Gray light cracked into my eyes when I opened them, but I let them drift closed again. I'd been having the best dream about Kason and me enjoying a picnic, something I'd read about once, while we nibbled little sandwiches and sipped sun-warmed tea in the middle of a forest on a blanket of thick, lush grass. But giant insects had come with diamond collars wrapped around their throats carrying barbed-wire ropes and wearing pointed, gold-tipped shoes on their tiny insect legs. They'd plucked our sandwiches from our hands, which had somehow turned black and charred. Okay, maybe that hadn't been the best dream, but in my warped mind, it ranked easily among the top five because it had starred Kason. Outside in the sun and...alive.
Kason.