Page 19 of All Hallows Game

“Miz, I—” I began, the words painful as they grated my swollen throat.

“It’s okay, I understand,” he said quickly, pale arms crossed over his chest. I realised how plain his clothes were, no embroidery or fine details, and the material was wrinkled like he’d slept in them. “I know it’s different with me because I—because of what I did.”

It should have been different. I kept coming back to that—it should be different, I should hate him, I should stop missing him. Should, should, should. But I didn’t.

“You didn’t do that,” I said after a tense pause, wrapping my arms around myself, seeing the knife angle under Byron’s ribs over and over. “That was her.”

It was Misery’s fingers wrapped around the knife, his body surging forward, propelling the knife deep, but it wasn’t him. Miz didn’t choose to hurt Byron. I should have been bitter and furious, and maybe if Byron hadn’t tormented me with threats, maybe if he hadn’t killed Erika, I would have been. But Byron’s crimes helped me see clearly when I should have been blinded by grief. Nightmare was the only person responsible. She was the one who should pay.

“I mean it,” I said when Misery shook his head. “That wasn’t you, Miz.”

“It was,” he said bitterly. “And it will be me again the second she wants someone else dead, which is why I need to stay as far away—”

“That’s why you need us around you,” Death argued, and something about his tone made me think they’d had this disagreement many times before. “We can stop you doing anything against your will.”

I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged them, my throat viciously tight. “He’s right. You stayed with me so she couldn’t take control of me, remember. So let us stay with you.”

“Us,” Misery echoed, shadows twining around his knuckles as his hands curled into fists. “There is no us. There’s them—” He gestured angrily at Tor and Death. “And you.”

I pressed my fingernails into my knees, biting into skin, and breathed through the pain gripping my chest. “That’s fair.”

“No, it isn’t,” Tor snapped. “She was cursed, Miz. It’s not Cat’s fault she was tricked into having feelings.”

The shame of it, the secrecy, the absolute fucking agony pressed on me until I felt like I’d choke on it, until it would kill me. And I knew they could feel every ounce of misery and torment this secret gave me.

I faltered, the words on the tip of my tongue. I lied, every single word was a lie. I realised in the moment I told you I felt nothing that I felt everything. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone, more than I thought it was possible to love someone, and every day you spend hurt or hating me is another dagger to my chest. It’s a miracle I’m still alive with so many knives in my heart.

But I couldn’t get the photo of Virgil out of my head, the emptiness and hopelessness in his eyes, like he’d already given up on life. He was dead if I breathed a single word of what happened.

I swallowed the words and bit my tongue. When I glanced up again, Misery was staring straight at me, looking through my skin and bone to my bruised soul. Like he felt this cruel, endless misery and had begun to ask why I might be feeling it more with every minute they spent with me. Was he so familiar with misery that he could recognise the difference between grief and heartache?

I dug my nails deeper into my knees. It wasn’t difficult to fake a yawn. Death, as perceptive as ever, watched me with soft eyes.

“We’ll let you sleep. If you need us, call Tor or say my name. Do you remember it?”

I nodded, another spike driving deep through my chest. I remembered everything he’d ever told me, every gentle word and loving promise.

“Let’s see your hands,” Tor said, prising them off my knees to inspect my fingernails. “Better.” He squeezed my hands and met my eyes. “I’m sorry for being a dick when you needed me most. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.” He paused, a twinkle entering his eyes. “Well, I’m going to go hunt this supposed monster until its eyes are glassy and its head is detached from its body, but metaphorically I’m not going anywhere.”

He managed to get another smile from me. “Be careful.”

“I’m a death god, beautiful. It takes more than a monster to kill me.”

He caught me off guard with a kiss to my cheek and my eyes welled with tears again. Virgil, I urged myself, remember Virgil. You can’t tell anyone, can’t let these men close again or they’ll discover the truth.

But I didn’t have the strength to keep them away.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TOR

“I’m thinking flowers, duck-shaped chocolates, and grand declarations of affection, the whole fucking shebang,” I said, prowling between the tall trees that enclosed this side of Ford’s campus.

“I didn’t agree to this brainstorming session,” Miz muttered, attempting to slip my hold on his wrist for the third time in as many minutes. He was too stubborn to realise that alone, he was in danger. Nightmare could get to him, reach her dark, spindly fingernails into his mind and rearrange shit until he was nothing but her puppet. With one of us nearby, he was protected.

“Tough shit,” I said, tightening my grip on his wrist to bring his hand to my lips, feathering a kiss over knuckles he’d bruised by punching the wall. “You’re gonna help me win Cat back whether you like it or not.”

“She doesn’t care about us anymore,” he muttered, but he didn’t try to rip his hand free this time.

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