Chapter 1: Evelyn
Evelyn
The nightmare always began with breathing.
Not hers.
Someone else’s.
Slow. Measured. Close enough to hear in the dark.
Evelyn Hart woke with a violent gasp, her body jerking upright before her mind caught up. Sweat clung cold against the back of her neck as thunder rattled the apartment windows hard enough to shake the glass.
For one horrible second, she still smelled hay.
Damp earth.
Rusted metal.
Her lungs refused to work properly.
No matter how many times it happened, the panic always felt new.
Evelyn shoved the blankets away and pressed both palms against her eyes until colors burst behind them. The digital clock beside her bed glowed bright red through the darkness.
3:17 a.m.
Again.
Always sometime after three.
Rain hammered the city outside in relentless waves. Water streaked down the windows overlooking downtown Providence, turning the streetlights into blurred golden smears.
She hated storms.
Storms made the dreams worse.
Her therapist said recurring nightmares were often symbolic manifestations of unresolved trauma. Stress. Anxiety. Suppressed fears.
But symbolic things weren’t supposed to feel real.
The barn always felt real.
Too real.
Evelyn swung her legs over the side of the bed and forced herself to stand despite the dizziness crawling through her limbs. Her oversized university sweatshirt hung off one shoulder as she crossed the apartment barefoot, stopping in the kitchen long enough to pour herself a glass of water with trembling hands.
The glass shook against her mouth.
Pathetic.
Twenty-two years old and terrified of her own subconscious.
She leaned heavily against the counter, staring into the darkness of the apartment.
The dreams never changed.
Wooden walls.
Chains hanging from ceiling beams.
Voices whispering softly somewhere nearby.
And the overwhelming feeling that someone was watching her.
Waiting.
The worst part was the voice.
Male.
Calm.
Almost gentle.
Good girl.
Her stomach twisted violently.
Evelyn set the glass down harder than intended.
“Nope,” she muttered to herself. “Absolutely not.”
Sleep was no longer an option.
Not tonight.
By morning, exhaustion sat behind her eyes like bruises.
The university library was nearly empty because of the storm still rolling across campus. Most students had enough sense to stay in their dorms rather than drag themselves through freezing rain two weeks before graduation.
Unfortunately, Evelyn had a thesis due in forty-eight hours.
So here she was.
Running on two hours of sleep and caffeine.
She tucked a strand of strawberry-colored hair behind her ear as she stared blankly at her laptop screen, rereading the same paragraph for the fifth time without absorbing a single word.
Outside the massive library windows, thunder growled low across the sky.
Her shoulders tightened instinctively.
The lights flickered once overhead.
A flash of lightning illuminated the glass—
And suddenly she wasn’t in the library anymore.
Wood beams overhead.
Darkness pressing in from every side.
The sharp smell of dirt.
Her pulse spiked so hard it hurt.
Evelyn blinked rapidly and the vision disappeared immediately, leaving only rows of bookshelves and quiet students behind.
Jesus Christ.
She shoved her laptop away slightly and rubbed both hands over her face.
“You look like you’re about five seconds from passing out.”
The voice startled her hard enough that she nearly dropped her coffee.
Evelyn looked up instantly.
And forgot how to breathe for a moment.
The man standing beside her table looked older than most college seniors—not by age exactly, but by presence. Tall. Broad shoulders beneath a dark wool coat dampened by rain. Dark hair pushed carelessly back from a sharply cut face.
Controlled.
That was the first word her mind supplied.
Everything about him felt deliberate.
Even the way he stood.
His dark eyes flicked briefly toward the untouched coffee beside her laptop before returning to her face.
“Sorry,” he said calmly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” Evelyn lied automatically.
One corner of his mouth lifted slightly like he knew better.
Great.
He was attractive and observant.
Dangerous combination.
“I’m Rowan,” he said after a second.
His voice was low enough to settle somewhere beneath her ribs.
“Evelyn.”
The moment she said her name, something changed in his expression.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Tiny. Almost invisible.
But there.
A strange chill crawled down her spine.
Had they met before?
She was almost certain she would remember someone like him.
Rowan glanced toward the storm outside the windows before looking back at her.
“You hate thunderstorms.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question.
Evelyn frowned slightly. “How do you know that?”
“You tense every time lightning flashes.”
Heat rose faintly into her cheeks.
Embarrassing.
“I haven’t slept much,” she admitted quietly.
“Nightmares?”
The word hit like ice water.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Rowan’s expression softened almost immediately, though she couldn’t explain why that made her more nervous instead of less.
“Lucky guess,” he said smoothly.
Maybe.
But it hadn’t felt like guessing.
Thunder cracked loudly overhead, making several students glance toward the windows.
Evelyn flinched before she could stop herself.
Rowan noticed.
Of course he noticed.
His gaze lingered on her for one long, unreadable moment before he pulled out the chair across from her.
“Can I sit?”
Every instinct told her to say no.
Not because he seemed dangerous exactly.
Because he seemed familiar.
And somehow that felt worse.
Still—
“Sure,” she heard herself say.
Rowan sat down slowly, folding his hands loosely in front of him.
Up close, he smelled faintly like cedarwood and rain.
Comforting.
The realization irritated her immediately.
“You always study in libraries during storms?” she asked, mostly to fill the silence.
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“No,” he said softly. “I think I just had a reason to tonight.”
Something about the way he said it made her heartbeat stumble unevenly.
Outside, lightning flashed again across the darkened sky.
For the briefest second, Evelyn could have sworn she saw the outline of wooden beams instead of bookshelves behind him.
Then it vanished.
But the uneasy feeling remained.
Because for the first time in years—
the fear in her nightmares no longer felt faceless.
