Page 8 of Guarded By the Nightmare

I watched his lips curl and braced for action—he was twice Mina’s size, and I had a feeling that the girl who’d ran away had been working for him, or more likely under him, and that he hadn’t been kind.

That didn’t deter Mina. “You kept me up all night last night, having your fights and doing your lowlife things—I could hear you from two doors away!” She flung an arm out at what was presumably her door so hard it made her stumble, a movement that did not go unnoticed by either the man or me. “So—just try to keep it down!” she went on,losing steam in the way intoxicated people did as their senses left them.

She turned without regard for his presence or her safety, and walked down to the door she’d indicated, trailing a hand against the wall for balance, and seemed to take forever fishing around inside her purse for keys.

After that, she let the both of us in, and slammed the door shut, but didn’t lock it.

I watched her keenly from the shadows inside her room, as her countenance changed. Her shoulders evened out, her head rose, but she stayed with her back to the door. “Nightmare?” she whispered.

I coagulated in front of her at once. “Sylas,” I corrected her.

She nodded, but didn’t move otherwise. It was clear she was waiting for something—and half-a-minute later, it happened.

I watched the unlocked door handle behind her twist, making a slightly metallic sound.

“Whoever that is,” she whispered to me without turning, “they’re yours.”

“My queen,” I said indulgently, swirling around her in a rush. “I’ll be right back.”

7

MINA

I clappeda hand over my mouth.

I’d just condemned a man to death, I was sure of it.

I kind of felt like an asshole, but I also kind of felt okay with it, because no one was just wholesomely testing my doorknob.

I’d known I was in danger the prior night I’d spent alone here. Even with the gun in my purse I’d still shoved the chair under the door handle, and used one of those door-holdy-gizmos they sold single women on the internet. That hadn’t stopped me from being afraid after hearing some pretty violent sounding squabbles down the hall. I’d watched enough foot traffic through the open corner of my curtain during the day to be certain which room it’d been, and to see its occupant—I knew I’d sicced Sylas after the right man.

But it was still frightening to hear a repetitive thudding on the wall outside my room. It seemed Sylas didn’t have a problem taking on a solid form when he needed to. I reached for the extra shot of liquor I’d purchased inside my purse and chugged it, this time swallowing it, feeling it burn as it dropped down my throat and fell like lead into my churning belly.

Then the sounds outside stopped and somehow that was worse.

I scrabbled my sleeve up—I’d been wearing a long-sleeved shirt tonight by lucky accident—but my arm ached where I’d been marked. The pain was good, though, seeing as feeling things was a novelty. I traced a fingertip against the edges of the hourglass, the injured skin there raised and puffy, and what I could now clearly make out inside was indescribable.

The sand really was pouring out. Each granule at a time, like a little red mite traveling just underneath the surface of my skin, from one half of the hourglass to the next. In my head I’d imagined it would be a beautiful thing, but in reality it wasn’t, it was so grotesque it made me want to puke—and I remembered the stories I’d found when I’d gone back far enough, about some other poor de-hearted person, who’d carved a chunk out of their inner arm, in an effort to escape Sylas’s wrath, no doubt.

And just like it’d been too late for that faceless person, it was far too late for me now.

Although it did feel ironic to have something on me marking the time, when everything else felt like it’d come to a screeching halt in May. Sure, I’d tried to kick the can down the road with the truth some, but what had it gotten me?

Mockery. Derision. Ella’s parents telling me, at first subtly and then with a cease-and-desist letter, toshut the fuck up.

But I knew what had happened to us, and I knew what I’d seen in the cabin’s cellar, and, eventually, I knew no one else was going to ever believe me.

I watched another red grain of sand—of my life—flutter down to join the small group of them gathering in the bottom half of the hourglass, then rolled my sleeve back down and went into the hall.

Sylas wasn’t there—but there was a rather ominous blood stain that started from right outside my door, leading back to the man’s.

I followed this, making sure to not step in it, until I stood outside his room. I had the sense to cover my hand with the bottom of my shirt as I reached for the doorknob.

And I’m not sure what it was that I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I found on the other side.

Sylas’s smoky form was crouched over the man’s body, and the man’s robe was open—along with his stomach and chest. I spotted white tips of ribs sticking out of visible meat like the nails of a hand, and Sylas held coils of pale pink intestines up...doing...something?

Showing them to the man,I realized, in abject horror.

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