Sweet Nightmare, page 2
Apparently, I’m not running fast enough for Luis, because he grabs my hand and pulls me along with him as a loud, furious shriek follows us around the corner.
“Move, Clementine!” he shouts, throwing me into the stairwell in front of him.
We pound up the stairs and burst through the double doors at the top just as the warning bell rings.
Chapter Three
Another One Bites
the Pixie Dust
“You have the power to defeat the monsters inside of you,” a soothing voice says over the intercom. The affirmation that doubles as the bell fills the hallway as Luis and I pause to catch our breaths.
“No offense to your aunt Claudia and her daily affirmations,” he gasps out, “but I don’t think it’s the monsters inside of us that we’ve got to be worried about.”
“No shit,” I agree, even as I fire off a text to Uncle Carter to let him know that he needs to double-check the locks on the monster enclosures.
My uncle Carter is in charge of the basement menagerie. Back in the day, Calder Academy Island started out as a sanatorium where rich paranormals would ship off family members to “convalesce.” But rumor has it that the basement was actually reserved for the criminally insane—which explains the giant, eighty-pound doors on each of the cells. Not great for humans, but the setup comes in handy when you need to keep creatures from wreaking total and complete havoc.
“Remind me again why your mother thinks it’s a good idea to board some of the most fucked-up monsters in existence?” Luis asks as he finishes tucking his red polo shirt into his black uniform shorts.
“Apparently, the school needs the money to ‘keep the students in the style to which they’ve become accustomed,’” I quote.
We take a moment to admire that supposed style before we’re forced to duck as a loose ceiling tile falls to the floor. After the sanatorium closed, it didn’t take much work to convert the ornate Victorian buildings into a luxury hotel for paranormals, which occupied the island until my family bought it eighty years ago.
The buildings themselves were commissioned back in the day when they built beautiful buildings for architecture’s sake, even if those buildings were part of a hospital. The remnants of that bygone era still peek through the years’ wear and tear. Like the carved marble staircases now worn with steps and age, the large arched turrets, the bay windows, or the intricate brickwork that adorns the entrance to the Admin Building, where we have most of our classes. But all of that potential charm has been overshadowed by the institutional green paint that has been slathered on every wall and the drop ceilings that are surely covering up some pretty cool moldings.
Luis snickers and shakes his head as my phone buzzes with a text from my roommate, Eva.
Eva: Where are you?
Eva: I can’t be late to anger management. Danson’s a dick
Eva: If he gives me shit again, I swear I’m going to totally throat punch him
I fire off a quick reply letting her know I’m on my way.
“You okay?” Luis checks as we walk quickly in an attempt to avoid getting yelled at by the hall trolls.
“Thanks to you, I am,” I answer, giving him a quick hug before I push the door open to the girls’ bathroom in the center of the hall. “Love you, Luis.”
He brushes off my moment of tenderness with a snarky, “You’d better,” just before the door closes behind me.
“Damn, Clementine. You’re supposed to feed the chricklers, not be their feed,” Eva tells me as she straightens from where she’s leaning against one of the old-fashioned bucket sinks.
I snap my fingers. “I knew I was doing something wrong.”
“I brought you coffee.” Her long, black curls bounce as she leans forward to hand me a turquoise-and-pink string backpack.
Joy floods me as I see the two go-cups of what I know is Eva’s famous café con leche, a recipe from her Puerto Rican family that includes just a pinch of a special spice blend. It’s practically legendary among the seniors. I reach out a greedy hand for it. “Give me.”
She nods to the backpack. “Time is ticking. Change first, coffee later.”
I groan, but I’m already ripping off my shirt and tossing it into the trash can. I pull out the fresh polo she’s brought me and—after a quick glance at the mirror—add the red hoodie she’s packed on top of it.
Even though it’s over a hundred degrees of pure humidity outside, it’s still better than walking around for the rest of the day looking like open season has just been declared on my ass. Even the smallest sign of weakness tends to bring out the predator in the other students. Despite the fact that every student’s powers are locked down, they still have fists—and teeth—and are more than happy to use them.
Thirty seconds later, I’ve got my face washed, my hair pulled into a ponytail, and a long sip of café con leche in my belly.
“You ready?” Eva asks, her concerned brown eyes doing a final sweep of me from head to toe.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answer, holding up the coffee cup in silent thanks as we head back out into the hall.
A quick glance at my phone shows a text from Uncle Carter, saying that he’s on his way to check the basement. I wave goodbye to Eva before taking off down the hall toward my British Lit class.
A small pack of leopard shifters is loitering in the hall near the door to the science lab. One eyes me like I’m his post-lunch snack as a glimmer of ivory fang flashes at me. The girl next to him senses his excitement and starts prowling toward me. I keep my eyes averted—the last thing I need right now is a dominance challenge.
That’s when I see a freshman—I think she’s a witch—look directly at me and the shifters. Bad move, kid. They immediately smell chum in the water and turn their sights on her. If you want to survive here, direct eye contact is usually not the way to do it.
I pause, unsure of what to do next, when the girl suddenly lets out an ear-piercing scream that rings out through the hallway. It reverberates off every hard surface as it makes its way to my protesting eardrums. Not a witch, a banshee, I mentally note, as the leopards scatter to class.
