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“Fine,” I groaned.
I couldn’t resist a smile when she moved my laptop aside so she could throw herself on me, hugging me tightly. I hugged her back harder than normal but neither of us commented on it.
The scream Miz and I heard in the woods that day hadn’t led to another murder, but it had shaken both of us, and I couldn’t get the sound out of my head. Or the sound of Miz’s fast, frantic breaths and Nightmare’s laughter. She was toying with us.
I didn’t want to think about going to the gala, where Honey would be vibrant with happiness and I’d have to pretend to be okay when every moment of every day I waited for one of Nightmare’s followers to break into my room and murder me.
Almost everyone at Ford had seen the cloaked person I chased now—they were calling him the Assassin. Duncan Ford had been beaten up because everyone, especially his blond friend Fashion Magazine had managed to convince everyone he did it. Duncan walked stooped with a limp now, and I would have loved to believe it was him who hunted and murdered people, who pushed that envelope under my door, but it was too convenient and I wasn’t convinced.
When Miz and I got back that night, there'd been no envelope, but I knew what I saw, like I knew it was Nightmare’s twisted magic that had removed it.
“Thank you, thank you,” Honey was gushing, squeezing my shoulders. “You won’t regret it. And it’ll give you a chance to wear that amazing red dress you brought.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to summon some enthusiasm. “That makes it worth going.”
“And we get to save some kittens, and you get to support your bestie.”
I smiled, unable to resist her enthusiasm. “And there’ll be food, right?”
“There will, a hundred percent,” she agreed, laughing, “be f—”
Honey’s laugh cut off. The world seemed to pause. To muffle, like a blanket was thrown over every noise.
“Cat, Honey,” Nightmare’s voice came floating on the air, a ghostly call that snapped us both to attention. “Come to me, my terrors. I have a job for you.”
And like puppets we climbed off the bed and obeyed.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CAT
Honey didn’t speak. I didn’t speak. We walked in tense, forced calm out of my room, down the stairs, and across the park to the stretch of woods behind the laboratory building. Nightmare gave no further instructions, but we knew where to find her without being given a location. Could she find us, too, no matter how far away we were? The thought made me ice cold.
I wanted to grasp Honey’s hand but I didn’t dare move, didn’t want to know if I could move or if I was a captive puppet who couldn’t even blink without Nightmare’s approval. I’d rather hold onto that tiny illusion of freedom and ignore the reality that I was a puppet.
“Don’t dawdle,” Nightmare chided when we reached her, like we were wayward children. The tree cover sheltered us from sight, but the closeness of campus made my skin itch. Would someone see us and come to our rescue? Or would Alastor see, and take it as evidence that I was Nightmare’s disciple? That Honey was too? I wasn’t naïve enough to think things couldn’t get worse. I knew they could, and would, and that made it impossible to breathe.
“I’ve got something I need you to clean up,” Nightmare told us, looking unnaturally beautiful as always, her deep red hair a sleek waterfall and her face both stunning and horrific, especially when she smiled like she did now. “It shouldn’t take you too long.”
She swept a tanned, long-fingernailed hand at the ground, and it was only when I stared at the spot that I realised it wasn’t a shadow made by the trees overhead but a long black holdall.
“What’s inside?” Honey breathed, her voice so faint I barely recognised it. She gripped my hand so tightly it hurt, but I didn’t let go of her.
“Just a block of hay, my terror,” Nightmare replied, the fondness in her voice terrifying. Goosebumps formed on the back of my neck and flooded down my spine. “All I need you to do is move it through the woods, in secret, and put it where no one will ever find it.”
“Where?” I whispered, both relieved that my mouth moved and petrified when Nightmare’s mismatched eyes fell on me. I dropped my gaze, a horrible pain stabbing my frontal lobe.
“The lake,” she said, her feet not touching the ground as she drifted towards us. One hand came up to cup my cheek, ignoring my flinch, and one stroked Honey’s face. “That’s all you need to do. Just take this bag of hay and put it in the lake. You can do that for me, can’t you, my terrors?”
My mouth went dry, my knees knocking together. I imagined Death was here with me, his presence at my back supportive and furious at once. And Tor beside me, holding my hand fiercely while he told Nightmare exactly how he was going to torture her for scaring me. And Miz, who burned hotter and stronger than anyone else, who knew pain so intimately he could inflict it on others with expert care.
I wondered if he’d learned that pain from her. And I said, “No.”
Nightmare laughed like I was hilarious, her head thrown back, her tinkling laugh grating my ears and heart alike. I flinched, but this time my body didn’t move. I was frozen in place.
“Say that again,” she dared, her laughter cutting off so abruptly it was like a switch flipped. “Tell me no again, Cat.”
My eyes—the only part of me I still controlled—darted from her to the bag of hay, and I didn’t know what mind games she was playing, why she was so insistent we do this, but I knew it was designed for maximum impact. Maximum trauma. Like everything she did.
