Page 34 of Sweet Nightmare

But she’s not the only one who’s been stretched past her breaking point. “Or what?” I shoot back. “You’ll ship me off to prison—off to die—like you did Carolina?”

Quick as a snake, her hand shoots out and connects with my cheek. Hard.

I gasp, stumbling backward under the onslaught even as my gaze slams into hers. “You’re not leaving this island, Clementine. Not to go to the Aethereum, not to go to college. Not for any reason. The sooner you get that through your head, the better off you’ll be.”

My cheek throbs hotly, but I fight the urge to press a hand to it. That would be a weakness, and I don’t show weakness—not even in front of my mother. Especially not in front of my mother.

“You can say that all you want,” I tell her. “And you might even believe it. But once I graduate, I’m leaving this nightmare behind me as far and as fast as I can.”

“You’re not listening. When I say you’re never getting off this island, I mean you’re never getting off this island.” She smiles thinly. “But don’t get too upset about that. Nightmares aren’t nearly as bad as everyone thinks they are—I would have thought you’d have figured that out by now.”

Fear rolls through me at her words, drowning out the anger and the pain and the horror and leaving nothing but a cold terror in their place. “You can’t mean that,” I whisper.

“Try me.” And just like that, she turns and walks away, her bloodred stilettos tap-tap-tapping out the sound and the fury of her withdrawal from the field of battle. At least until she gets to the end of the hall and calls, “Just remember, Clementine, dreams can be prisons, too. And that’s worse, because—unlike with nightmares—you don’t see the trap coming until it’s far too late.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

RAIN DROP

A PIN

I stare after my mother in shock and dismay. Even as the true horror of her words slowly, steadily, sinks in, there’s a part of my brain that’s still focused on the mundane. It’s urging me to get moving, to go to class, to avoid getting on Dr. Fitzhugh’s radar.

But even as I tell myself to at least make an effort to get to the second half of group therapy, I can’t move. It’s like my feet have grown roots as the things my mother said reverberate in my mind over and over again.

Nightmares aren’t so bad.

Calder Academy students will never have their powers.

I will never have my powers because I’m never—

I cut that last one off before it can fully form, pretty sure if I let myself think it—let alone believe it—I’ll start screaming and never, ever stop. As it is, I feel like I’m holding on to control by a very thin, very nebulous thread.

Outside, the storm continues to build. It’s raining full-out now, water pouring down in torrents from a sky turned black and oppressive. Wind howls through the oak trees, the leaves chittering and branches bowing to its force.

I step closer to the window, and now that I’m alone I allow myself the weakness of pressing my throbbing, burning cheek against the coolness of the glass. The physical relief is instant, if not the mental. For several seconds, I let myself sink into the chill, and into the strength of the wall, as my knees finally turn to nothing. Just like the rest of me.

Tears burn against the backs of my eyes, and for once I don’t bother to blink them away. Instead, I stare out into the raging storm—and the restless ocean just beyond the fence—and tell myself that she doesn’t mean what she said.

We did this to Serena. Calder Academy, with its power dampening and its affirmations and its focus on anything and everything but how to use our magic. We did this to her. We did this to all of them.

We spend four years keeping our students from shifting or performing even the most basic spell, and then we shove them back out into the world as adult paranormals, with all the power that comes with that. Then we say that it’s not our fault they can’t function. That it’s not our fault they keep dying in magical accidents. That it’s not our fault they keep blowing themselves up with a potion or shifting incorrectly or any of the million other ways there are for paranormals to hurt themselves.

And then we just go on about our lives like nothing happened. And in some ways, it hasn’t. People graduate and leave the island, basically disappearing from existence for those of us who are stuck here. So when they die—which so many of them have recently—it doesn’t feel real because it’s no different than them just leaving.

But it is different. It does matter.

Serena matters.

Jaqueline matters.

Blythe and Draven and Marcus matter.

All dead now, and they’re not the only ones.

Carolina matters. My beautiful, self-absorbed, larger-than-life cousin matters. So much.

At least to me. I’m not sure if she matters to anyone else, except my aunt Claudia and uncle Brandt. And even they seem to be moving on. She was their daughter and they loved her, but from the minute she got sent away, it’s like she ceased to exist…long before she actually died.

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