Page 22 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“I cannot stop time, but I can slow it down so much that I can give and take eternities. So now that you have time to talk—tell me what you want out of this night, my queen.”

I rocked back in my seat, finally believing him, catching a glimpse of the blue eyeshadow I’d put on in my reflection, and was instantly bombarded with memories.

“I—I?—”

18

MINA

The Past

May 25th, 9:00 p.m.

“Ella!”I shouted her name from the top of the stairs, waving frantically, hoping she’d see me.

She stuck out like a sore thumb, wearing a baggy white sweatshirt, amongst all the other girls who looked more like me, in dresses that could be more charitably called lingerie.

But somehow she saw me and waved back. I gestured her upstairs, and then watched her thread her way through the crowd. “This place is one hour away from an orgy or a horror movie, but I couldn’t tell you which” she said with a snort, before taking me in. “So it’s been like that, has it?”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, raking my fingers through my hair.

“Depends!” she said with a grin. “Do you want me to lie to you,or tell you the truth?”

“Just lie for now, thanks,” I said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her into the room that Trent had assigned for us.

Ella looked around, with increasing concern. “Our chances of being in a horror movie just jumped up twenty percent.”

There was a lot of dark wood furniture jumbled up in the room, I’d give her that—probably everything the guys hadn’t wanted to get ruined from downstairs. “I wouldn’t play Ouija in here if you paid me,” I agreed with her. “But,” I said, locking the door from the inside. “This room is ours.” I showed her the key on its chain around my neck. “Trent said so.”

“Which would explain why it smells like sex,” Ella said, giving me a wicked look from underneath her bright blue eyeshadow.

“You’re supposed to be lying to me right now, remember?” I lightly complained, pulling out my phone to look at myself in my camera.

“You look fine. I was just giving you shit.” She reached for my wrist and pulled it down, taking half of my anxiety with her.

Ella was my emotional support person.

I had no idea how I’d ever function without her.

I took a deep breath. “I know. It’s just, that—” I began, but then didn’t need to finish my sentence because she’d heard it all before.

All of the other RRP guys’ girlfriends were gazelles, when I felt like a zebra on a good day, and a donkey on a bad one.

They were all moneyed and graceful, got blowouts, and always had nice nails. They weren’t bad people, and some of them were really smart—even occasionally friendly!—it was just hard to be around them without playing the comparison game.

The thing was, I’d understand why Trent was with me, if I looked like they did and had a last name that dripped generational wealth.But because I didn’t—while it was fun to pretend to be a princess some of the time—it was a lot easier tofeellike a princess when I wasn’t around literal goddesses.

And, not for the first time, I wondered if I just had a magic vagina.

Honestly, it was the easiest way to explain things.

“Are you wondering if you have a magic vagina again?” Ella asked.

I inhaled to lie, half a second too late—she was already laughing.

“I should’ve never told you that!”

“No, you shouldn’t have!” she agreed, snickering. “I’ve gotta work tomorrow. So you get three drinks, Missy.”

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