Page 85 of Sweet Nightmare

“I was going to say a game of Never Have I Ever,” Simon tells her, and now his entire body is glowing in a way that makes it impossible for me to look away from him. Remy’s right. This whole siren thing is a trip. “But I suppose your answer works, too.”

“Give me a break,” Ember snorts. “We’re locked in a school in the middle of the fucking Gulf of Mexico. A better game would be ‘Maybe I did something bad once a long time ago.’”

I laugh despite myself, because Ember may be a tough nut to crack, but when she’s right, she’s right.

“All right, then. How about Truth or Dare? But I am not kissing Jude again.” Simon mock shudders. “He tastes like peppermint.”

“No, he—” I break off as I realize what I’m about to give away.

Thankfully everyone else is too busy laughing at the you-should-be-so-lucky look Jude is currently giving Simon to notice my faux pas. Well, everyone but Remy, who is watching me thoughtfully.

Desperate to get him to focus on something other than my ridiculous slipup, I blurt out the first idea that comes to mind. “We could play Two Truths and a Lie,” I suggest.

“Hey, now,” Simon says with a wide grin. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“How’s that supposed to work when most of us barely know each other?” Izzy asks in a voice that says she’s more than fine with things staying that way.

“That’s the fun part! It’ll make the guessing extra interesting,” Eva tells her, and she sounds surprisingly into what was a suggestion made out of desperation. “And it’s not like we have so much else to do tonight.”

“What if we don’t want to know more about each other?” Ember growls. But when Eva’s face falls, she quickly backtracks. “Ignore me. I probably need to eat something.”

Mozart picks up a bag of chips and tosses it at her face. She catches it, then flips her roommate off before opening it and shoving a handful in her mouth.

“Okay, then,” Simon asks, grabbing another drink, “who’s going first?”

No one volunteers, which doesn’t actually surprise me. It’s one thing to listen to other people’s secrets—it’s another thing to tell your own. I half expect Mr. I-Can’t-Stay to leave now, but Jude doesn’t move.

Instead, he just watches and waits—though I’m not sure for what. I’m pretty sure it’s not the game we’re playing.

As the wind howls by the cottage, rattling the windows and shaking the chairs on the front porch, we all kind of stare at each other questioningly before Eva finally says, “I’ll go.”

She does, however, take a long, slow sip of her soda before actually starting. “First one—I was born in Puerto Rico, and when I finally graduate from here, I want to go back there to live. Second, I’m terrified of heights. And third, I have no idea what element I draw my power from.”

None of what she says surprises me—and I know immediately that her being afraid of heights is the lie. Just last week she was hanging out on the roof of the cottage, weaving twinkle lights around the gutters to “give the place a little pop of fun.”

And I’m not the least bit surprised about the fact that she doesn’t know what element is hers—she’d barely had a chance to explore her powers before she got sent to Calder Academy. She was sent here because she was trying to do the most basic, elemental spell a witch can do—light a candle using magic. Unfortunately, the spell went terribly, terribly wrong, and she ended up burning down her entire apartment complex. Several people died, and a lot more were injured. Eva’s been terrified of fire ever since.

“I say the element thing is the lie,” Simon guesses. “I’m sure witches can just feel whatever element they have an affinity for.”

“Says the mermaid who spends as much time as possible in the water,” Ember teases.

“Siren,” he answers emphatically. “Not the same.”

“You have a tail, gills, and live in the water,” she shoots back. “Sounds the same to me.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but he does keep looking at her. At first, I think it’s because he’s annoyed, but then I actually glance at his face.

And I can’t help thinking how good Simon looks, eyes dark and brown skin awash with light. Also, he smells really, really delicious. I lean forward to try to catch more of his scent and realize that somehow, it’s all of my favorite things. Vanilla, cardamom, honey, lemon, all rolled together in a way that makes me want to scoot even closer to him. And this time when he says, “I’m a siren,” it feels like the words somehow seep through my very pores.

I take a deep breath, pull his scent deeper inside me, and—

“Knock it off,” Jude growls, and suddenly he’s not across the room anymore. He’s crouched down beside me, his hand on my shoulder as he gently pulls me back until I’m once again sitting up straight.

I start to get offended, thinking he’s telling me to stop when I’m not actually doing anything. But when he leans closer, I get a whiff of his own warm honey-and-spice scent and I realize Simon’s is just a poor imitation.

I take a deep breath before I can stop myself, and suddenly Jude is right there, inside me. Filling up all the places that have stood vacant, dormant, for the last three years. Then he lifts his face to mine, and I fall straight into his kaleidoscope eyes. And keep falling and falling and falling.

“And that, my friends,” Simon tells us with a little click of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, “is the difference between a mermaid and a siren—even one whose powers are locked down.”

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