Page 156 of Sweet Nightmare

TO DIE ON

His words demolish me.

They shatter me.

They tear me open and break down the last remnants of every last wall I’ve ever tried to put between us.

Because Jude actually really likes brussels sprouts—Caspian used to tease him about it when we were younger.

And also because I can still see that little boy getting off the boat on that long-ago day. Eyes shuttered, face closed up, shoulders hunched as if bracing for a blow with every breath he took.

“Oh, Jude.” The words are torn from me. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

He shakes his head, his throat working as he tries to keep himself together. “He was teaching me how to channel nightmares, how to pull them into myself, and how to farm them out so I could keep people safe.”

He blows out a breath, then runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Nightmares get a bad rap. Everyone’s afraid of them, and nobody wants to have one. But when you do them right—they’re not so bad. People go through a lot of shit, you know? Nightmares help them figure it out, help them work it out before all that shit impacts their real lives.”

“I’ve never thought of it like that before.”

He laughs at that, but there’s no humor in it. “No one ever does. But it’s only when I don’t do my job—when I fuck up—that really bad shit happens.”

There’s torment in his eyes, in his voice, in the way he holds his body like one more blow might break him.

“You let a nightmare escape the day your father died?” I ask, gently resting a hand on his biceps.

He nods. “We’d spent the whole day practicing, and I was certain that I had it. Certain that I was good enough to do it on my own. So, late that night, I tried, and all I could think about was how proud he would be when he found out. Except I let one get by me and—”

He breaks off, shaking his head.

“You were seven,” I tell him. “Seven-year-olds mess up.”

“He died screaming,” he answers flatly. “I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save him. All I could do was watch it happen. It was…”

“A nightmare,” I fill in for him.

“Yeah.” He presses his lips together, and for a second, I think he’s going to leave it at that. But then he continues, “My mother tried to get past it. She really did. But she could never look at me the same way after that night. By the end, she couldn’t look at me at all—but that’s okay. I couldn’t look at myself, either. That’s when she sent me here.”

“You were just a child,” I whisper as horror snakes through me.

“A child with unimaginable power he couldn’t control,” he corrects. “Isn’t that what this school is for?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what this school is for anymore. But I do know that what happened when you were seven…it wasn’t your fault.”

“I killed my father. It doesn’t get any more my fault than that. Just like with Carolina. I still don’t—”

“What?” I ask, because whatever it is he’s holding back, I want out in the open. We’ve had enough secrets festering between us, and all they’ve done is hurt us both. If we’re ever going to be together, we need to get the last of them into the light.

“I don’t even understand how it happened, how I let it get away. I spent the next seven years making sure it would never happen again,” he whispers. “When I got here, they couldn’t take my powers away, so I spent all night, every night, learning to control the nightmares. Learning to control that power. Making sure I never lost control and hurt someone again. And it worked. For seven years, it worked, and I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay. That maybe, just maybe, I could trust myself again. And then…

“I kissed you, and I lost control, and Carolina…” His voice goes out, and he takes a deep breath before trying again. “It was your worst nightmare that she’d be sent to the Aethereum. She was always getting into trouble, always breaking some rule or another and getting detention because of it. We were ten when they started threatening to send her away, but no one ever believed they would actually do it. Except for you.”

“That’s because I know my mother better than anybody else.”

“I know you do.” He smiles sadly. “It’s why there was a part of you that was always so afraid of it happening. But it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t made your worst nightmare come true. But I did, and I ruined everything.”

It still hurts to hear him say it.

I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since he told me last night, and part of me wants to scream at the unfairness of it. Wants to rail at the bizarre circumstances that put all of us together at the exact spot and the exact moment in time to set all of these things in motion.

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