Page 48 of Guarded By the Nightmare

I whirled on him. “You don’t. Trust me. Things overlap, but they’re not directly correlated, okay? I’m certain of it.”

“Mina,” he said, darker than the growing shadows inside my car.

“Goddammit it, Sylas! I thought you had to do what I said? And I said not to ask!” I shouted, as he went terrifically still in front of me.

“Do not turn around.”

Of course after he said it, I had to—and Nolan was there, all six-four of him, grabbing his crotch and shaking it with his hand.

I heard the sound of him unzipping in my nightmares—closely followed by the memory of my squeals of agony.

“Couldn’t get enough?” he asked, giving me a shit-eating grin, right before spitting his dark chew on my window’s glass.

I wanted to run, hide, or spontaneously combust.

“Sylas—Sylas please, do your thing,” I said, feeling my throat start to close shut.

“I need more time,” he said, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. “He is warded, with the same magic that controls your friend. I need to perceive all of the magic surrounding him, before I may act.”

Nolan leaned over and made my whole small car rock with his hands, before kicking the door and making me shriek. I could feel Sylas seething, but I just wanted to collapse into a shuddering heap.

And then Nolan leaned over, putting his hands on my window, on either side of his dripping chaw. “You know I still jerk off sometimes, thinking about the way we—” he said, but then he didn’t finish his words.

“I know enough,” Sylas hissed, sweeping by me in a rush—and a second later, Nolan’s eyes were wide.

He was screaming, but his mouth was sewn shut.

I had no idea when it’d happened, Sylas must’ve slowed time without me noticing, but there were precise, almost surgical stitches, all across Nolan’s lips, like embroidery—and I realized the thread was the same color as my hair.

Nolan dropped to his knees, suddenly, cupping his crotch again. “He seems particularly vulnerable there, no?” my Nightmare asked of me. “Open your passenger door, my queen.”

I lunged across the car to do as I was told, and a struggling Nolan was transported into my car almost immediately, covered in a swirl of smoke and shadow, like a cocoon he couldn’t break free from. He twitched and twisted, and he was still screaming, but Sylas had him contained.

He couldn’t hurt me again.

“Please drive to the football field, like we had planned,” Sylas suggested, like we were going on a picnic, and I didn’t question a thing—I started my car and threw it into drive.

Fifteen minutes later,I was walking besides an immobilized Nolan, who was...floating was probably the best verb for it, although he kept spasming in a herky-jerky fashion inside a blanket of fog, as Sylas propelled him along. I didn’t know if he was still fighting, or if Sylas was doing something to him, but he’d stopped shouting at least, and Sylas put him down beside the cushioned bottom of a field goal.

“As for what comes next,” Sylas said, forming his body separately again, standing in front of me. “You don’t have to listen to this, my queen. In fact, I think I’d prefer it if you went back inside your car.”

I hugged myself. I wanted that too—but Sylas didn’t know this time period like I did, or have any background on the RRP. “I’m staying.”

“As you wish,” Sylas said, then reached forward and ripped the binding across Nolan’s mouth open with a claw.

“HELP!” Nolan screamed. “HELP ME!”

His shouts reverberated over the field and went unanswered.

“I’m going to ask you several questions now, human,” Sylas said, conversationally. “And now is the time to be honest, because while I can guarantee you will not survive the night, you still have many paths to get to your doom.”

“THEY’LL KNOW YOU TOOK ME!” Nolan shouted at us both, with full force. He was bleeding from the many holes on his lips, and he pissed himself, a wet stain leaking out around the same region he’d grabbed less than an hour ago.

“Who?” Sylas asked, with eternal-seeming calmness.

Nolan finally came back into himself again then to realize his situation. He was panting, and his eyes were wide. “I’m not telling you shit!”

Sylas looked to me. “My queen, which of his arms is the one he used earlier to gesture rudely?”

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