Page 78 of Ever Dark

To my right, the fields are blackened. I scrunch my nose as the acrid stench of poisoned ash wafts between us.

He waits for me to get all the way inside before driving away,and my heart melts again. It’s nice to be looked after. But now I’m alone in this strange big house that I need to make feel more like my home.

But I can’t do anything until I see Nox. Nightmares aren’t meant to last forever.

BONES

We all have our secrets. Things we keep inside our minds, things that are so dark, so inexcusable, that we’re afraid to tell anybody. We also tell little white lies, holding back from each other out of fear of changing our dynamic. But after the fucking bomb that Draven just dropped… It’s time we all bring our forbidden shadows out into the light.

The terrace at Blackwell Manor is illuminated by torches and flickering candles. We sit around a glass table that’s covered in various bottles of booze, vials of poison, and ashtrays full of cigarette butts and half-smoked joints. The tension is as thick as the morning fog, heavy as it swirls in between us.

We haven’t slept since leaving Aries’s father’s house. We drove all night from the top of the mountains of Ever Graves just to get back here before sunrise. It’s in these twilight hours where we’re most at ease. When the devil’s hold on us is at its weakest.

“I can’t believe you waited this long to tell us. You know wenever would have judged you.” I stir the ice cube in my whiskey with my finger before sucking it off.

Draven lights another cigarette. “I know. It wasn’t about that. I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud… until last night.”

Aries runs a hand through his blond locks, tousling them. His tie is off, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down. It’s the most unkempt I’ve seen him look in a long time.

“You told her before us. Why?” he asks.

The lines on Draven’s forehead crease as if he’s wincing from pain. “Because of what she is. The nightmare world is familiar to her. It wasn’t planned. I wanted to be inside her. But I couldn’t do it with this secret between us. I looked into her eyes, and it just came out.”

Aries nods, satisfied with his answer. “The Harkers have had a hold on this town for a long time.”

“And everyone in it,” I add. They were the original sin. The family that started the curse. The reason why every woman born in Ever Graves is saddled with her own nightmare man. But they are just fragments of a greater whole, extensions of the devil himself.

Aries throws me an expectant look. My pulse races. I take a deep drag of my joint. His eyes tell me what his mouth isn’t. No more secrets or holding back. I exhale a huge puff of smoke and blow it slowly in his direction.

Draven raises an eyebrow. “What was that?”

Aries leans forward and places his hand on my knee. “Me and Bones are more than friends. We’ve kind of had this thing between us since we were kids.”

Draven smirks. “I think it’s adorable that you thought I didn’t know.”

Fuck. I blow out a deep breath. “You’ve known?”

He chuckles. “You’re not as discreet as you think. Of course, I know.”

“But you never said anything,” Aries quips.

Draven shrugs. “It wasn’t my place to. That’s between you two.I hoped that it would never fuck up the friendship for all our sakes, but it’s never been my business to meddle in.”

Relief fills me. The last thing I want is for Draven to think we would ever put our friendship in jeopardy. Aries and I promised each other a long time ago that love and sex were a bonus but the bonds between us are forever. Nothing can break them.

“Cool,” I say on a breath.

Draven bursts out laughing. “And you say I’m the serious one. Both of you, relax. We’re the sons of Ever Graves. Us against the world. Remember?”

I nod. “By the Wishing Tree.” When we were just twelve years old, we made a blood sacrifice together in the forest, pledging our loyalty to each other for life.

“So we’re all half-nightmare then, I guess. Thanks for disclosing that now. I might not have gone through with it if I had known back then,” Aries teases.

Draven snorts. “It doesn’t work like that, Ries. I’m still the only one with ties to the devil.”

‘I know but I enjoy riling you up.” He flashes a grin before downing his third vial of nightshade.

“You and Mia,” I add. “The devil haunts her every night.”

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