Page 14 of Sweet Nightmare

“Please, do you think you’re dealing with an amateur here?” He snorts. “They’re all watermelon.”

“Okay, then.” I hold out my hand for one. Because Luis is right. I do have two new best friends, which is a rare thing to find here. While neither of them will ever replace Carolina, they don’t have to. Because they really are the best, just the way they are.

Even before Luis—in typical guy fashion—says, “I still think we can take Jude.”

Eva considers it. “Maybe if we pepper spray him first?”

“You know what they say, baby.” Luis makes a little clicking noise with the corner of his mouth. “First the face, then the mace.”

“Literally nobody says that,” I tell him when I finally stop laughing.

“Not where you’re from,” he says slyly.

I roll my eyes at him, lean back on the couch, rest my head on his shoulder, and kick my feet up just as the next episode of Wednesday comes on the TV.

Tomorrow’s going to suck, but that’s Tomorrow Clementine’s problem. Because tonight, it’s all about us, and that’s more than enough.

CHAPTER EIGHT

RAIN, RAIN

GHOST AWAY

“So what happens if you call in sick to chrickler duty?” Luis asks the next day at lunch as we make our way down to what is very definitely a dungeon. He insisted on accompanying me today because “yesterday was rough.”

He isn’t wrong.

“I have to say, after your mom’s bad behavior, I think she should have to do it instead.”

“No shit,” I agree. I stopped by her office this morning to talk to her before my first class. I figured I’d be calmer before I had to take on the chricklers and Jude in the same afternoon—but she blew me off. Told me she’d try to make time for us to “chat” after school.

Also, that damn storm that was brewing yesterday is moving in fast—which means the chricklers should be in extra nasty moods today. I’m a little terrified that I’m going to be longing for yesterday’s level of roughness before the next hour is over.

“I think you should let me go in with you,” Luis suggests for the fourteenth time today as we continue down the hallway. “It’s clear you need help.”

“Yeah, but if my mother catches you helping me—” I start, but Luis cuts me off.

“It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone,” he says, making a face at me. “And it’s not like your mother is going to be setting so much as a toe down here any time soon. No one has to know.”

“Yeah, until one of the chricklers takes a chunk out of you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Claudia seems good at keeping secrets.”

“You really want to test that theory?” I shoot back as I pull out my phone to turn on the flashlight. Before I swipe it on, I fire off another text to Serena, asking how the spell and the interview went. I really hope she gets the job.

“I can’t believe your uncle didn’t replace the lightb—” Luis breaks off as I stop dead. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” My stomach clenches a little, but I ignore it. Just like I ignore the fact that the closer we get to the end of this hallway, the more I notice a strange glow coming from the vestibule at the end.

“Your face doesn’t look like it’s nothing.” He glances at me, concerned.

“It’s probably just the storm. No big deal.”

But then a low, rasping moan creeps its way around the corner and stops me in my tracks.

“What?” Luis demands, skidding to a halt beside me. “What did you see?”

“It’s not what I saw. It’s what I heard.” The sound comes again, lower and more desperate this time, as unease slithers along my skin.

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