Page 53 of Sweet Nightmare

“Hold up. Is Simon in our group?” Her voice turns into a squeak as she stops dead. “I can’t be in a group with Simon!”

“It’s fine,” I tell her, putting a hand in the center of her back and propelling her forward. “I’m sure he doesn’t even remember what happened.”

She shoots me a get-real look. “Everyone remembers.”

“It was pretty memorable,” Luis agrees.

“You’re not helping,” I hiss before turning back to my roommate. “It’s fine, Eva.”

“It’s so not fine.” She shudders. “I still blame it on the fact that he’s a siren. I don’t even sing normally!”

“That’s for sure,” Luis snarks.

“Everyone knows it’s because he’s a siren,” I soothe. “I’m sure things like that happen to him all the time.”

“Things like that don’t happen to anyone all the time,” she moans.

Luis opens his mouth, but I shoot him a warning look. He snaps it closed with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s going to be fine,” I tell her again. “I swear. Let’s just get over there and get it over with. The sooner we start—”

“The only way it’s going to be fine is if you trade places with me and one of the monsters in that damn menagerie eats me.”

“You could feed yourself to one of them,” Luis recommends. “There’s a snake one that would probably do the trick.”

Before I can even begin to come up with a response to that suggestion, Jude glances over at us. His silver-green and black eyes meet mine, and every word in my head suddenly disappears. All that’s left is a cacophony of mismatched emotions swirling around inside me, tangled up so tightly that there’s no way I could separate them, even if I wanted to.

Which I don’t—at least not here.

Determined not to get caught up in his bullshit yet again today—twice is more than enough to be humiliated by the same guy in a twenty-four-hour period—I force myself to look away. But not before I note the current tumult in Jude’s normally inscrutable eyes, all the colors swirling together into a gorgeous puzzle I’m desperate to solve.

Too bad that puzzle is currently missing several important pieces—pieces I want but am beginning to think are lost forever.

Hands still safely in my pockets, I move past Jude without so much as nodding hello. I’m still beyond pissed he kissed me and then walked away like it was nothing. Again. I’m even more pissed that I can’t corner him now and demand the answers I spent so much time chasing after him to get.

“Clementine—” he starts, but his use of my real name just annoys me more. It’s like he’s trying to piss me off all over again.

“Hey, you,” Simon says, smiling at me as I walk toward him, his eyes the same shade as the ocean under a full moon. They’re as clear as Jude’s are tortured.

“Hey.” I surreptitiously hold my breath as I move past him—you can never be too careful with sirens—but that just makes him grin more wildly. He knows exactly what effect he has on all of us, and he likes it, no matter what he pretends to the contrary.

As I get closer, he winks at me, but I just roll my eyes in response…and still don’t take a breath until I’m several yards away from him. That doesn’t stop his scent from lingering in the air around me, though—clean and warm and provocative in that way only a siren’s can be. Is it any wonder Eva lost her head the last time she had a group project with him?

“Hi, Eva.” Simon’s voice is innocent as he greets my friend, but there’s an amused look in his eyes that says he does, indeed, remember. Even before Mozart starts humming “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid.

Eva’s normally bronze cheeks turn the color of our uniform shorts, and she does an abrupt about-face on the heel of her prized red-checkered Vans. “I need a new group!” she calls out to my uncle Carter as he walks by.

“No changes,” he tells her sternly, his goatee quivering with resolve. “We have to have a record of where everyone is at all times as the storm moves in.”

“She’s fine with us,” I tell him as I start herding her back toward the others.

He gives me a serious look. “Just make sure you both stay with Jude while you’re in the menagerie, Clementine.”

Yeah, I’m so not doing that. “What about the keys? I only have one to the chrickler enclosure.”

“I gave them to Jude,” he answers. It looks like he wants to say more, but then my aunt Carmen calls to him, and he starts walking away. But he only takes a few steps before turning back to remind me, “Stay with Jude. He’ll keep you safe.”

I want to ask why he gave him the keys and not me, but he’s already halfway to my aunt.

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