Page 84 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“I will!” Sirena said, while her father leveled her with a glare. “Or, maybe not.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, beginning to plead my case. “I hired him to kill men who hurt me, yes, but it’s expanded far past that. The entire fraternity they belong to is evil. They’ve been killing women for over a hundred years.”

“Oh, I’m back in,” Sirena said, grinning viciously. I noticed that her teeth looked sharp.

“Why?” the massive Arachnaea asked, crawling down the wall to rejoin us on the ground.

“I know it sounds crazy, but it makes them lucky. There’s something about their ceremonies that messes withthe girls’ fates, and that empowers them.” I looked between all of them. “It’s true—we were attacked by fraternity members multiple times, and a grandma tried to poison me.” And there were probably hundreds of alumni up at the cabin by now, either swarming Sylas as he tried to go out in a blaze of protective glory before killing me...or doing something, far, far worse, that I couldn’t think about without screaming.

“A small army, you say?” Sirena asked, considering.

“Yes—uh,” I answered her—and then realized I hadn’t said anything about how many frat guys there were—and the girl flushed.

“Sirena,” Royce said, in a growl of warning.

“I’m telepathic. Sorry,” she apologized. “But I can probably take on fifty.”

“You’re not taking my daughter on a suicide mission,” Royce said, moving to stand in front of her.

I looked up to the Arachnaea. I recognized him from his documentary on TV. He’d rescued his girlfriend from kidnappers on a skyscraper a few months back—so I knew he knew what true love was.

“Please,” I asked, my voice small.

“Sylas didn’t mention that the person we’d be guarding you from was yourself,” Royce muttered.

“The thing is, if we don’t stop them, they’ll only kill someone else. It’s not about me anymore—it’s about all the girls we’re saving in the future,” I said—and then I heard my phone ring.

I’d turned my volume back on, because I wanted to know if my post of Nolan’s picture got any further responses—but there was no one around who’d be calling me.

I pulled it out of my pocket, wondering if it was Brad Kirk from beyond the grave, only to see a picture of a cheerful blonde pop up.

Were the RRP guys at her nursing facility, holding her hostage? “Ella?” I shrieked, panicking. “Are you all right?”

“Mina?” asked a familiar voice back. “Yeah!”

“Oh my god, Ella!” Sylas had saved her somehow. I started crying big snotty tears at once, as I fell to my knees. “Where are you?”

“I’m in this shitty hospital bed. My mom’s here. She’s freaking out. Has it really been six months?”

“Yeah,” I said. “How do you feel? Do you remember anything?”

“Better now? But...everything before this feels like a dream. I was at that party at the cabin with you, and then...we were in some cave-place.” I heard Ella’s mother saying things off to the side, and Ella refuting her. “You weren’t there, Mom! Mina was! She rescued me!” And to me, she asked, “What happened to my car?”

“I, uh, totaled it,” I said, smiling through my tears. “Sorry!”

“Oh my god, Mina, you’re such a bad driver,” she said with a laugh.

And when I thought about all the times I’d almost driven Sylas and myself off the road recently. “You don’t even know,” I said, laughing back.

“Are you okay?” Ella asked. “And—what the fuck happened?”

I looked around the group currently surrounding me, and remembered what I was trying to convince them to do. “I’ll tell you all about it later. I swear. But I’ve got to go—I’ll come visit you as soon as I can. Tell your mom to take me off the no-visitation list—I love you,” I said, and then hung up on her quickly.

“They tried to sacrifice your friend, didn’t they,” Sirena said, and I nodded, wiping beneath my nose with the back of my hand.

“But I saved her. And—Sylas saved me. But—I can’t leave him behind. I love him, too,” I said, looking around at them one by one. “I know you know what that’s like. I’ll do it alone if I have to—but I could really use some help.”

“As the agent currently assigned to you, it seems I have to follow you wherever you go,” the Arachnaea’s translator informed me with its mechanical voice—and I recognized Sylas’s dry sense of humor in his tone, as did Royce.

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