Page 17 of All Hallows Game

I blinked and he was gone, a wisp of shadow all that was left of him. I began to think I hallucinated him until darkness pooled in the corner of my room, ruffling the clothes I hadn’t bothered to put in my wardrobe in the past few days. Death stepped out, making my heart stop for a second, and Miz followed him, looking awful. Looking unwell.

My stomach knotted. I hated the way Miz’s eyes went everywhere but me, hated the dark circles carved into the sallow skin under his eyes, and the way he moved hunched, like he was trying to make himself smaller.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said under his breath.

My chest crushed under the weight of pain. I should have known. I did know. I knew they didn’t want to be around me, that they hated me now, Nightmare’s handiwork more than effective. I broke Miz’s heart; of course he wouldn’t want to be here.

“Don’t even think about leaving,” Death said in that kind but steely voice of his. He pinned Miz with a loaded look and strode across the room to me, the weight of him sinking on the mattress tipping me into his side. “What happened, Cat?”

Still Cat. No little bride. That was fine. I was under no illusions that we were still together, that he still cared.

“I found my grief counsellor mauled to death,” I replied, all the life gone from my voice. Whatever scant bit of healing Tor had managed to do was neatly undone by my name and a soft admission. I shouldn’t be here.

Then go, I wanted to snap, but I needed him here too badly to voice the response.

“Mauled?” Death repeated, a furrow between his strong brows. It hurt every time I saw him, perfect and gorgeous and so kind it killed me. I stared at the embroidery on the edge of his sleeve instead of looking at him or Misery.

“Something attacked her. A monster. That’s what she screamed—a monster. She was covered in claw marks and bites.” I stood abruptly, pacing over to the dresser and leaning against in, aware that Miz stiffened in the corner. His scent wrapped around me, like violets and snow, like serenity, and my shoulders dropped all their tension at the same time a lump formed in my throat.

I jumped when the door barged open, Tor coming into the room like a storm, a fierce look on his face and a bowl of soapy water in his tattooed hands. He knocked the door shut with his hip and gave Death and Miz matching unimpressed looks.

“About time you two showed up. You better be being nice to our girl.” I froze. He winced. “Force of habit,” he said apologetically, throwing me a quick glance that cut like a dagger.

I hated this. I hated the distance between us, like my room was bisected by a ravine none of us could cross.

“It’s fine,” I said. My voice scraped my throat like broken rocks. I felt like someone had cut a hole in my chest and scooped out all my insides like a pumpkin on Halloween. But that just reminded me of the guy who wore a Jack-O-Lantern costume to Ford House. He was left in the garden in front of the house and rotted days before Nightmare’s curse fell. Someone found him three weeks ago, a shrivelled corpse among the roses and grass.

“Come, sit down, Cat,” Tor coaxed, his voice gentling when he spoke to me, hardening when he set down the bowl and swatted Death’s shoulder. “You, move. You’ll crowd her.”

“It’s fine,” I protested, hunching when Death rose the moment I sat, like he was repelled by me. I knew he was only following Tor’s instruction, but I couldn’t help the rejection. I’d wanted them back, wanted them here, all in the same room as me again. Now I got my wish, and all it did was hurt.

“It sounds like an animal attack,” Death said gently. “I know how easy it is to connect every death to Nightmare, but—”

My head snapped up, realisation hitting me. “You must have collected Caroline’s soul, right? All souls go to your domain.” I looked him in the eye and ignored the way his storm-grey gaze made my stomach squirm. “You can find her spirit and ask her what happened, what the monster really was.” I forced myself to add, “And if it’s just a wild animal, we don’t have to worry that it’s… her.”

I didn’t say her name. I didn’t want to watch Miz flinch.

He didn’t speak, didn’t look at me, didn’t even breathe. Was breathing optional for gods?

“Not a bad idea,” Tor agreed, dunking a nail brush into the warm, soapy water and lifting my left hand, rubbing under my nails so vigorously that I winced.

“You’ll damage her fingertips,” Miz said tightly, the first words he’d spoken in minutes.

Tor looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “You do it then, if you think you can do a better job, O High And Mighty One.”

Miz’s expression flattened even further, but some life returned to his eyes in the form of exasperation. I realised how dead and empty they’d been a moment ago. Because he was here, where he couldn’t escape the fact I broke his heart? Or because of what happened? Because Nightmare took control of him. Made him kill.

“Fine,” he muttered, stalking across the room. Black smoke rippled across the floor with every step he took, like his power was barely under control, and I bit my tongue against the urge to cry, my shoulders curling inward, stomach cramping. I couldn’t stand it—the distance, the words unspoken, the memories of everything that happened the last time we were all together. My next inhale shuddered.

“Miz,” Torment said gently.

“I know, fuck,” Misery bit out, sharper than I’d ever heard him speak to Tor. He sounded like the cruel bastard who cornered me in an alcove after my lecture, his face completely different, his eyes blue instead of gold, hair black instead of silver-white.

I blinked and tears fell, but Misery knelt and took up the nail brush and all at once the pressure on my chest lifted. My stomach stopped cramping, tears stopped falling. “I don’t understand…”

Miz said nothing, just carefully took my hand and cleaned the blood from under my nails with gentle, sweeping movements. He didn’t stop until every trace was gone, deadly focused on his task. He didn’t see the look Tor exchanged with Death that told me Tor had done a shit job on purpose, to get Miz closer to me. But why? He was heartbroken because of me. They all were.

We had something perfect, all four of us, and I ruined it with a few well-placed words from Nightmare’s script.

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