Page 37 of The Nightmare's Kiss

His silence speaks for itself.

I curl my shaking hands into fists. I will not let them do that to him again. Will not let them lock him in that cell until he forgets what a human face looks like.

“No,” I say stubbornly. “No. I refuse. I’m not going to let this happen.”

His claws ghost over my face, no more substantial than the wind. His expression is deeply sad. “There is nothing you can do, Mara. Do not get yourself hurt for my sake. I will survive. I always have.”

I reach for him, desperate, but my hands go straight through him. It’s like trying to cling to smoke. He’s fading even more, in front of my very eyes. Disappearing. I catch a glimpse of dawn peeking through the window and know with a horrible lurch of my stomach that this will be our last dream together.

“Wait,” I say. “No, please, wait. Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can find you again!”

The Nightmare shakes his head. His lips form a word, but I can’t hear it. Everything is fading: his face, his voice, the room. My mind is trying to wake up, but I cling as hard as I can.

“Please,” I say. “Somnus—”

I wake up, alone, with sunlight streaming through the window.

22

Chapter Twenty-Two

For the next couple of hours, all I can do is lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Depression sinks into my bones—but I fight it off with a wave of anger.

This situation is so goddamn unfair. But most of all, right now, I’m angry at myself. I was so eager to accept my own helplessness. So ready to walk away from this, find some new job in some new city, and forget about everything. Too content to have Somnus visit in my dreams and ignore the fact that he’s suffering in the real world. But now I realize how wrong I was. Even if he hadn’t been ripped from my dreams as well, it would have been horribly selfish of me to think that situation was acceptable.

The thought of being parted from Somnus forever, including in my dreams, is agony. But even worse is the idea of him being trapped there. Alone. Experimented on by people who don’t care about him, who don’t understand him or make any effort to do so. Director Ramsey is hurting him, and he doesn’t care. The sick fuck probably enjoys it. And whoever ends up with my old job may not even realize what they’re really doing there. Even if they do, they might not care. They might look at Somnus and see only the monster that the director wants them to see.

I can’t leave him there. The thought terrifies me when it first occurs to me, but it also feelsright. I will not abandon him. Not now and not ever. He deserves better than a life of captivity and torment.

Whatever it takes, I’m going to break my monster out of his cage.

I don’t have a lot of allies, but I do have a couple, or so I hope. So, after careful consideration and planning, I invite Belle and Ezra out to dinner again. I consider reaching out to Dr. Wright but ultimately decide against it. For a minute I believed she was on my side, but the risk is too great, and she’s lied to me too many times. I believe she has a different endgame than Director Ramsey does, but I don’t think that necessarily means she’s my ally.

Of course, I don’t know if Belle and Ezra will be either. But I know that they’re good people, and the closest thing to friends I have in this town. I also know that I can’t pull this off alone. So I have to try.

I shower and dress with the grim determination of a soldier preparing for battle. Even though I feel like wallowing in my days-old sweatpants with dried tears on my face, I can’t. I won’t. I need to build some momentum so that I don’t fall into that yawning abyss of helplessness again. I also need to make sure that Belle and Ezra will take me seriously rather than viewing me as a jaded, spiteful, possibly unhinged ex-coworker.

It feels weird to have this conversation in public, but I’m more worried about my house being bugged than I am about locals overhearing us, so we meet at the diner again. When they arrive, we settle into the same booth we did last time, tucked away in a corner of the mostly empty restaurant. The vibe is a little awkward, since they’re both doubtlessly aware of the fact that I’ve been fired, but they still showed up. That has to mean something.

I take a deep breath and lean back in my seat, the plastic booth crinkling beneath me. “Okay,” I say. “I need to tell you something, and it’s going to sound fucking crazy, but please hear me out before you pass any judgments.”

Belle nods so quickly that my heart melts. Ezra takes a second longer, but he nods too.

I pour it all out: my experiences with Somnus, and my growing conviction that he’s more intelligent and closer to human than the higher-ups led me to believe. My refusal to continue torturing him, and how it ended up getting me fired. And, lastly, my determination to get him out of there.

It takes a long time. And when I’m done, silence is thick in the air.

“And there’s one more thing.” I wasn’t sure about doing this, but now that I’m here, I feel like I need to prove myself. I fumble in my pocket and pull out my phone. Director Ramsey destroyed the burner phone I snuck into the facility, but I still have the cloud files. And while doing this could undoubtedly put me in even more danger, at this point, I’m all in. “I have proof. Videos. Here.” I pull up a clip. It’s not one of the ones I used to try to prove his intelligence, but one of the bloopers in between our more serious conversations: me attempting shadow puppetry while he tries to match the shape of my hands. Me, laughing brightly, while his own shoulders shake in silent amusement. Our hands pressing against opposite sides of the glass in a farewell.

As it ends, I’m left feeling exposed. There’s no mistaking the tenderness I feel for Somnus in this clip. It takes me a few seconds to work up the courage to glance at the others. Ezra has a hand over his mouth and an unreadable expression. Belle is as pale as a sheet. At first, I think she’s afraid of what I’m proposing, and my stomach sinks; maybe it was a mistake, inviting her here.

But after a moment, Belle whispers, “I thought I was imagining things.” She raises her eyes to meet mine, and I can see how shaken she is. “But my subject is the same way. I’m not allowed to interact with her—it—” She shakes her head, grimacing in frustration. “No,her. I’m not allowed to interact with her directly, but I can tell from my observations. She’s smarter than they say she is. She doesn’t deserve to be trapped there in a tank.” Her voice grows as she continues, and by the end of it the color is back in her cheeks and her eyes are bright. Then she pauses, and her lower lip trembles slightly. “She doesn’t deserve any of the things they do to her.”

Something about the look on her face makes me wonder if her bond with her subject is a little more than platonic, like mine is.

I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t consider the other subjects in the Facility, even after I began to suspect that many of them are the same as my Nightmare. But now I find myself wondering how deep this goes. That building is huge, probably lined with cells… Who knows how many of them are intelligent beings, held against their will? Trapped by the belief that they’re dangerous? Maybe some of them are deadly like the director says…but I’d be willing to bet that others are just different, just misunderstood, like Somnus.

Either way, the determination on Belle’s face tells me that I have an ally in her. I look over at Ezra, who is still sitting with a hand over his mouth and a wrinkled, worried expression.

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