I knew what was happening wasn’t real. It might have been real years ago, but it wasn’t my reality anymore. The scared boy chained to the water pipe in that dark, wet basement wasn’t me anymore. The boy covered in his own filth, more animal than human, wasn’t the man I’d grown into. The boy guarding the only thing he could claim as his own, ready and willing to tear into whomever or whatever might try to take it from him, had been my life at one time. It wasn’t any longer.I’d gone for years without dreaming of my life before my real family had found me. My true family. But the dreams had come back. In the past couple of weeks, they’d increased in frequency. I’d never had one while sleeping beside Rowen . . . but that had changed.I jolted awake in a cold sweat, almost panting. It took me a minute to realize I was safe and another minute to remember where I was. My gaze jumped to Rowen, and my arms tightened protectively around her. She was still curled up, asleep, and half on the swing, half on my lap.
