Chapter 218: On Your Side

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Moana

The medicine that Selina gave me must have made me sleep for a long time, because it was bright outside when I finally woke up. When I rolled over to glance at my clock with my bleary eyes, I saw that it was eight o'clock in the morning already even though it felt as though I only slept for five minutes. Yawning, I rolled back onto my back and suddenly felt a comforting presence beside me. It was Edrick.

Moving slowly in order not to wake him, I slowly rolled over to face Edrick and couldn't help but smile. He was sleeping soundly beside me. I hadn't been dragged off to a psychiatric facility in my sleep; at least, not yet. Slowly, his eyes cracked open and he turned to face me. His hand came up and stroked my hair for a moment before he pulled me in tightly and let me bury my face in his chest.

We stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other. I breathed in his scent in big, deep breaths, and felt myself relax a little more with each one. When we finally pulled away, I felt a little bit better. But the concerned look on Edrick's face made my comfort turn into more worry.

"Selina told you, didn't she?" I asked quietly, feeling my heart start to race as I started to fear the worst.

Edrick slowly nodded. Instantly, I felt tears begin to well up in my tired eyes. "Are you going to send me away to a mental institution?"

Suddenly, Edrick pulled me close again and shushed me. "Of course not," he whispered, stroking my back while I quietly cried into his chest. "I wouldn't do that unless there was absolutely no other choice, and even then it would take a lot to convince me to send you away like that. I'm always on your side, Moana."

I slowly looked up at Edrick, who looked down at me with nothing but love in his eyes. It was comforting to know that he wasn't going to send me away, but at the same time, I was still scared of myself. As the memories of my drawings slowly floated back into my groggy mind, I felt more and more guilty and afraid by the horrible images that I drew when I was unconscious.

While many of the images were just violent nonsense, depicting things like blood and gore, the one picture that really stuck in my mind was the picture of the same knife from my dream about Michael; the one that had the slightly curved blade and the wolf head handle. There was something strange about that knife, like I had seen it a thousand times before even though at the same time I felt as though I hadn't seen it even once in my entire life. In a strange and unfamiliar way, it felt like some sort of omen.

As I looked up at Edrick, too, I could tell that he had seen the drawing of the knife. He seemed to have a puzzled expression on his face, as though he was also trying to rack his brain over it.

"That knife," I said quietly, sitting up and rubbing my tired eyes. "Have you seen it before?"
Edrick slowly sat up beside me and leaned his back against the headboard of my bed. When I looked over at him, I saw that he was repeatedly running his hand through his dark hair and had a far away expression on his somber face.

"It does look sort of familiar," he said quietly. "But I don't want you to worry about it, alright? Maybe you just saw a picture of it somewhere and forgot. If you're really worried about it, I can look into it for you; but I just want you to relax and stop stressing about these things. Okay?"

I nodded slowly. Of course I trusted Edrick, and he was right; stressing over it wouldn't help any. Sighing, I reached over to my bedside table to get a drink of water, and as I did my hand ran across the note that the doctor left for me with the therapist's name on it. I paused and picked it up, then handed it to Edrick.

"The doctor gave me this—"

"I know," Edrick interrupted. "Selina told me. Do you want to see that therapist?"

For a few moments, I just looked down at the note in my hand and pursed my lips, thinking. I had never heard much about hypnotherapy, but it sounded interesting. And if it could get to the bottom of these strange occurrences I was having, then maybe it would be helpful in more ways than one.

Maybe this therapist could help me realize that the dream about Michael and the violent drawings were just created by my stress and didn't have any tangible meaning, or maybe he could use hypnotherapy to help me understand whether there was actually a deeper meaning behind these things and could potentially help me prepare just in case the dream and the drawings were some sort of omen.

"I... I'll give it a shot, I guess," I finally said, still holding the small piece of paper in my hand. "If you think it might help..."

Edrick nodded. "I think it would be good for you to talk to someone with experience," he said. "I won't force you to do it, but I do think that you should try. But... I have to ask you something."

"Of course," I replied. "What is it?"

For several long and silent moments, the Alpha billionaire seemed to be at a loss for words before he finally licked his lips and spoke. "When you were in your coma, did you see anything?"
As Edrick asked me this question, my eyes widened. I didn't want to mention it to him — I thought that it was just a bad dream caused by stress, and that I would forget it. But I still remembered it so vividly, and it seemed as though this knife that I drew was completely connected to the dream. It couldn't just be a coincidence.

Finally, I nodded and decided to tell Edrick everything. I told him about my dream, about Michael and the knife. When I was finally finished, his steely gray eyes were wider than I had ever seen them before, and his face was as white as a sheet.

"It's probably nothing," I said. "Like you said, maybe I just saw a picture of that knife somewhere and forgot, and combined with my stress about being the Golden Wolf..."

Edrick suddenly shook his head and stood. He had a far away expression on his face again, like he was thinking deeply. I couldn't tell if he suddenly had an idea or if I offended him by mentioning such a violent and horrible dream about his father. I opened my mouth to ask him if I said something wrong, but before anything could come out, he suddenly turned on his heel and disappeared from my room.

Once again, I was left alone and confused. Did Edrick know something about this knife and the dream that I had about Michael, or was it something else?

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