Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

CAT

T he last thing I expected to see when I crested the hill back to Ford and let myself in the gates was Duncan Ford sitting on the snowy ground in a blue T-shirt and soaked jeans, rocking back and forth. A horrible, wailing keen came from him and stabbed right into my chest. I froze. Was this what Byron looked like every time Nightmare blackmailed him into completing a little task?

I resumed walking, a vicious ache behind my ribs.

"Is this a private party, or can anyone join?" I asked, sitting in the snow beside Duncan, cold immediately soaking into my clothes. The ground dipped below us, the road to the campus swerving around the swell of snow-capped hills, so we could see all of Ford from up here. I watched the school warily and wondered where Nightmare was hiding.

"Go away," Duncan rasped, his wailing cut off. The abrupt silence was somehow worse.

I stretched out my legs in the snow as if it was a balmy day in June and not blisteringly freezing. My toes felt like icicles in the running shoes I'd thrown on, in such a rush to find Tor that I hadn't considered the damn snow.

"I'm serious," I said with a sideways glance at Duncan. "I could really use a screaming session myself."

He looked so far removed from the perfect rich boy he'd been at the start of term. His dark hair was rumpled and limp, his skin foregoing its tan hue for an unhealthy pallor, clothes mismatched instead of perfectly put together.

"I remember you the night she cursed us," I said when Duncan was silent, just staring out at Ford with dead blue eyes. "You were the only other person as sober and terrified as me. You're pretty much the only person I know isn't working for her. Everyone else… I look at them and wonder if they're the one who summoned her here, who started this whole fucking thing."

My words hung between us, the silence deafening. My ears buzzed with static. Why did I confess that, to a veritable damned stranger?

"It's supposed to be over," he said eventually, his voice rough from screaming. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, snowflakes caught on his eyelashes. "But it doesn't feel over."

"She's still here," I agreed.

Duncan laughed humourlessly, his arms around his knees. "I don't think she'll ever leave. And do you know what happened when I tried to get off this godforsaken rock today?"

I swallowed, dread blooming in my chest. "You tried to leave Ford's End?"

"Yep." He popped the P, a manic energy entering him now. "I got all the way to the docks, walked down the pier, even got on a pathetic little boat. I rowed two, maybe three strokes, and the boat turned to fucking splinters and dropped me in the water. But when I crawled out, I wasn't in the ocean." He laughed again, louder, sharper. "I was in that lake." He stabbed a finger in its direction; I avoided the silver glare off its surface, not wanting to think about the last time I was there.

"We're stuck here," I confirmed. "She covered the whole island in a spell. Or a curse. Fuck, I don't know." I rubbed my stinging eyes. "I don't know anything about magic."

"What were you?" Duncan asked. He didn't need to elaborate on the question.

"The bride of Death."

"Hm. Not so bad."

I whipped my head around to glare at him, coarse words leaving my mouth before I'd agreed to speak.

"She married me to three death gods—I was literally the bride of death. I was their wife and instead of that being a living hell, it was the only time I can remember being happy in three damn years. But she couldn't even let me have that. She took control of one of my husbands, compelled him to kill Byron—my best fucking friend—and then ripped the curse off us. So, now I'm alone, I have no husbands, my best friend is gone forever, and the men who started to feel like home won't come anywhere near me because Nightmare blackmailed me into lying that any feelings I have are fake."

I breathed heavily by the time I was done, gasping and out of breath. Shit, I really hadn't meant to confess that. I didn't dare look at Duncan, wound so tightly that I jumped when he knocked something into my arm. When I saw it was a bottle of whiskey, I grabbed it and took three swallows before the taste could catch up to me.

"God, that's awful."

"Awful and expensive," he corrected, taking a swig himself. "I was a plague doctor. I still feel like I am. My touch could infect and—kill."

I heard the tight confession in that word. "She made you hurt people."

He nodded jerkily. "It was like an out of body experience. Like the worst, twisted kind of VR game."

"I know the feeling," I muttered. He looked at me, but I kept my eyes forward, watching snow scatter down the spire of Milton Hall.

His hands flexed on his knees. "I'll go first. Dean Fairchild."

I whipped around to stare at him. "Shit. She made you—" I swallowed. That was him? Duncan killed our dean?

I forced out," Darya Henderson."

His blue eyes widened. "She's dead?"

"And a ghost," I said sourly. "She was one of them. One of Nightmare's followers. Brainwashed and twisted. And such a good liar I never saw what she really was."

"Shit," Duncan said, rubbing his face. "Shit. Do you know who else…?"

Who else was working for her? I shook my head. "Only Darya and—and she got to Byron."

"I know."

I didn't dare look at him, my whole body seized by tension.

Very carefully, he said, "Byron was there when she gave me the command to infect Dean Fairchild. He… delivered him to me."

My heart squeezed tighter, until I had to curl my hands into fists to endure the pain.

Still in that measured tone, Duncan said, "I don't blame him. Byron. I know what it's like to be cursed, to have that poisonous bitch in your head. He didn't have a choice."

I didn't tell him Byron hadn't been cursed like us. Duncan was right; when Nightmare got her hooks in you, none of us had a choice but to do whatever she commanded.

"I'm sorry he's gone," Duncan added. "He didn't deserve that. None of the people she's killed deserved it. All we wanted to do was come to med school."

"If I'd known this place was home to a cult, a goddess, and a curse, I never would have come," I said dryly.

"That makes two of us."

Silence settled between us, not quite comfortable but bearable. I had to swallow back the urge to tell him about Virgil at least twice, desperate for someone else to know, for someone to help me.

"Hey," I said abruptly. "Do you know anyone who could trace a picture and find where it was taken?"

Duncan gave me a weird look.

"It might help us find where Nightmare's hiding."

He blanched. "Absolutely not. Keep me out of it; I have no interest in risking her wrath again. I'm happy to stay off her radar."

"Lucky for some," I muttered as Duncan got to his feet, brushing snow off his jeans as if they weren't completely soaked like my clothes. I became newly aware of the chill, and a tremor shook me.

He strode quickly down the hill but paused, looking back. "Thank you. For sitting with me, for talking about what happened. No one else will speak a single word about her. So… thanks. I don't feel like I'm going insane anymore."

"It's no trouble," I sighed, my annoyance quickly fading. I didn't blame him for wanting to stay as far from Nightmare as possible. She made him kill, too, fucked with his head like she did mine. And Miz's.

"Find Merchant. I didn't tell you this, but he's a hacker."

My heart leapt. I could track the photo, find Virgil. "Thank you."

Duncan shrugged and turned away, but he left me with that lifeline.

I needed to find Justin Merchant.

I pushed off the snowy hill, wincing at my wet leggings and the soaked hem of my coat, but before I could take a step, my phone let out a shrill melody.

"Tor," I breathed, ripping my phone from my pocket. But it wasn't Tor's name on the screen. It was Ford's tenacious student counsellor who refused to leave me alone. I'd already ignored four of her calls.

With a sigh, swallowing my disappointment, I answered the call.