Page 105 of Sweet Nightmare

I want to. I really, really want to. But I don’t.

Luis’s idea seems far-fetched, but Jude is an oneiroi, a dream daimon. And all I can think about right now is him standing, just like this, a few minutes ago and telling me that he was trying to help people.

I didn’t understand it then—hell, I don’t understand it now—but somehow, I’m not surprised at all when I turn back to Jude and see that the black tattoos are back to slithering around on his body. And like yesterday, they’re not content to stay on his back and arms anymore. They’re climbing up his neck to his jaw, his cheeks, even his forehead.

I glance down at his hands, which I’m currently holding in mine, and realize the black things are there, too. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of the serpentine, feathery black ropes are crawling all over him.

The realization has fear turning to absolute terror inside of me. I must not be the only one, because Luis says, “I’m going to go try to find help.”

I’m too busy freaking out over Jude to answer. Instead, I grab his shoulders again, and this time I shake him over and over and over again. When that doesn’t work, when he continues to stare sightlessly past me, I do the only thing I can think of.

I slap him across the face. Not hard, but—hopefully—enough to get his attention.

Jude’s body recoils from the slap, his eyes jerking to mine. I barely stifle a scream as I see the black things there, too. Crawling through the whites of his eyes, but also spinning themselves around and around in the depths of his multicolored irises.

They look beautiful and macabre and absolutely terrifying, all at the same time.

“Jude!” I gasp out. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer, and that’s when I realize he isn’t looking at me. Not really. He’s still lost somewhere deep inside himself. Whether by choice or because of the tattoos currently covering his body, I don’t know.

What I do know is that I can’t leave him like this. Not when I can’t tell if he’s okay. Not when I can’t tell if he’s in control of the black feathery things or if they are in control of him.

I’ve been so angry at him for so long, but the idea of losing him turns me inside out. I’ve lost so many people. I can’t lose Jude, too. I just can’t.

So I do the only thing I can do. I let the anger go as I step closer, going up on tiptoes so I can reach him better. Then I cup his cheeks in my hands and whisper, “I’m here, Jude. I’m right here. Please don’t do this. Please, please come back to me.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

KISS AND

BREAK UP

Jude doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. I’m not sure he even breathes.

He just stares straight ahead, with eyes that reflect a myriad of horrors that I can’t see and don’t know how to free him from.

His nightmares? I wonder as I stroke his wet hair back from his face. Or all of ours?

If it’s the latter, I can’t even imagine what he’s going through.

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be an oneiroi. When we were little, I used to ask him if he remembered from his time before Calder Academy what it felt like to have access to people’s dreams and their nightmares. He never wanted to talk about it back then, and now I can see why.

This is awful. Beyond awful.

“Jude, please,” I whisper, leaning in even closer to him, until the chill of his body bleeds into the heat of mine.

“Please,” I plead again as the wild, unsteady beat of his heart has my own stuttering in my chest.

“Please,” I say one more time as if it’s a secret I’ve kept for years—even from myself—wells up inside of me.

It scorches the inside of my throat, batters against the walls I’ve kept in place for so long. But what do those walls matter if Jude gets lost in this abyss? I’ve already lost too many people—Carolina and Serena and now Eva. I’m not going to lose Jude, too—not if there’s anything I can do to save him.

And so I take a deep breath and say the only words I have left to reach him. The only words that actually matter. “I love you, Jude. I love you, and I need you, and I can’t lose you, not like this. I won’t lose you.”

He jerks back then, gasping as his whole body convulses like a wave of red-hot electricity is suddenly flowing through him.

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