Page 37 of Sweet Nightmare

I reread it and start to second-guess what I wrote. Somewhere around the fourth time I read it, I force myself to hit send.

Almost immediately it shows that it can’t be delivered.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Go to class, Clementine, I tell myself even as I head back into the stairwell and race down the stairs.

Go to group therapy. You only have it once a week, and if you miss it, it’s a big deal.

Tomorrow when you’re in some kind of detention hell, you’ll regret not going to class. Especially since Jude will be just fine, enjoying lunch with Ember and their other friends while you risk life and limb.

Go to class.

But even as I exit the stairwell into the hallway that leads to Dr. Fitzhugh’s class, I know I’m not going to go. Instead, I turn in the other direction, and—after glancing to make sure the hall trolls are nowhere to be seen—I race toward the huge double doors at the end of the building.

Don’t do this, Clementine, I tell myself once more. This isn’t your business. You need to go to class.

Go to class.

Go to class.

Go to class.

But no matter what I tell myself, it’s already too late. The truth is it was too late the second I saw Jude walking through the storm.

When I get to the end of the hall, I burst through the double doors without a second thought—that damned Fanny running through my head again—and race straight into the dark, steamy wet.

CHAPTER TWENTY

RAIN, RAIN AS

FAST AS YOU CAN

The rain pelts my face as I race down the slippery, moss-laden rock path toward the edge of the bald cypress trees where I last saw Jude. It’s coming down so hard and fast that I can barely see, but a lifetime spent on this island—spent at this school—has me swerving to the left just in time to miss a hole on the right side of the path.

Exactly twenty-seven steps later, I leap right over a giant tree root and the raised, broken stones it’s caused. Forty-one steps after that, I veer back to the right and miss a ten-inch-wide crack that crisscrosses the path.

When your whole life is narrowed down to a practically five-square-foot island, you learn every inch of it. Partly because there’s nothing else to do—even when the humidity is oppressive—and partly because you never know when you’ll be running for your life from a pack of pissed-off wolves or a vampire literally out for blood. Strange things happen on the daily here, and knowing the ins and outs of your prison just makes good sense.

Apparently, I’m finally putting my knowledge to the test.

The rain continues to crash through the towering trees, slapping hard against me as I run past what once was a student garden experiment but is now just a home for weeds. I weave around the gym and a ramshackle old building that used to be a ballroom back when people voluntarily paid a lot of money to come to this island during its days as a resort.

I take a left and sprint between the art studio—which is really more of a graffiti park—and the library, making sure to avoid the flock of geese and ducks that have found shelter under the bushes.

I follow the path around the corner, then brace for the two-foot dip that’s been there as long as I can remember. I slide down the muddy slope without twisting an ankle, then immediately jump over another gnarled root that’s poked through the stones.

A couple more minutes of running and I finally make it to the fence that separates the academic buildings from the dorms. And while I can get through it easily when classes aren’t in session, it’s a lot harder during school hours. But that just means I have to get creative…

The gate is programmed to keep each student in the academic area of the island during their classes, using a combination of a pin code and eye scan biometrics. But I’ve watched my mother enter her code a million times, and no matter how sneaky she thinks she is, I’m sneakier. Plus, I’ve learned that all manticore eyes have the same signature. So I can fool the system into believing I’m her.

It’s a trick I don’t use often—if she checks the logs, the last thing I want is for her to notice that she exited the academic area when she actually didn’t—but I do pull it out in case of emergencies. And I definitely think this qualifies.

Which begs the question—how did Jude get past the fence when I know he has a class right now? There’s no way the system should have let him pass.

Just then, one of the trees on the other side of the fence makes an ominous crack. Seconds later, a giant branch falls right onto the top of the fence. I watch sparks fly in all directions as it scrapes its way down the chain links—charred and smoking, despite the rain—before finally falling to the ground.

Because fencing us in isn’t enough—they’ve actually electrified the damn things as well. Had I been touching the key pad, I would have ended up looking a lot like that tree branch…

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