Page 28 of Sweet Nightmare

Is this why he always wears long sleeves?

Why he would never go swimming with us in the mermaid pool when we were little?

As far as I know, I’ve never actually seen him shirtless, even when we were kids. Back when I had a crush on him—eons ago—I used to imagine the very sexy washboard abs I was sure he was hiding under his Calder Academy polo. But I never once imagined what else he was hiding.

But how could he have had the tattoos that long? He’s grown a lot since he was seven, and they would be distorted, stretched out, faded even, if they had grown along with him. Yet these are none of those things. In fact, I’ve never seen any tattoo as defined and richly saturated as his are. They don’t look like drawings at all—they look real, like they could come to life at any second.

Again, my fingers itch with the need to trace one. But I keep them where they belong, curling my hands into fists as I very deliberately walk around to the other side of the table.

Of course, once on that side, I’m faced with the sculpted abs that are even better than I ever imagined. Not to mention the implacable, mismatched eyes that always seem to know exactly what I’m thinking.

Jude watches me as he slides into the chair, and it’s obvious he’s figured out that I’ve seen the tattoos. And just as obvious that he has no intention of saying anything about them.

I start to ask, but then he’s slipping his hands into the bowl. His shoulders stiffen the second the raw burns come into contact with the healing elixirs. He doesn’t say a word, though, just sits completely still through what must be a nightmare of agony.

Nervous sweat rolls down my back. I hate seeing other people in pain, hate even more the fact that I can’t do anything to ease it. The fact that it’s Jude in such pain makes it even worse.

I used to think I wanted him to suffer for hurting me the way he did, but this isn’t the kind of suffering I was thinking about.

To combat the nervous energy, I take my time straightening up the rest of the room—there isn’t much to do, but it keeps me from staring at Jude.

I’m sweating by the time that’s done—the incoming storm has turned the already sticky air into glue—so I pull off my hoodie and look around for something, anything, else to do. I pick up the medicine bottles and gather them up to put them away. I’ve barely gotten the cabinet open when a woman comes flying out and fills me with a vicious, terrible pain that slices across every nerve ending.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

UNSTEADY AS

SHE GHOSTS

I scream, stumbling backward as jars fall out of the cabinet and slam into my body on their way down. A whooshing fills my ears—along with the tinkling sound of breaking glass—and I trip over my own feet, nearly going down amid the broken shards.

Tears make diluted tracks in the blood that covers her face. But it’s her eyes that pull me in. They’re moving with unnatural speed, darting from side to side, up and down, as if they’re seeing a thousand images all at once. And each one is breaking her heart.

Her trembling hand reaches for me and I don’t move. I can’t move. Fear has me in its grip even before she runs one single, bone-chillingly cold finger down my cheek.

It hurts, pain cracking into a thousand different tendrils that wind their way through me. I gasp, try to jerk away, but she has me in her thrall. As do the images that start flashing in my head—tiny vignettes blazing across my eyelids in a million bursts of light.

I see her sweat-drenched body splayed on a bed.

I see blood—so much blood.

I see a handshake, hear high-pitched crying.

She’s despair personified, her sadness an endless, black blanket that smothers me and makes it impossible to breathe.

But as she pulls back, I see a flash of bright-blue eyes beneath the blood and I know I’ve seen her once before—when I was in ninth grade, just before everything went to shit. “What is it?” Jude demands, rushing toward me.

But I can’t speak as her face gets closer and closer to mine. The physical pain and the mental anguish are too great.

“Clementine, talk to me,” he orders, jaw grim and eyes narrowed as he puts himself in front of me.

The moment he does, she disappears as quickly as she emerged, leaving me trembling and drenched in sweat.

“It’s nothing,” I gasp even as I know that’s not true on some primal level. But I double down anyway. “There’s nothing there,” I say firmly.

Jude’s not buying it, though. Why should he? There was a time when I told him all my secrets. “But there was something there before?”

“Nothing important,” I say as I try to herd him back toward the table—and the healing bowl of elixirs.

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