Page 2 of Nightmare

“I’m in Black Ridge, Phoenix. I’m going home.”

“Atticus…” he warns, hesitating a moment before he decides to risk his life. “She’s moved on. She doesn’t want you anymore and you need to d—”

“If you tell me I need to deal with it one more time, I’ll cut your tongue out and feed it to your mother.”

“Jesus,” he hisses, just as the cab driver looks up and makes a face at me. “The fuck, man?”

“Are you coming or not?” I mutter, feigning disinterest, but I’m secretly hoping he will.

Maybe just a little bit.

I don’t need him or anything. I can get my girl back all by myself. But Joker Night has always been our thing—his, mine, Violet’s, my twin sister’s, and our two other best friends’—and it’ll be way more fun if we’re all there together.

“Yeah,” he finally answers. “I’m coming.”

CHAPTER 2

VIOLET

“Are you sure you wanna go tonight?” Andie asks, coming up behind me and wrapping her arms around my waist, dropping her chin on my shoulder.

I frown and look at her in the bathroom mirror above the sink. “Why wouldn’t I wanna go?”

She doesn’t respond because we both know the reason.

It won’t be the same without him.

Every year on Founders’ Day, we come home from college, go to the parade and smile for our parents like the good Founding Family children we are, and then we get ready for what we call Joker Night—the night me and my five best friends made up when we were badass high school freshmen, where we all wear Joker paint on our faces, get fucked up in the woods of our hometown, and let the other partygoers search for the Joker card we’ve hidden. Whoever finds it gets to ask one of us for a favor—one we can’t say no to—but no one’s ever found it, and hopefully they never will. I’m pretty sure some people think the card is just a myth by this point, whereas others take it super seriously and search all night.

We all know it’s a stupid, childish tradition, but it’s our tradition and we like it.

But it won’t be the same.

I blink at myself, then clear my throat and look down at my chest. The old chain I’m wearing is long, the black, chunky cross pendant hidden between my breasts, but it still feels like a choker most of the time.

Andie’s arms tighten around me, and I resist pulling the necklace out to run my fingers over it.

Don’t think about him.

“Want me to finish that for you?” she asks, tipping her chin down at the paint on the counter.

I smile and turn around to let her do my face, trying and failing to listen as she talks to me about whatever drama her mom’s cooked up lately. I barely hear a word she’s saying, and I sure as shit can’t stop thinking about him.

Atticus Lee—the boy who stole my heart six years ago and refuses to give it back.

He’s toxic. Reckless. Dangerous.

Bad for me.

But even after seven months of silence and peace, he still manages to make noise inside my head. He invades every thought I have. He’s a part of everything I do, of every decision I make.

When I open my eyes in the morning, it’s him I think about when I’m lying alone in the bed he used to tie me up on.

When I go to get my coffee before class, it’s him I think about when I give the good-looking barista my order, because it makes me think about the way he used to kiss me in front of him, because I was his and he made sure every guy knew about it.

And when I used my best friend’s shower tonight, it was him I thought about while I was soaping my body, remembering the way I hooked my fingers over the glass door as he fucked me from behind on this very night three years ago.

“Are you even listening to me?”

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