Saved by the scream.
I quickly walk to my locker. I grab my backpack and slip through the door into my seat about one second before the final affirmation sounds.
“I am stronger than all of the problems and challenges I encounter. I just have to believe in myself.”
A groan goes up from the class even before Ms. Aguilar chirps, “And there’s the bell! Let’s dig deep today, shall we?” in a voice that is way more bubbly than the affirmation bell or this school warrants.
Then again, everything about Ms. Aguilar is too bright and shiny for Calder Academy. From her electric-yellow hair and her bright-blue eyes to her manic smile and frighteningly upbeat attitude, everything shouts that the pixie doesn’t belong here. And if that wasn’t enough, the snickers coming from the asshole fae currently taking up the last row warn that they’re about to make sure she, and everyone else in this classroom, knows it.
“Fuck, teach, did you snort too much pixie dust at lunch?” Jean-Luc calls, swishing his deliberately messy blond hair out of his eyes.
“And you didn’t even bring us any.” His friend and henchman Jean-Claude sneers. As he laughs, his green eyes glow with the unnatural electricity common to the dark magic fae. “Don’t you know, sharing is caring.”
The fact that the two of them—as well as the other two members of their little coterie of immaturity and evil, Jean-Paul and Jean-Jacques—start cackling tells everyone in the room that they’ve got something planned.
Sure enough, the second she turns her back to write on the board, Jean-Jacques sends a handful of Skittles soaring straight toward her.
I swear, these guys couldn’t get more annoying if they tried.
Ms. Aguilar stiffens as the Skittles hit her. But instead of reprimanding the obnoxious fae, she ignores them and keeps writing on the board.
Her silence just eggs them on, and they throw another whole round of Skittles at her—but this time, they’ve sucked on them first, so that when they hit her white blouse, they leave a rainbow streak of goo. And that doesn’t even count the ones that get caught in her spiky hair.
When she continues facing the board in what I’m pretty sure is an effort to hide tears, Jean-Luc flashes to the front of the room—fae are still preternaturally fast, even without their powers—and stands right in front of her, making crude faces and flipping her off.
Most of the class bursts out laughing, though some look down uncomfortably. Ms. Aguilar whirls around, but Jean-Luc is back in his seat by this point, smiling innocently and leaning on an elbow. Before she can figure out what happened, yet another handful of Skittles flies at her. Most hit her in the chest, but a couple strike her right between the eyes.
She squeaks a little, her chest heaving, but still doesn’t say a word. I don’t know if it’s because she’s a new teacher and has no classroom management skills or if she’s just afraid of shutting down the Jean-Jerks because they come from some of the most powerful—and dangerous—mafia families in the paranormal world. Then again, it’s probably both.
As spitballs soar toward her, I start to speak up like I usually do, but I stop myself. If she doesn’t learn to stand up for herself and fast, this school is going to eat her alive. I’ve already saved Ms. Aguilar’s butt three times this week—and have the bruises to prove it. After all, you don’t cross members of the fae court with the darkest magic in existence and not expect to get the shit kicked out of you. Plus I’m still shaky from all of the chricklers I spent the last hour fighting off. I’m not sure I have it in me to take on a whole different group of monsters after class.
She doesn’t say anything, though. Instead, she just turns back around and starts writing something in a flowery script on the board again. It’s the absolute worst thing she could do, because the Jean-Jerks—and a few other less-than-enterprising souls—take it as a sign that it really is open season.
A new round of spitballs soars straight at her, getting caught in the tips of her pointy hair.
More Skittles are launched at her ass.
And Jean-Claude—jackass that he is—decides now is the time to shout a bunch of suggestive comments.
And that’s it. That’s just it. Fuck the pain. It’s one thing when the Jean-Jerks were just being their regular asshole selves, but they’ve crossed the line. No one, not even the sons of fae mafia dons, gets to sexually harass a woman and get away with it. Screw that.
I clear my throat, resigning myself to another beatdown by the Jean-Jerks after class, but before I can figure out an insult devastating enough to shut their mouths, a rustling sound comes from the left of me.
It’s quiet, so quiet that most people in the class don’t even register it. But I’ve heard the slow, deliberate rhythm of that slide from stillness to action before, and though it’s been a while, it still makes every hair on my body stand straight up even as an unwitting relief sweeps through me.
Apparently, I’m not the only one in this class who thinks their foray into sexual harassment is worse than their usual bad behavior and has to be stopped.
I shift slightly to my left just in time to see all six-foot-seven, gorgeous, grim-faced, broad-shouldered inches of Jude Abernathy-Lee turn around in his seat. For one second, my eyes clash with his swirling, mismatched gaze, but then he’s looking straight through me to the members of the Jean-Jerk club.
I wait for him to say something to the fae, but it turns out he doesn’t have to. One look from him has their words, and laughter, crumbling like dust around us.
For several seconds, silence—long, taut, jagged-edged silence—hangs in the air as the whole class holds its breath and waits to see what happens next. Because the Jean-Jerks’ unstoppable assholery is about to meet Jude’s immovable everything.
