Page 28 of Guarded By the Nightmare

Sylas considered this. “Love. Hate. A hate that they think is love. An inability to see themselves in a future they believe is unavoidable—like you, I think.”

“I don’t disagree.” I wrung the steering wheel a little.

“You could tell me about it, you know,” he offered. “Whatever they did to you. I’d prefer it in fact. I’d like their deaths to be as traumatizing as possible.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I think the only person you damaged with Logan’s death was me, unless you whispered, ‘You’re going to do an impression of microwave popcorn’ into his ear before exploding him.”

“True.” Sylas gave a low chuckle. “But most of my clientele talk more. They’ve never had anyone interested in their stories before, and I am forced to be a rapt audience.”

I bit my lips shut—and felt my phone buzz again.Fuck.

“Well, I’m the reverse of that. I’ve told my story so often that I don’t want to hear it anymore. Not even from myself.”

We were quiet the final drive into my apartment complex, and I let us in—well, just me, and Sylas just seeped around the door’s edges to wait for me inside.

“I’m going to shower, brush my teeth, throw that toothbrush away on principle, take some sleeping aids and pass the fuck out,” I announced, leaving him behind in my apartment’s entryway. “See you in the morning. We can go cruise grocery stores for you then, and I can get a new toothbrush.”

Sylas didn’t fight me on any of this, and I did exactly what I said I was going to do—it wasn’t until all the Benadryl and melatonin I’d taken had almost hit that I had a realization about our earlier conversation.

I was pretty sure Sylas had been admitting that he was lonely.

21

MINA

The Past

May 26th, 1:45 a.m.

I woke in a dark room,on the floor, and not entirely in control of all of my faculties—and the first thing I did was check for Ella, throwing an arm out to the last place I’d seen her at my side.

She wasn’t there; all I felt was the stickiness of my own vomit.

I sat up slowly, panting, the taste of my puke still on my tongue—had I barfed enough up to stop from ingesting what they’d spiked me with? I’d only had that one glug on the dance floor—and—where was Ella?

I only barely stopped myself from calling out for her, but I knew I couldn’t let them know I was awake.

My last memory of Trent flashed in my mind like a shiny pennyfalling into a dark pond.

If I wasn’t his girl, then what was Ella to him?

Fuck!

I dragged myself up the frame of the bed that Trent had eaten me out on.

It was my fault Ella was here.

But where was she?

I knew where the door was, because I could see light leaking around its edges, so I staggered that direction. I tried the handle ever so slowly—but it was locked, this time from the outside.

Where else could I go?

I tried to remember the layout of the furniture on the far side of the room, and walked over there with all the care I could manage—not much—before stubbing a toe on what was, I realized after I patted it down, probably an end table.

But behind it and other furniture, I could make out a window in the wall, letting a little bit of moonlight in.

I grabbed hold of the end table and pulled, wincing as it scraped against the wooden floor. That got me a little closer—and my shins helped me find a chair as I patted the air in front of me.

---