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We both flinched when a scream cut through the silence, distant but too close, too close, too close—
“Miz?” Cat murmured, her hand moulding to my face. She hissed in surprise. “Shit, you’re ice cold. What’s wrong?”
“That’s her,” I breathed, the ice spreading until I shook. “She’s screaming but it won’t change anything, it never changes anything.”
Cat flung a panicked look around us and then threw her arms around me. I was so startled I forgot to breathe as she hugged me.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said gently. “You can talk about what’s going on back at Lawrence Hall, okay?”
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t ever talk about it. I’d barely stammered through a conversation when Death and Tor found me sobbing at the side of the lake. Cat would hate me if she knew everything I’d done, and I found the idea of her hating me intolerable. It would kill me. A few scant weeks and I was already attached to her. Stupid. So fucking stupid, when Nightmare would exploit every weakness.
“This way,” Cat murmured as if speaking to a wounded animal, guiding me as if I hadn’t known this campus for hundreds of years. My eyes only left the lake when she physically turned me away from it, an impressive feat given she was five-seven and not particularly strong, and I was six-foot-tall and a death god.
“Say something,” she pleaded, her arm around my waist.
“She’s watching us. I can feel her.”
Cat stiffened, breath catching in her throat. Nightmare’s laugh echoed around the woods now, delighting in our fear, her location impossible to pinpoint. But she didn’t appear to us, didn’t attack or issue commands. She only watched, and laughed, and no doubt planned her next move.
We’d be lucky if it didn’t kill us.
CHAPTER FORTY
CAT
Ihad the unsettling feeling that everything was getting bigger, and by bigger I meant worse. It had been three weeks since I found Erika murdered, and five others had been found dead.
The island had their own police—two men in their late fifties with matching paunches and balding spots. They’d made a cursory investigation, but either they were in Nightmare’s clutches or they were just useless. Fear of my prints being found on Erika’s door and desk chair had kept me awake, but the officers didn’t even dust for prints.
According to Byron who’d seen the officers in the room of a third year called Willie Herbert1 all they did was walk around the room squinting at stuff, put electricals in bags for later examination, and ask around if anyone had witnessed anything suspicious.
Naturally, everyone said, no, everything was completely normal. Eight people were dead and one was missing, but sure, everything was normal.
Hell, maybe this was normal for Ford. There was a reason the school was cloaked in so much secrecy, so much information held back until a week before term’s start. Maybe the administration at Ford knew Nightmare would rise.
I wanted to know how my gods had killed her the first time. All they’d said was they’d tried the same method this time, and it had failed. Clearly, Nightmare had expected the attempt. I didn’t like the thought of them confronting the terrifying madwoman, but they were gods, I reminded myself. I didn’t fully know what they were capable of.
Miz had returned to my room after we followed the cult member, but had told me nothing—not why he was as pale as a ghost, or why he was shaking. I hadn’t seen him since, but I got the sense he was always nearby.
“Please,” Honey begged, perched on my desk while I caught up on online coursework I’d missed while spending time with my husbands this morning. “Please, please, Cat.”
“No,” I said, slanting a narrow scowl at her. “It sounds hellish, and no thank you. Go ask Byron.”
“I can’t find Byron,” she muttered, batting a lock of slick, dark hair from her face and giving me a pleading look I pretended not to see.
“He’ll be with his boyfriend.”
The pleading look continued. “You only have to come for two hours.”
Honey, I have no interest in attending a charity gala organised by your boyfriend who threatens me every time he finds me alone and vulnerable, and who the very sight of makes me want to throw up with fear or break his fucking nose.
But I couldn’t say that. And besides, she didn’t know he’d threatened me. She was so stubbornly attached to him, I worried she’d fallen for his sneering golden face. I’d tried to bring up getting a weird vibe from him several times, to which she’d said I just needed to spend more time with him.2 When I told her he’d said some things that made me uncomfortable, she’d promised to talk to him. The next time he caught me unawares in the dining hall, he pinned me to the wall with his arm to my throat, so that worked so well.
I wanted to scream the truth at her, but I was scared she’d take his side, and then she’d be alone with a man I knew wouldn’t hesitate to hurt a woman. At least if I was still her friend, I’d know if something was wrong. So far, she was in the honeymoon period, but the first hint I got that it had changed, I’d ask one of my husbands to deal with him. I’d come so fucking close to telling them about all of Alastor’s threats, but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Honey. What if this came between us and she never spoke to me again?
“One hour,” I muttered, because her pleading expression was changing to one of hurt, and I couldn’t stand hurting my friends.
“And hour and half,” she haggled, hope brightening her blue eyes.
