Page 92 of Guarded By the Nightmare

SYLAS

It wasclear from the ground up here there’d been some sort of skirmish—there were divots missing from the earth and bodies lying all around.

Then I realized not all of the people on the ground required burial...yet.

One man exploded. Another one was covered in growing, crusting tumors. A third was somehow, unbelievably, being pressed flat.

And each time one of them died, or reached some threshold of impossible agony, a spark lifted from their chest and raced to Mina.

Rekindling the light inside of her, bit by bit.

Returning the future they’d stolen from her.

“Mina,” I whispered, while the young blonde woman ran up.

“She’s alive!” she hissed, then shouted back to the others. “Hurry up!”

And finally—a cavalry arrived. AdditionalMSA agents, pouring out of freshly parked vans—alongside additional alumni, too, who’d been too far away to participate in the original battle.

I twisted back to see Royce. “Tell your men to stand down.”

He tapped at a radio near his throat, while I watched even more threads of fate pour up from below, attacking these fresh fraternity members like they were ravenous wolves—and I realized that’s exactly what they were.

Every deferred, denied, or irreparably stolen fate was searching for an owner. And instead of getting to spread out a portion of bad luck over a hundred and fifty years—the fraternity members that were left were experiencing all of it now, all at once, in every facet of its terrifying glory.

I was watching the other MSA agents look around in horror, as the surrounding men were mutilated in horrible ways, when I felt a hand on my chin, pulling my attention down again.

“Sylas.”

“My queen.”

From where she was in my arms, all she could see was me and the sky above me. “Am I dreaming?” she asked, with a tentative smile.

“No, but I am,” I said, kissing her so that I blocked out the sun entirely.

69

MINA

I didn’t feel particularlylucky, at least not at first, when I still had the strands of dead women’s hair caught in my own.

But as I sat in Sylas’s lap on the edge of the cellar while he cradled me protectively, watching the remaining members of the RRP reap what they had sown, things began to settle in. I knew living meant having to accept that sometimes bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about them.

Except how you carry on.

If you can.

If you get to.

“Are they all going to die?” Sirena asked, coming down to sit beside us. Nine was out in the field with other MSA agents, cataloging bodies and clearing us a path.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“And how did you stop them earlier?” asked her mother, still leaning against Royceand favoring one ankle.

Sylas’s hold on me tensed. “They fought you? They weren’t supposed to touch you!”

“More like I fought them—I told them to stop, and they did.”

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