Page 102 of Sweet Nightmare

“The same thing that’s happening to a bunch of people in the dorm,” Izzy tells me as she and Remy come toward us, making sure to skirt the ever-growing puddles of blood-tinged water pooling on the sidewalk. “They wake up all freaked out and then—”

She breaks off as more screams split the air.

My stomach plummets as I glance toward the cries just in time to see one of the senior banshees walking on the roof of her cottage. Her eyes are closed, and it seems like she’s still asleep as she walks closer to the edge.

“No!” I scream as I run toward her, waving my arms. “Wake up!” Izzy races ahead of me, but even the vampire can’t get to her before she dives straight off the roof of her cottage. A sickening crack fills the air as she lands right on the top of her head.

“We have to stop this,” Ember whispers, eyes wide with horror as she comes up behind me. “We have to…”

She trails off, as lost as the rest of us are right now.

Across the center mall from her, a sophomore dragon is crawling along the ground, pulling himself forward one slow inch at a time.

Jude gets to him before I can and crouches down beside him, looking devastated.

At first, I don’t know why, but as I get close, I realize that half the boy’s face is missing and his jugular is torn. He’s hemorrhaging blood all over the path, and it doesn’t take much more than a freshman health class to know that if we don’t stop the bleeding, he’ll be dead in three minutes, maybe less.

I drop to my knees beside him and press my hands to his wound, but Izzy—who is right behind me—says, “That’s not going to be enough, Clementine. He’s already bled out too much.”

“We have to try,” I tell her. “I can’t just leave him like this.”

“No one’s asking you to.” She squats down next to me. “Move over a little bit.”

“If I move, I’ll—”

She gives up waiting and just flat-out shoves me out of the way. Then she leans down and licks the wound several times.

My stomach revolts, and I turn away. I know vampires’ saliva has special coagulating properties that our power lockdown doesn’t take from them, but it’s one thing to know that and another to see it in action. Still, I’m grateful she wants to help the boy, so I force myself to look anywhere but at them until she’s done.

When Izzy finally lifts her head, I whirl back around and do my best to ignore the fact that she has blood dripping down her chin. “Did you stop the bleeding? Is he going to be okay?”

She says something, but there’s so much going on around us right now—screaming and crying and yelling and fighting—that I can’t hear her even though she’s only a few inches away from me.

I glance at the boy, and he’s still alive, which is saying a lot considering the shape he was in. But his eyes are at half mast, and his breathing is so shallow that it’s hard to believe he’s not going to die any second.

“We need to get him to your aunt,” Jude says as he starts to pick him up.

“We’ve got him,” Remy answers, and there’s a seriousness to his usually amused tone that I’ve only heard when he’s talking about Carolina. “You stay here, see who else you can help.”

At first, I think Jude is going to argue, but then he nods grimly and hands the boy over to Remy, who takes off running toward the faculty quarters with Izzy right behind him.

“We need to find my family members,” I say as I watch them go. “And anyone else who can help.”

“We can do that,” Ember volunteers.

“Yeah, we’ll split up. See who we can find,” Mozart agrees while Simon nods.

As they take off running, I turn to Jude. “We still need to find Bianca. She could still be alive.”

“She’s not,” he answers.

I’m really scared that he’s right, but still, we can’t assume. “You don’t know that—”

“I do. I found her on our way over here.” He points to a broken-down bench in the shape of a giant pink sea anemone that’s been here since resort days. “She’s right there.”

There’s one of the old-fashioned standing hurricane lamps not far from the bench, and now that I know where to look, even through the rain, I can see her legs sticking out from behind the bench, both bent at weird, unnatural angles.

Sorrow floods through me as I think about the year we spent in group therapy together. She used to talk about how she wanted to move to Greece one day. She’d tell me stories about the Mediterranean and how beautiful it is and how amazing the people there are. She even memorized Greek recipes so that she could make them when she got out of here.

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