Page 34 of The Nightmare's Kiss

Director Ramsey sighs, and I falter, my next words dying on my tongue. He gives Dr. Wright an exasperated look, not even addressing me directly as he says, “Not another one of these. Theyallbelieve their monster is special. Didn’t you deal with this?”

“Furthermore—” I butt in before she can answer, taking a small step forward. I let my anger rise in my chest and bolster me. I will not be silenced or made small. I amright. “I have gathered evidence to prove my case.”

Now I certainly have their attention. Dr. Wright’s eyes widen while the director gives a confused frown.

“I assure you, we have gone over your extensive notes,” Dr. Wright says. “There was nothing within that gave us reason to believe what you’re saying is true.” Again, her eyes flash in warning. A silent request not to do this.

Maybe I would have raised this with her privately if she hadn’t already lied to me and made me feel like an idiot the first time I did it. No, I refuse to obey her now. I need to do this. I need to make myself impossible to ignore. So I look the director in the eyes instead of her, and continue.

“In addition to completing the tasks given to me, and conversing with the subject in my dreams, I have been conducting my own experiments. I have found that X-13 can communicate in the waking world as well.”

“Impossible,” the director says.

“I thought you might say as much.” Now for the moment of truth. I’m sweating, anxious, but I don’t let that stop me. I reach into my pocket and pull out the burner phone, and the room goes silent once more. “I have been collecting evidence. I have notes. Photos. Videos. Extensive recordings proving that what I am saying is true. He is clearly using sign language to communicate.” I take a step forward with the phone in hand, and both Director Ramsey and Dr. Wright recoil as if I’m presenting them with a live snake. “If you’ll allow me to show you—”

“That will not be necessary,” the director says.

I open the phone anyway, pulling up a particular video file. “Here, for example—”

On the phone, Somnus’s clawed hand signsNightmares are part of life,while I narrate aloud.

The director stands, marches around the table, and over to me. I shrink back but can’t react fast enough as he grabs the burner phone from my hand and throws it to the tile. He stomps on it once, twice, a third time, grinding his heel into the shattered screen.

He’s breathing hard when he’s done, and I’m frozen in place. I can’t believe he did that. I still have the cloud files, of course, but…the fact that he felt justified and safe in doing that doesn’t bode well for any attempts to negotiate with him. I feel vaguely ill at the suddenness and ease of his anger. This man is volatile. Dangerous. I look pleadingly at Dr. Wright, still seated at the table, but the closes her eyes like she can’t bear to look at me.

“Calliope,” Director Ramsey says, his voice coming out strangely calm. She opens her eyes, head tilting slightly his way although she doesn’t look directly at him. “There’s no need to waste more of your time with this nonsense. Proceed with your duties. I will handle this…” His lip curls. “Nuisance.”

This isn’t good. But I know it would only make me look pathetic and weak if I ask Dr. Wright to stay. I try to beg her with my eyes—Iknowshe knows I’m right—but she doesn’t look at me. Her face is a cool mask as she nods at the director, stands, and heads for the exit. The room is silent except for the click of her heels. I force myself not to turn and watch as she reaches the door.

A moment later, the door shuts behind her. She’s gone, leaving the director and me in silence. I force myself to stand tall as I look at him, even though I am suddenly, sickeningly aware of how easy it would be for this man to hurt me.

“You are the worst kind of fool,” the director says. “You don’t know what you’re really asking for. You say the Nightmare is intelligent as ifthatis what we should be concerned about. As if we were only holding that creature here because we thought he was some animal to be studied.” The director leans forward, stepping into my personal space. I refuse to back down, but I’m trembling. “You’re right. It is not an animal, Ms. Vance. It is something much worse. It is amonster. A monster that has killed and would kill again. It does not matter if that thing is the best fucking philosopher of the century, because it would still be a monster. Do you understand?”

I don’t, but I think I’m starting to. I stare at him, at a loss for words, as he steps back and straightens himself. His calm, unemotional mask slides back into place.

“You already knew,” I say numbly. I suspected it, but I didn’t want to believe that it was true. “You knew all along that he was intelligent.” He must’ve known long before I showed up here. And yet he’s continuing to treat the Nightmare like this.

“Then why?” I ask, staring up at him. “How? How could you do this to him?” Locking him in a cage, performing harmful experiments on him… It would be cruel for an animal. For a conscious being that rivals our own intelligence and emotional capability? It’s horrible. Unthinkable.

“Becauseit,” he says, straining the word, “is a monster. They areall”—he gestures widely to encompass the facility—“monsters.”

They are all like Somnus, he is saying. They are all…conscious. Intelligent. Oh God. The implication hits me so hard, it makes me feel faintly ill. I was so focused on my own monster—my own personal quest to prove that Somnus is worthy of more than this horrible little cell—that I hadn’t considered how many others in this facility might be stuck in the same way.

Or that the director and the other higher-ups already know. That they areknowinglykeeping sentient beings trapped here, for their own sick and twisted experiments.

“We are doing the world a service by keeping that thing here, where the world does not have to fear it,” he continues. “People would thank us if they knew what we were doing here. We ensure the rest of the world doesn’t have to know that these goddamn freaks exist.”

I knew that there was some shady stuff going down in this building. Part of me suspected that the director knew more than he let on. But never did I imagine the depths of his cruelty. I thought if I confronted him with the evidence of what he was doing, he would have no choice but to change his ways, if only to save face. But this…this is worse than I thought. He knows what he’s doing, and even worse than that, he believes he is justified in it.

Dr. Wright knows too. Maybe I’m the only one working here who didn’t get the memo. I could continue trying to argue, tell him that Somnus never hurt anyone until he was forced into captivity here, but I doubt it will make much of a difference to him.

Instead, it’s time for Plan B.

“Well,” I say, drawing myself up to my full height and pushing back my shoulders. I’m still shaky, and I certainly don’t feel confident, but I hope I look it. “I guess you leave me no choice but to find out if the public agrees with that sentiment, then.”

Director Ramsey goes still. It is a dangerous sort of stillness. Not like a deer in headlights, but like a predator about to strike. “Surely you’re not suggesting what I think you are,” he says. “Surely you would not bethatidiotic.”

I swallow hard and push down the voice in my head that agrees with him. “That video I showed you, and the notes and other evidence I spoke of, are stored safely in a cloud database,” I say, quietly and slowly so that he has no choice but to lean forward to hear me. “If I don’t check in every twelve hours and input a passcode that only I know, it will be released online for the world to see. Everyone will know what’s happening here.”

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