Page 9 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“Ferrin said tocatchher, notashher!” Tiernan appeared next to the woman. “She’s not coming back from that. Put her out of her misery.”
The woman bit her lip, shifting in and out of focus overhead me as I writhed in agony, unable to escape the burning in my side.
“Orla,” Tiernan warned. Orla gulped and pulled round goggles down over her eyes in sudden resolve.
“Wait!” I lifted a hand, but the woman was already raising a blazing knife of emerald green.
“I’m sorry!” she wailed, and the forest dissipated with a blinding cut that slashed across my throat.
“No!” My hand flew to my neck as I jolted awake, trying to make sense of the slatted ceiling overhead and the arms that held me. I craned my head back to lock eyes with Liam, who stared down at me with a pale face and wide eyes. “Oh,godno!”
I scrambled away, trying to regain my dignity as best I could with my short forest sprint still replaying in my mind.
“You need to lie still,” Liam said. “I called for Ethel, but—”
“She can’t hear you from downstairs.” I clawed my way to my feet. Jonquil sat next to the register with my phone between her paws. The email notification was still bright on my screen, so I couldn’t have been out for too long.
Oh, god. Von Leer Admissions.
“Wren Warrender, come back.” Galahad’s voice echoed in my head, and I winced.
“Careful!” Liam tried to put an arm around me, but I shoved him away.
“I’m fine.” Sleep beckoned for me to return to its embrace, wrapping around my brain like tendrils as Galahad’s voice became louder.
“Wren Warrender, I command you to return to Skalterra.”
Hell. No.
I shooed Jonquil off my phone. I needed to escape. If I passed out again, Liam would make sure to alert Gams properly this time. If he got Gams worried, she’d call Mom, and Mom would fly home, and her book tour abroad that she’d been so excited for would be ruined. And I’d already almost ruined it once.
“I just need to lie down.” I stumbled for the door that led to the apartment staircase and hurried up the creaky steps.
“Are you sure you should be alone?” Liam called after me.
“I’m fine!” I spun around on the top step to shake my phone at him threateningly. “And if you tell my grandmother, I’ll find a way to make sure you spend the rest of your life scooping bagels.”
I whisked down the hall.
“Orla wants to apologize, Wren Warrender,” Galahad said as I staggered into my bedroom.
“And I need to check my email,” I snapped back.
“So youcanhear me.”
My room twisted as I reached my bed, but before I could slump forward onto the mattress, I turned upright, back in the same clearing as before.
Orla tried to hide behind Galahad and Ferrin, but she was taller than both men, so her forehead stuck out behind Ferrin’s cockatoo hair.
Graduation night must’ve stressed me out more than I’d realized. Recurring dreams couldn’t be a good sign, though this was admittedly more of a continuation than a proper recurrence.
“Wren Warrender, we only want to talk,” Galahad said.
“It’s just Wren, and you aren’t real.” I tried to step away, but it was as if my legs were fused together and rooted to the spot. I looked down, and my stomach lurched. It wasn’t that they were fused together, it was that I didn’t have legs at all,and “rooted” was a far more appropriate word than I would’ve liked.
I had on leather armor over a simple brown tunic, but the hem of my shirt fluttered loosely over not my waist, but the sturdy trunk of a tree.
“What thehell—”
