Page 152 of Sweet Nightmare

“What do we do now?” Ember asks, desperation in her voice.

“Allow me,” Mozart says as she steps up to the door and breathes a precise stream of dragon fire directly at the lock. Granted, she melts the door handles and a small chunk of the door right along with it, but who are we to complain? It works.

We race inside just as a group of chricklers round the corner and set their sights on us. “Move it!” Jude yells as he sweeps the door shut and throws the lock just in time. Seconds later, we hear the bang, bang, bang of chricklers slamming into the door and bouncing off.

“Let’s not do that again,” Simon comments as we all take a second to catch our breaths. When we can breathe again, Luis and Remy grab a couple of old chairs from a stack in the corner and barricade the door, just in case, and then we all move deeper into the dance hall.

The whole place is dim and quiet, except for the whoosh of the wind outside. There’s no electricity, but there are enough small windows so that the place isn’t completely dark as we amble to the middle of the dance floor, finally able to breathe—though we are all drenched, bleeding, and exhausted.

As we walk, we kick up dust in our wake—it’s been a long time since anyone has been in here. It creates an eerie haze in the low, natural light, but it’s a million times better than being out there with the monsters in the hurricane.

And that is not a sentence I ever imagined thinking.

“If those are the baby nightmares, what the fuck do the grown-up ones look like?” Simon asks as he sinks to the ground, resting his back against the old-time stage at the front of the dance floor.

“Like Hell itself,” Luis tells him.

I start to explain in more detail, then stop myself because Luis really did give the perfect description.

“You know what this group really needs?” Remy says as he, too, slides to the ground.

“To get the fuck off this island?” Mozart answers, sprawling out on the floor.

“Well, yeah. That,” Remy agrees with a laugh. “But we also need a healer.”

“I’ll put that on the wish list,” I tell him dryly as I reach a hand out to help Jude sit down. I really hope his self-sacrifice out there doesn’t end up killing him.

Just the thought has my lungs aching and my heart beating violently in my chest. But when I turn to look at him, the cuts on his face are already healing.

The scratches on his arms—which I know were really bad because I saw them just a minute ago—are already gone, and the ones on his chest are fading right before my eyes.

“How?” I gasp, shocked at the fact that he has almost no damage on his body even though I saw those bastards bite and claw the hell out of him.

When he doesn’t answer, I look around at the others, then glance down at myself. But nope, all of our wounds are still very much present. And I know Jude healed fast in Aunt Claudia’s office, but that was only after I mixed up an elixir for him. This is happening in real time, and it’s the most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen.

“I don’t suppose there are any medical supplies in here, are there?” Jude asks, brushing my hair out of my eyes. The chrickler attack finally did in the bun I’ve been wearing since yesterday afternoon.

“There are some in my backpack,” Ember tells him. “I picked them up from the basket when we were at the dorm. Give me a few minutes, though, because there’s no way I can get them for you right now.” She is lying face down, arms outstretched, cheek splayed on the cold hardwood floor, completely spent.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jude tells her before turning to me. “You should sit down.”

“You’re not wrong,” I tell him.

I’m about ten seconds from the adrenaline wearing off and I’m not sure what’s going to happen then.

Ironically, Jude’s the one who helps me sit down before picking up Ember’s pack. “Do you mind if I go through it?” he asks her.

“Mind? If you can find me the damn ibuprofen, I’ll have your babies.”

The rest of us laugh at that, but I realize Simon doesn’t.

Jude gets the supplies out and starts by hand-delivering ibuprofen to everyone in the room—except Izzy, because she’s healing almost as quickly as he is.

Vampires, man. And apparently Nightmare princes.

Then he makes the rounds, cleaning wounds and patching us up as best he can. He starts with me.

I suck in a breath as he uses an alcohol wipe to clean a particularly deep chrickler bite. On the plus side, he’s at least gentle about it. He does have practice.

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