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The word sacrifice sent a chill down my spine and I shuddered, holding Honey tighter to my side as we cut across the path in front of Ford House, aiming for the park that would take us home. But Nightmare, whoever she even was, just did all that on Ford grounds. Was anywhere safe?
Oh, god, she killed Mason Lindgren. And Rone. And Orwell. And Milani.
“If anyone’s her disciple, it’s you, Merchant,” Duncan Ford spat, his voice thick with blood. “Everyone knows you’re obsessed with the devil and all that shit—”
“Look!” someone shrieked, and despite every instinct in my body I couldn’t help but turn back towards Ford House. My stare went to the windows, the glass gleaming blood-red, but snagged on the sheer amount of people milling in the street around the building. Far more than the twenty-one of us who’d been trapped in that room. Vultures, dying for a story to tell their friends, or just other people like us who’d got caught up in whatever the fuck was happening tonight.
“What is that…?” the guy in the clown costume breathed. “Why is it… breathing?”
The crimson light throbbed, every bit as alive as the power was around Nightmare. I backed up towards the park, grabbing Honey’s hand and squeezing so tight I must have rearranged her bones. I couldn’t feel the cold of the sea wind on my skin, couldn’t hear the shouts of alarm and speculating murmurs anymore. I felt the caress of that red light across my skin, like a tangible touch, and judging by the way Honey stiffened she felt it too.
“Run!” someone yelled. Duncan, maybe, his voice garbled by his broken nose.
I stumbled back a step but too late. Sanguine light exploded from Ford House, bursting through every window, through the door. It cast everything it touched in shades of vermillion blood. And it touched all of us, splashed over part of Milton Hall and the park. No one was spared its bloody glow, and I knew deep in my bones it was far more than light, like that woman had been far more than human.
As the crimson light swept over me, I heard Nightmare’s sultry voice again.
Yes, he’ll like you very much.
CHAPTER TEN
CAT
My hands shook, my arms trembled uncontrollably, and my teeth threatened to chatter as I hammered on Byron’s door. Honey had stumbled wordlessly to her room, her eyes glassy and afraid, and collapsed on her bed to sleep off the alcohol in her system and whatever Nightmare did with that red light. I felt… different. Wrong. Like I’d been taken apart and put back together almost perfectly, but with a slight misalignment that would always gnaw at me like the jagged spires of a broken tooth.
“Byron, please open up,” I choked out, knocking harder, staring at my pale hand. I should have been covered in blood after what I saw tonight, should have borne some signs of that red light touching me, but my hand was as normal as before I went to the party.
“What?” Byron demanded after a few seconds, wrenching open the door with a fierce scowl on his face.
I wanted to burst into tears.
“It’s four a.m. Cat, I’m trying to sleep,” he snapped, and I flinched back at the roughness of his voice, the lack of its usual care.
“I'm sorry,” I mumbled, too fragile and freaked out to find even a spark of fire in my blood. I should have snapped right back at him but I didn’t have the energy.
How was it four a.m.? Classes started at twelve tomorrow. I was exhausted by the mere thought of them.
“Something happened tonight, after you left the party,” I said weakly, pressing my lips thin when they wobbled.
“Yeah, for me too,” Byron muttered, his eyes dark and faraway. “And I have enough of my own shit to deal with, Cat. Can this wait until tomorrow?”
I recoiled another step in the hall. “What…?”
What was wrong with him? Where was my grumpy but loving Byron? I needed him, needed a fucking hug, but he was glaring, furious, and stressed, and I didn’t understand why he was taking it out on me. Tears burned the backs of my eyes, the tip of my nose tingling.
“Sterling’s pregnant,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry for snapping, Cat, I’ve just—got a fucking lot on my mind.”
“Right,” I said in a small voice, dimly registering that their parents would disown Sterling for getting pregnant at sixteen.
I didn’t know what else to say, didn’t have the energy for this, and he’d been a dick so it freed me up to be one too. I turned and walked away without even a goodbye and slumped into my room, feeling more alone than I remembered feeling before. So much more alone than even last night, when it felt like my world was ending.
I closed the door, made sure the lock was engaged, and let out the sob that swelled behind my solar plexus, the sound clamorous in the silence. I hated this room, hated this university, hated this whole damn island.
I scrubbed my tear-streaked face and stumbled to the dresser, frantically ripping out a makeup wipe, desperate to erase any sign of the Halloween party. I knocked a tube of lipstick and a pot of liner off the table and did not care. I didn’t care if I destroyed this entire room. My hands shook, Nightmare’s voice still in my head, sensually soft even as she killed people. I couldn’t stop seeing them—Rone, Milani, Orwell, and Mason Lindgren. They were dead, and even though I was still clinging to the idea of an elaborate prank, I couldn’t escape how real it felt. And if it was real, they were dead. Really, finally dead. Killed without a stab wound, gunshot, or even poison. Killed by the mere presence of Nightmare.
And I couldn’t understand that.
So I shut it out, locked it away in a vault in my mind, and scrubbed the makeup off my—off my face—off—
