Chapter 41

Honey didn't speak. I didn't speak. We walked in tense, forced calm out of my room, down the stairs, and across the park to the stretch of woods behind the laboratory building. Nightmare gave no further instructions, but we knew where to find her without being given a location. Could she find us, too, no matter how far away we were? The thought made me ice cold.

I wanted to grasp Honey's hand but I didn't dare move, didn't want to know if I could move or if I was a captive puppet who couldn't even blink without Nightmare's approval. I'd rather hold onto that tiny illusion of freedom and ignore the reality that I was a puppet.

"Don't dawdle," Nightmare chided when we reached her, like we were wayward children. The tree cover sheltered us from sight, but the closeness of campus made my skin itch. Would someone see us and come to our rescue? Or would Alastor see, and take it as evidence that I was Nightmare's disciple? That Honey was too? I wasn't na?ve enough to think things couldn't get worse. I knew they could, and would, and that made it impossible to breathe.

"I've got something I need you to clean up," Nightmare told us, looking unnaturally beautiful as always, her deep red hair a sleek waterfall and her face both stunning and horrific, especially when she smiled like she did now. "It shouldn't take you too long."

She swept a tanned, long-fingernailed hand at the ground, and it was only when I stared at the spot that I realised it wasn't a shadow made by the trees overhead but a long black holdall.

"What's inside?" Honey breathed, her voice so faint I barely recognised it. She gripped my hand so tightly it hurt, but I didn't let go of her.

"Just a block of hay, my terror," Nightmare replied, the fondness in her voice terrifying. Goosebumps formed on the back of my neck and flooded down my spine. "All I need you to do is move it through the woods, in secret, and put it where no one will ever find it."

"Where?" I whispered, both relieved that my mouth moved and petrified when Nightmare's mismatched eyes fell on me. I dropped my gaze, a horrible pain stabbing my frontal lobe.

"The lake," she said, her feet not touching the ground as she drifted towards us. One hand came up to cup my cheek, ignoring my flinch, and one stroked Honey's face. "That's all you need to do. Just take this bag of hay and put it in the lake. You can do that for me, can't you, my terrors?"

My mouth went dry, my knees knocking together. I imagined Death was here with me, his presence at my back supportive and furious at once. And Tor beside me, holding my hand fiercely while he told Nightmare exactly how he was going to torture her for scaring me. And Miz, who burned hotter and stronger than anyone else, who knew pain so intimately he could inflict it on others with expert care.

I wondered if he'd learned that pain from her. And I said, "No."

Nightmare laughed like I was hilarious, her head thrown back, her tinkling laugh grating my ears and heart alike. I flinched, but this time my body didn't move. I was frozen in place.

"Say that again," she dared, her laughter cutting off so abruptly it was like a switch flipped. "Tell me no again, Cat."

My eyes—the only part of me I still controlled—darted from her to the bag of hay, and I didn't know what mind games she was playing, why she was so insistent we do this, but I knew it was designed for maximum impact. Maximum trauma. Like everything she did.

I tried to curl my hands into fists, but pain exploded in my skull at the defiance, worse than the sudden flare from before. This stabbed far deeper and gouged a space inside my brain until I gasped.

I gasped.

Knowing it was going to hurt, I prised my lips apart, and said through a guttural snarl of pain, "No."

It hurt so badly my knees buckled and I wished my husbands were here. I wanted them to sweep me into their arms, to surround me with safety and affection and care. But there was only me, Honey, and Nightmare here. Something kept them busy elsewhere, and I didn't doubt that was by design. Her design.

"No?" Nightmare gave me that look again—like I was amusing and adorable, like a kitten trying and failing to climb a staircase. "I hope you don't think it was a request, Cat. Pick up the bag, both of you, carry it to the lake without being seen, and throw it into the water." Her voice hardened, and my next gasp of pain sent me to my knees on the hard ground. "Now."

Her words rocked through my head like the aftermath of an explosion, and I bit back a whimper when Honey knelt beside me—not to check if I was okay but because she was bound as tightly by Nightmare's order as I was. Her hands went to the black holdall but her eyes found mine, watery and full of pain.

We'll be okay, I silently conveyed. We'll be okay, I promise.

We just had to do what Nightmare wanted and the command would release, and we'd be free. Just like the day in the clearing, where—where I killed Darya.

Tears burned my eyes and acid razed through my stomach, but I didn't have enough control over my body to vomit so it stayed in my stomach, my throat, my mouth. I was glad I hadn't eaten a meal in hours.

My hands found the rough canvas of the black bag, and I gritted my teeth. Fighting. Failing.

Sweat beaded on my head. A scream scratched at the inside of my skull, but my fingers wrapped around the handle and slowly, against my will, I stood.

"Good," Nightmare praised, almost sweet now, nothing menacing remaining in her voice. I couldn't even shudder. "Now, take it to the lake."

All we had to do was carry a bag of hay to the lake. That was all. It was only hay—we'd seen it. And the lake wasn't far. We'd be fine.

We had to be fine.