Page 60 of Guarded By the Nightmare

44

MINA

The first thingSylas did was sew Nolan’s mouth shut again, and I was happy about that. I sat down on some rocks outside the cage—the whole place we were in looked a little bit like an old sci-fi movie set, like any minute now lizardmen in shitty latex costumes should come swarming up—and watched him work.

He was doing something above Nolan’s chest and head, and while I couldn’t figure out what it was, it seemed like it must be important.

“Whatcha’ doin’?” I asked, when I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore.

“Unlacing him. I didn’t want to sever the magic around him directly, but he doesn’t deserve for fate to protect him anymore.”

“Will that help Ella?” I asked.

“I hope. We should go and check in on her later.”

“Maybe protect her, too? What if they retaliate?”

“Their fate is bound with hers somehow—I do not think they’d risk hurting her. You, however,” he said, darkly, before giving me a look—and I remembered what he’d said about my rescue.

“Twenty guys, eh? Could you describe any of them? No, wait, let me guess, they were all muscle-y white dudes, wearing expensive athleisure, some had on backwards baseball caps, and others had vape pens?”

Sylas snorted while continuing to work. “One of them was Black.”

“Hold the motherfuckin’ phone, we’ve entered the twenty-second century here, ladies and gentlemen, equality is at hand!” I said with a laugh, as Sylas shook his head. “But if the whole frat’s involved in things—that’s roughly a small army we could be looking at facing.”

“So?”

And as he’d apparently managed to kill twenty of them out of hand, he made a good point. I stood up and came nearer—Nolan kept trying to make eye contact with me, but I just ignored it.

“I cannot believe he fell for your subterfuge,” Sylas said, appearing to finish whatever it was he was doing.

“Eh. He’s been lucky his whole life. He’s never had to think like that.”

Sylas gave me an irritated look. “Do you not get instructional children’s stories in your time, about making deals with dangerous entities?”

“We do—it’s just guys like him always think they’re smarter than they wind up being,” I said, with a shrug, as Sylas gestured, and the cage around us disappeared. Nolan was still alive, but Sylas was busily engulfing him in strands of fog. “What’re you going to do next?”

“Of course I am heavily tempted, my queen, to murder him here, for you. But now that I know there are others involved—I wantto make his death a warning,” he said, while opening up a portal that I could see my college’s football field in. “My queen,” he said, while offering me a considerate hand to step through.

I went through and he followed, bringing Nolan.

“So I am going to take several miles of chain and string him up someplace quite noticeable,” he said, and pointed up, at the field goal above us.

Nolan made a horrified sound inside the smoke-cocoon at hearing that, whereas I was wondering why Sylas was telling me, not showing me...

“And?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I would prefer you not be here for it.”

I made a face at him. “Sylas, you think a little blood’s going to scare me?”

He squared his shoulders and gave me a disgruntled sigh.

“Come on,” I said, sitting down on the ground. “How long will it take?” I asked, and mimed eating popcorn.

“How long would Ilikeit to take is the better question, my queen. And...I would prefer you not see how much I enjoy it.”

“Oh,” I said quietly, putting all the pieces together at last. “You’re worried I’ll see you hurt him and think things about when you’re going to hurt me, and have you realized you’re an idiot?” His head snapped back like I had slapped him. “If you looked around in that drawer back in my room you would’ve seen enough pills to kill myself ten times over—and do you know why I’ve got them all and hoarded them so carefully? To give up and fuckingdothat. But now, I don’t have to, Sylas—you’ll do it for me—and until then, I am fuckingonthis ride. You and I, and however manyhims it takes,” Isaid, flinging an arm out at the still-hovering Nolan. “But I’m not going anywhere. Not without you. Not from here on out.”

---