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I took a swig of booze. Maybe not, but what did it matter? How I’d seen him then was a lie.
That night, I slumped into my empty bed and tried to sleep but without much hope. My bed had become a battleground where I wrestled with the poisonous thoughts in my own head that kept me tossing and turning.
“Fuck this,” I muttered and reached for Pico’s bottle of “sleep helpers.” I didn’t like taking them—I had no idea what they actually were—but a guy can only go so long with zero sleep.
I popped two and washed them down with the water I kept on the nightstand for my post-bender ibuprofen. I sank into the pillow. Time warped and became slippery; I woke up after what felt like an hour’s worth of actual sleep.
There was someone in my room.
I sat up slowly and peered at the silhouette of shadow. A tall man, sleek and slender.
“Ambri?”
He stepped into the moonlight, extraordinary in black. The light chiseled the contours of his face and glinted in the gold of his hair, turning it silver.
He didn’t move or speak. I threw off the covers and approached.
“Are you…back?”
He smiled that maddening, sardonic curl of his lips I loved so much and held out a hand to me. I took it and he hauled me to him, then crushed his mouth to mine.
I sagged against him with my arms wrapped around him. He kissed me hard and deep, and my relief that he was back immediately curdled like sour milk.Hetasted sour. And cold. His arms around me were all wrong. He felt all wrong.
I tried to pull back, but he held me tight, his mouth sealed over mine. His eyes were black-on-black but dead with no spark of life. His tongue in my mouth grew ticklish. Tiny legs, fluttering wings…
I tried to scream past the beetles filling my mouth and sliding down my throat. Then Ambri’s arms around me dissolved—hedissolved into the swarm that poured into me. I fell to my knees, repulsed, choking and gagging, my body heaving against the invasion. Dimly, I was aware of other bodies in the room, shadowy figures with wings standing over me in silent, malevolent mirth.
Tears streamed down my face and starbursts danced in front of my eyes from lack of oxygen. My insides were crawling, swelling, stretching to contain the swarm. I staggered to my feet and tried to run. To escape. But there was nowhere to go. I bent in half, pain wracking me. Just when I thought I’d pass out, the swarm spewed from my open, gagging mouth.
I retched, my insides clenching, and when the last beetle was gone, I screamed…
…I came awake on the floor of my room with my scream dying in my throat and my phone ringing in the living room.
“Jesus Christ…”
Late morning light streamed in through the window. It was daytime. No beetles, no shadowy figures… It was only a nightmare.
Are you sure about that?
I crawled to my nightstand and grabbed the glass of water to wash the sour taste out of my mouth.
My phone rang again.
I was tempted to let it go, but I suddenly needed a connection to the outside world. One that wasn’t paint and demons and missing Ambri until I could hardly breathe and then creating nightmares out of all of it.
I staggered to the living room. My phone had gone silent and then starting ringing again as I approached.
Lucy.
She’d been calling for a week, and I’d broken my promise to not shut her out. I hadn’t wanted her to hear me like this but beneath the anger and the pain and the booze, there was a part of me that needed her to hear meexactlylike this.
I sat on the couch and tried to sound more sober than I felt. “Hey, Luce.”
“Hey, Cole,” she said angrily. “Jesus Christ, I’ve been calling for ages. I know you’re a big celebrity now, but I thought I might warrant at least a text that lets me know you’re still alive.”
“Sorry.”
“Well…what’s happening? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
