!" I gasped and sat up with a start.

It took me a few minutes to calm me breath and heart rate. I sat hunched over on the edge of the on call room bed for a few minutes just trying to calm myself. Maybe this was what she was trying to tell me. Maybe she wanted her murderer to be found. Maybe she wanted someone to save the ones she couldn't. Maybe...

You are mine now.

Could she still be breathing? Could that be at all a possibility....No. She couldn't be living still with me seeing her ghost or spirit or whatever. I got up and walked out of the on call room with ambition. I found Mark right away, he was getting a chart from behind the nurses' station.

"I'm going tonight."

"What?" Mark frowned and then scanned the perimeter before giving me a hard glance "You can't."

"I can and I will." I promised "I'm going tonight."

"Derek this is insane." Mark hissed "You're losing your mind you know that? I mean you just so happened to find that letter."

"She's trying to tell me something." I whispered "And I can't ignore it."

"You can." He said "These visions are just hallucinations. Have you gotten an MRI?"

"I've given myself four MRI's and 2 CT scans." I confessed "I don't WANT to see these things Mark, but she won't leave me alone so...I'm going."

"Derek."

"You can come with me or not. Either way, I'm going."

Mark let out a sigh from his nostrils that told me he wasn't happy.

"What time."