Chapter Four
A Fae Worse
Than Death
Lightning flashes outside the room’s lone Queen Anne–style window, slicing through the sudden, unnatural darkness of the early afternoon sky.
As if to underscore the seriousness of the upcoming storm—not to mention the current atmosphere in this classroom—thunder booms seconds later. It’s loud enough to rattle that same window and shake the ground around us. Half the class gasps as the lights flicker, but instead of breaking the tension in the room, Mother Nature’s temper tantrum only ratchets it up higher.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and lightning will strike a Jean-Jerk. Right now, fae flambé really doesn’t sound so bad.
Ms. Aguilar glances uneasily out the window. “With all this lightning, I certainly hope someone remembered to check the fire extinguishers.”
Thunder booms again, and more students shift uneasily. Normally the threat of a September storm wouldn’t so much as get a second look. They’re a way of life here on this Gulf Coast island—especially during hurricane season.
But this one didn’t grow and build the way they usually do. It pretty much came out of nowhere, and its intensity seems to mimic the explosive energy in the room even before Jean-Paul and his band of not-so-merry losers shift forward in their desks like they’ve been waiting for this moment their whole lives.
My stomach tightens, and I slide my legs out from beneath my desktop, preparing for the worst.
“Don’t even think about getting in the middle of that,” the new girl behind me—Izzy, I think her name is—hisses. “I’ve been waiting for them to get their asses kicked from the first day. Yours, not so much.”
“Thanks?” I whisper back even as I tell myself to listen to her.
But before Izzy can say anything else, Jean-Luc half coughs, half laughs as he runs a hand through his long blond hair. “You got a problem, Abernathy-Lee?”
Jude doesn’t answer, just raises one dark, slashing brow as he continues to stare Jean-Luc and the others down. Jean-Luc doesn’t look away, but there’s a sudden glimmer of doubt in his eyes.
The glimmer grows into a whole lot of concern as Jude continues to watch them, the unease in the room becoming so palpable it hangs in the air along with the humidity. But Jean-Jacques must be too self-absorbed to notice as he sneers, “Yeah, that’s what we thought. You’re fucking wi—”
He breaks off as—out of nowhere—Jean-Luc’s hand flashes out, slamming into the back of Jean-Jacques’s head and shoving his face straight into his desk before he can spew any more vitriol.
“What did you do that for?” Jean-Jacques whines as he wipes one dark hand across the small trickle of blood now coming from his nose.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jean-Luc snarls back, but his eyes continue to stay locked on Jude, who still hasn’t moved more than that one, lone eyebrow. But his stillness doesn’t seem to matter to Jean-Luc, at least not judging by the belligerent look on his face. “We were just fucking around, man. We don’t have a problem here.”
Jude’s second brow goes up, as if to query, Don’t we?
When no one else answers—or so much as breathes, to be fair—his gaze shifts from Jean-Luc to Jean-Claude, who is squirming uneasily in his seat. The moment their eyes meet, Jean-Claude suddenly develops a deep and abiding fascination with his phone—one the other three Jean-Jerks mimic with their own phones in short order.
Suddenly, none of them will look Jude in the eye.
And just like that, the danger passes, tension leaking out of the air like helium from an old balloon. At least for now.
Ms. Aguilar must sense it, too, because she lets out a relieved puff of air before pointing to the flowery quote she wrote across the board in bright-pink Expo marker. “‘The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing.’” Her voice rises and falls with the words, like she’s singing a song. She then gestures to the line written below it in teal blue. “‘To let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.’”
Looks like we’re just skipping straight over the elephant-sized fae problem in the room and going with a quote from a dead white guy. Then again, at the moment I don’t actually hate that decision.
After she’s given what I assume must be a dramatic pause, Ms. Aguilar continues. “That, my friends, is a quote from my favorite Romantic poet. Can any of you hazard a guess who it is?”
No one immediately volunteers the answer. In fact, we all just kind of sit there, staring at her in a combination of disbelief and surprise.
Her face falls as she looks around the room. “No one even has a guess?”
Still no response.
When she lets out a heartbroken sigh, one of the witches in the second to last row ventures, “Lord Byron?” in a tentative voice.
“Byron?” Somehow Ms. Aguilar looks even more disappointed. “Certainly not. He’s much more wicked, Veronica.
“Still no guesses?” She shakes her head sadly. “I suppose I could give another quote.”
She taps one cotton candy–colored fingernail against her chin. “Now, which one should I use? Maybe…”
“For fuck’s sake,” Izzy bursts out from behind me. “It’s John fucking Keats.”
Ms. Aguilar jerks back in surprise, but it quickly turns to joy. “You know him!” she crows, clapping her hands.
“Of course I bloody well know him. I’m from bloody Britain, aren’t I?” Izzy snaps.
“That. Is. Wonderful!” Ms. Aguilar practically dances over to her desk to retrieve a pile of packets. “I’m so glad you’ve read him before! Isn’t he just divine? ‘Heard melodies are—’”
“He’s an egotistical blowhard,” Izzy interrupts before the teacher can once again flit from one end of the room to the other. “Just like the rest of the Romantic poets.”
