Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

MISERY

I woke up alone and gasping, drenched in sweat like I had every night for the past three weeks, if I could sleep at all. I pressed my trembling hands to the silk covers and wished Tor and Death were beside me, wished they were here to hold me together the way they did the first time Nightmare took control of me.

"Fuck," I gasped, my breathing sharp and the trembles moving from my hands to my whole body.

She was there in my dream. Nightmare. I could never tell whether it was a dream she gave me to drive me to the edge of insanity or a dream borne of my own gift and curse. Misery. I was certainly fucking miserable.

I sank my hands in my hair when the screams followed me from the nightmare into my waking life. Cat's screams. You can fight her. Please. Please don't do this.

I couldn't fight her. Any control I'd ever had was an illusion, just like six hundred years ago. Cat's ragged pleading mixed with the dying screams of my sister and the low, satisfied chuckle from Nightmare's lips as she ordered me to drag Rosalind away from the house, into the darkness of the trees.

I thrashed my head again, like I could dislodge every memory. When that only made the screams stab harder through my skull, I threw myself out of bed.

"Peach," I rasped, my voice hoarse like I'd been screaming, too. Maybe I had. "I know it's late and you need to sleep, but I… I need you."

The only friend who'd never hate me for the things I did, who'd never know the blood I'd spilled and pain I'd caused.

Miz, please!

I shook my head until my brain rattled, and the room spun. I used to love this room, used to feel safe here, like nothing could touch me within these gilded walls, but she'd been able to reach me the whole time. When I thought I was safe, Nightmare had reached into my mind, twisted it, and then made me forget.

Nausea cramped my stomach.

"Peach," I rasped, relief hitting me like a punch to the stomach when she lifted her head with an inquisitive noise. Tears burned the backs of my eyes, but I forced them back and reached into the cage, bringing Peach to my chest like a talisman. As if a single prairie dog could stop the destructive, evil force of a goddess.

I exhaled a shuddering breath and ducked my head, my white hair tangled and unkempt. I inhaled the scent of Peach, hay, kale, and alfalfa filling my nose. She nuzzled at me, no doubt searching for the treats I was only supposed to give her sparingly.

"Soon," I promised her, and wondered if she could hear the suffering in my voice. Some days I felt like I'd overcome my name and title, like I'd beat the misery. Nights like this brought reality crashing back. Cat hated me. Her best friend was dead. Nightmare had full control of me whenever she wanted. Death and Tor didn't know how to treat me—I was a ticking time bomb, a single command away from obliteration. I hadn't beaten the misery; it ruled me.

I knew I needed to draw it back, pull it under my control or too much misery would seep into the living world, affecting mortals until they could hardly bear their lives, but that was easier said than done.

"I was supposed to be safe from her," I rasped, blinking until Peach's enclosure came into focus.

I needed to protect myself from Nightmare, or the people I loved would be constantly at risk. I needed to kill her before she made me kill anyone else.

"But how do I kill a living nightmare?"

"You don't."

I jumped, twisting to the door and gasping down air when the voice registered as familiar, when my spotty vision focused on Tor. Fuck. I struggled to breathe.

"Another nightmare?" he asked, striding into the room and leaving the door open as if Death would follow him in. He wouldn't. Things were too strained between Death and I. He didn't blame me for killing Byron, but he and Cat were still tentatively together, and she and I were… not.

"No," I replied, dragging my stare away from him. There was something about Tor like this, his leather and sharpness stripped away, that left me powerless. It made my heart hurt to look at his face, his soft features honed to a worried edge, and it hurt even more to look into those light brown eyes and see my own fear reflected, better hidden but only just.

"Don't lie, Miz, that shit is unbecoming." He dragged me, Peach and all, into his arms and rested his bony chin on my shoulder.

"Since when do you use the word unbecoming?"

"Since it put that annoyed spark back in your eyes."

I made a low sound, swallowing the lump in my throat as he held me tightly. Heat bled into me, and I realised just how cold I was. "I don't have an annoyed spark."

"You do and it's very cute." Tor startled me with a rough kiss to the side of my head. "Now stop lying. What did you dream about?"

I said nothing, just soaked up the feeling of his arms around me, the safety that was so elusive now bleeding the tension from my limbs.

"Don't make me pull your pretty hair," he muttered, squeezing me tighter. "Tell me what you dreamt about."

"Cat," I forced out, my throat closing up. "Screaming. Begging."

Tor flinched at her name, or the reminder of what happened three weeks ago. "You had no choice, and nothing that happened is your fault. Are you listening to me?"

"I'm listening," I muttered, hearing him at the same time I heard her pleading for me to spare her friend.

"Listening but ignoring. Do I need to fuck the truth into you or what?"

I pulled away, almost smiling when Peach dove forward in an attempt to bite Tor. "I don't know how you can stand to touch me."

"Nothing has changed between us, Misery." Tor's hand snapped out, wrapping around my wrist. It burned, like he was pure and kind and good, and that goodness hissed against the blackened evil Nightmare had infected me with.

"I'm going back to sleep," I muttered. I didn't need him to tell me I wasn't to blame; my hands were the ones that killed Byron. Nightmare's hands were clean. I was the one who had to wash the blood from them when Tor brought me home. Death had gone with Cat, back to Ford. I didn't know how she could stand to live there, surrounded by memories, by suffering, by death.

I knew she'd changed rooms, moving far from the room Nightmare made me plant cameras in. My skin crawled thinking about it. A buzz started in my head. I wanted to burrow back into Tor's arms, but I couldn't stand to ask for comfort when I was the villain. Only victims deserved comfort.

"Good idea," Tor said, his stare burning the side of my face. "Sleep. You might want to put Peach back though, you and I both know you're a restless sleeper. You don't want to wake up to a Peach pancake."

He laughed at his own joke, raspy and hesitant but still amused. I shot him a glare. "This is why Peach doesn't like you."

"Because I'm witty and charming? It's jealousy then."

I kissed the top of her furry head and returned her to the pile of bedding where she'd slept before I rudely awakened her. She gave me a strange look but didn't protest when I closed the lock and slumped back to bed.

I should have anticipated Tor's total obliviousness to social cues. Me getting into bed meant he should leave, not climb in beside me and drag me into him, my back to his chest.

"You should leave, I'll be fine," I muttered, even as his heat and touch worked through my shields into the trembling, screaming part I pushed down, so far down.

I expected him to hold on tighter. The hand over my mouth was a surprise.

"Shut the fuck up and accept that you are loved, and you have worth, and I'm not going fucking anywhere. We're not abandoning you because Nightmare got to you again. You don't deserve that, and I won't stand for it. So stop avoiding us, stop shutting me out, and stop pretending everything is fine. It's not fine. Nothing is fine, Miz. We're scared as shit for you. Don't make her job easier by doing it for her. You fight, and you survive to inflict all this beautiful misery on her."

I swallowed hard, a lump in my throat. I screwed my eyes shut.

A kiss fluttered over the top of my head as he dropped his hand from my face. "Thank you for not biting me. Guess you're not as feral as I feared."

"Shut up," I muttered, expelling a deep sigh. "Dick."

"Dick now? I thought you'd want to wait until morning and get some sleep, but far be it from me to—"

I elbowed him. Hard. Tor only laughed, a low rolling sound that did little to hide his relief. He tucked me closer to him, breath rippling the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

"We'll be fine," he promised.

But Tor had no way to know that, and Nightmare had only just begun to enact her vile plan. We wouldn't be fine. The first phase of her plan had broken my heart and his. I knew we wouldn't survive whatever she had planned next.