Page 22 of The Nightmare's Kiss

After slurping down the rest of my drink and then a second, I decide it’s best to get straight to the point the next time Ethan heads off to the bathroom. I lean in. “So, are you and Ethan…you know…?”

She flushes bright red. “Oh, no. No, no. He’s my manager.”

I quirk a brow. “Yet you’re out drinking with him?”

She turns an even deeper red, though I didn’t think it was possible. “He was…persistent. And kind of implied it wasn’t just going to be the two of us out tonight.” She tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear and drops her eyes. “But that was probably my mistake.”

I barely know this woman, but still I feel indignant anger on her behalf. That sounds like Ethan. So damn slippery, he makes you doubt your own memory. I want to warn her about him, but just as I open my mouth, I spot him winding through the crowd back toward us. So instead I scoot closer to Belle and loop my arm through hers. “Well, I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her, and she gives me a relieved smile.

I stop drinking after that, just so I can keep a close eye on everything between the two of them. Every time Ethan tries to engage Belle in a too-personal conversation or lead her away for any reason, I lean into my white-girl-wastedness and loudly insert myself between them. I can tell Ethan is getting frustrated behind that pasted-on smile, but he’s too busy playing the Nice Guy to actually call me out for “cockblocking” him, as he no doubt thinks I’m doing. Belle feigns concern for my well-being and reluctance to leave my side because of it, while shooting me grateful looks and sly little smiles whenever Ethan’s not looking.

This is not how I pictured my night going, but I don’t regret it. By the time the bar starts emptying, I feel like I’ve made a new friend in Belle—and a fresh enemy in Ethan, but that’s okay. I’m sure he was always out to get me anyway. And though it’s possible it’s going to affect my job, that’s not more important to me than making sure poor Belle doesn’t make the same mistakes that I did.

As we head out for the night, Belle insists that Ethan gives me a ride home instead of letting me take an Uber by myself. I’m ready to drag her into my parents’ house if I have to, but thankfully her house is closer to the bar than mine. I insist we drop her off first—though she seems worried, and gives me her phone number “just in case,” I’m certain I can handle this.

Unfortunately, that also means I’m alone with a pissed-off Ethan afterward. I fiddle with my phone and stare out the window, pretending not to notice his frosty silence creating a growing tension in the car.

“It’s sad to see you like this, Mara,” he says eventually.

I roll my eyes at the window. Even though I badly want to retort, I just don’t care enough to get myself embroiled in an argument right now. “Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious. You always seemed like you had so much ahead of you, and now…here you are. You wouldn’t even have your job at the Facility if not for me.” I grind my teeth, resisting the urge to retort. Even if hedidput in a good word for me—which I highly doubt—that doesn’t mean he deserves all the credit. But he’s always been good at convincing himself of his own narrative. “You’re too smart to be acting like this.”

“And you’re too sleazy to be hitting on girls like Belle,” I say before I can stop myself. I’m aware it would be better to keep my mouth shut, but he knows just how to hit my buttons.

He sighs like he’s disappointed. “Is that what this is about? Are you jealous?”

“God, no.” I suppress the urge to bang my head against the window. How long can this car ride take?

“Are you sure? Because you’ve certainly been going out of your way to spend time with me since you got back here. First you invite me out for coffee, then you get a job at the same place I’m working, now you mysteriously show up at the bar I go to every weekend—”

“I am theoppositeof interested, Ethan,” I snap at him. “You lied to me. You gaslighted me and cheated on me. You made me feel like I was fucking crazy.”

He sighs again—the patient, world-weary sigh of a parent dealing with a misbehaving child. “Whatever you want to tell yourself, Mara,” he says, as though he’s taking the high ground. “I’m not going to argue anymore. You’re not capable of having a rational conversation when you’re like this.”

With that one line, it feels like I’m a confused, angry teenager again, left wondering if I really am the one with the problem. It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to claw his eyes out. For a blissful moment, I let myself picture it: going absolutely feral on him, ripping him apart with nails and teeth. It feels fuckinggood.

But instead of doing that, I shut my eyes and force myself into silence for the remainder of the drive home. As soon as the vehicle comes to a stop, I fling the door open and march away before I can say anything more that I’ll regret in the morning.

He’s not worth my time.

14

Chapter Fourteen

I try to be as quiet as possible as I stumble to my room, since it’s clearly way past my parents’ bedtime, but my body doesn’t seem to be on the same page as my mind. I stumble and stub my toe, trip into the wall, and knock my toiletries off the counter multiple times while going through my bedtime routine. I’m not eventhatdrunk—my buzz has long since plateaued and started to fade—but I’m tired and cranky after that conversation with Ethan. Fucking Ethan and his fucking high horse. I could’ve had a good time tonight, maybe even gotten laid, but instead I had to save that poor girl from him and suffer through the car ride home.

It’s exhausting, carrying all of this impotent anger inside of me. By the time I finally crawl into bed, I’m too tired to pull out the vibrator I’ve been thinking about all night.

When I open my eyes, he’s here again, standing over the bed. My Nightmare. I’m not scared now, nor even surprised. Though I am alittledisappointed, because I was hoping I could escape Ash Valley in my dreams, at least. Maybe have a nice spicy fantasy. I feel like I have spent so much time bottling myself up—my shame and my anger and my desire—that I feel like I’m about to burst, even in my sleep.

“Am I going to dream about you forever?” I ask, tilting my head to look at the Nightmare at the foot of the bed.

“Is there something else you’d rather dream of?” I haven’t heard that low, delicious voice in a while, and I can’t ignore the effect on me. I bite the inside of my cheek as he drifts closer, huge, spindly hands gripping the end of my bed frame. The tips of his claws scratch over the wood. I eye them, wondering. Such big hands. I bet he could grab me around the waist and lift me with only one.

The thought should frighten me, but it does quite the opposite.

“If I did, would you leave?” I ask, not because I want him to, but because I’m curious.

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