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“You will be able to reach him,” Victor said.

I knelt in front of Zee’s leathery winged cocoon and touched one of the wing membranes. The wings looked threatening and powerful, but were actually highly sensitive. “Hey, Zee? It’s okay, you’re safe now. We’re here.”

“Adam . . .” His closed wings muffled his voice, making him sound far away.

“Yeah, it’s me. And Victor. We’re here.”

I glanced up at Victor. He looked paler than I’d ever seen him. Whoever was doing this to us . . . I’d . . .

Zee’s wings peeled open. He sprang, crashing into me. His arms folded me close, as he tucked his face into my neck and trembled.

I got my arms around him as best I could. “Hey . . . it’s alright . . .”

“Frogs . . . So many frogs.”

I glanced at Victor again. He turned toward Zee’s closed door and reached for the handle.

“Don’t!” Zee cried.

Victor stopped, leaned against the door, and listened.

I heard it too. “Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, ribbit . . .”

Victor let go of the handle and stepped back. “It appears we have some unwanted guests.”

Zee must have poofed into the middle of his room. And if there were hundreds, maybe thousands of frogs in there . . .

I pulled him tighter into a hug. “It’s alright, we have you.”

Someone really was targeting us, and I knew what they were using. Victor’s broken furniture, Zee’s frogs, and a moment ago, when all the guests had encircled me . . .

“It’s our fears . . .” I told them both. “They’re using our fears against us.”

CHAPTER 4

“Sending out an SOS . . . Sending out an SOS . . .” the music on the jukebox sang. Something by the band, The Police.

Victor, Zee, and I sat slumped at the bar. Victor’s clothes were all creased, his jacket was missing, and a few long strands of hair were trying to escape the band he’d once again tried to control it with. Zee was quiet—and Zee was never quiet. He slumped over the bar, chin on his forearms, spinning a coaster under his finger.

Anxiety gnawed at my nerves. The mental attack in the corridor was still in me, still there, waiting to pounce again. We had to get a grip on whoever was doing this before it got any worse.

“You three look like something I’d scrape off my shoe,” Tom Collins said.

“Yeah, thanks,” I grumbled. “We feel like it.”

“What the fuck happened in the fifteen minutes since I last saw you?”

I told him, briefly, how each of us had been targeted by our own personal fears. Victor with lack of control, Zee with frogs, and me with . . . failing everyone who counted on me.

“Well fuck, that’s some bad mojo. You should all order a drink to soothe your nerves.”

“You gonna make us pay?” Zee mumbled.

“I’d be a shit bartender if I didn’t.”

Zee sighed. “Friends don’t charge friends.”

Tom Collins grinned. “Who said you three idiots are my friends?”