5
Dream a Little
Scream of Me
Hudson looks at my palm, and I can all but see a million different thoughts and scenarios running through his head as he tries to figure out how to respond. In the end, he only says, “Just because you haven’t found its power yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe not,” I agree doubtfully. “But I’m pretty sure I would feel something if I had a new power.”
“Just like you knew you were a gargoyle when you first arrived at Katmere?” he asks with a raised brow.
The question makes my stomach hurt, so I shove it—and any potential answers—down as deep as I can manage. It’s far from the best solution, but until the Unkillable Beast decides to wake up and answer some questions for me, I’m pretty much stuck. No use freaking out for the next several hours if I can avoid it. Especially not when I really, really need to sleep.
“We’ve got time to worry about the Crown later,” Hudson says. He loosens his arms around my waist and turns me toward his large bed that looks like heaven to my tired eyes. Hudson presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Why don’t you crawl in?”
I’m too exhausted to do much more than follow his suggestion and climb into the bed, pulling the sheet and comforter over me as he heads toward the bathroom. Almost immediately, I find my eyes closing despite my determination to wait for Hudson. It only takes a minute before I’m drifting in a kind of fog, pictures of the battle we’ve all lived through flashing in my head in what feels like a never-ending montage of half memories and half dreams.
I shift as images of Luca dying mix with memories of being trapped in prison. Blood from Flint’s leg covering my hands, Remy’s swirling silver eyes telling me he’ll see me again soon. I twist around, trying to figure out where I am. My heart is racing. Am I still in prison? Did I dream we got free, that we saved the Unkillable Beast—no, a gargoyle, my groggy mind reminds me.
Worried, Grace. So worried.
The older gargoyle’s voice slides into my mind, slipping between the images that are still flashing in my brain. I slog through my consciousness, but each second pulls me further under, like I’m stuck in quicksand.
No time, no time. His voice is more frantic than ever, punching through the fog. And then more clearly than he’s ever spoken to me, like he’s concentrating on every word: Wake up, Grace! We’re almost out of time!
6
Snap, Crackle,
and Pop-Tart
The command in his voice has me shooting upward in bed.
My heart is beating fast, my blood roaring in my ears, and it almost feels like I’m waking up in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. Except my brain is clear, and the adrenaline coursing through my body has everything to do with urgency and nothing to do with fear.
I glance at Hudson, but for once, he’s actually asleep. His breathing is even, the faint bruises on his cheek a stark reminder of everything he’s been through the last couple of days. Most of the marks from his fights in the prison have faded already, but it’s going to take more than just blood to erase the exhaustion under his eyes. I reach out, trace a tender, trembling finger along his cheek. His eyes flutter for a moment, and I’m afraid I’ve woken him. But then he rolls over with a sigh and falls straight back to sleep.
Too bad I’m not going to be able to do the same.
A quick glance at my phone tells me that I’ve been asleep a little more than seven hours—which means I’ve got a handful of hours left before morning. As I roll out of bed, the sun is beginning to peek over the top of Denali. It’s the middle of the night, but in Alaska in spring, sunrise comes at four a.m.
Shades of red and dark purple paint the sky and mountains visible through the half windows in Hudson’s room. It’s beautiful, no doubt, but the shadow of what looks to be an approaching storm also feels ominous as fuck. Like the sky is bleeding onto the mountains, washing the whole world in blood and regret and fear.
Then again, that could just be me transferring my own feelings. God knows, it feels like my whole world is washed in blood right now.
I think about going back to bed, trying to get some more sleep. But that ship has sailed. And since I have no desire to put my dirty clothes back on, I need to get to my room and grab an extra change before we leave.
My stomach shimmies as I head up the stairs and into Katmere’s battered main halls, remembering the first time I walked through this school, wandering these halls because my whole life had changed in the blink of an eye and I couldn’t sleep.
It feels like I’m on the edge of another precipice, one that’s crumbling a little more with each step I take. So much has changed since that first night—my gargoyle, Hudson, Jaxon, even Katmere itself—and yet it feels like some things haven’t changed at all.
Like the chances that a couple of homicidal wolves show up and want to toss me in the snow again really aren’t that low.
Telling myself I’m being ridiculous—Cyrus is unlikely to send the wolves after us now that he’s got the students—I nevertheless take the stairs two at a time on my way up to my room. If the enemy is somehow going to invade, I’d at least like to be wearing pants when I face them.
Macy’s sound asleep when I get to our room, so I creep in as quietly as I can. I use my phone light to see, once again cursing the fact that, gargoyle or not, I don’t have eyes like the vamps and wolves and can’t see in the dark.
I keep my light pointed down—showing just enough that I don’t trip and land on Macy’s sleeping form by accident—as I head to my closet.
I grab my black Katmere backpack and stuff it with a few things I’ll need if I’m staying in Hudson’s room. A pair of jeans and an extra T-shirt, some underwear, my toiletry bag, a handful of elastic hair bands, and—surprise, surprise—a box of cherry Pop-Tarts. If I’ve learned nothing from the last seven months of hanging out with vampires in unpredictable times, it’s that if I want to make sure I don’t starve, I should always pack a snack.
Once I’ve shoved it all inside the bag, I throw on a hoodie as well before plopping down on the floor and pulling on socks and my favorite pair of boots.
I get back up and take one last glance around the room to make sure I’m not forgetting anything important, then remember two things I would never want to leave without. I creep over to my jewelry box on my dresser, tilt the lid open, and grab the diamond Hudson gave me as well as the necklace from Jaxon. I shove both treasured items into the front zipper pouch as well as a tube of pink lip balm Macy gave me and sling the backpack over my shoulder before tiptoeing toward the door.