Second Skin (Skinned) (12 page)

Paige trailed behind us as we moved to the back of the library and the large desks. One of which was occupied by six nerdy guys playing some kind of card game.

Like knights of the round table acknowledging the presence of a lady, they stood as Paige entered their line of vision, gave her bows she didn’t even notice, and then resumed their gameplay.

Oh, lord. Even without makeup, Paige could still slay a few hearts.

“What about the lived-in thing?” I asked Larpane.

She shrugged. “You must be new here if you haven’t heard the town’s founding story.” The desk shook under the weight as we deposited our stacks. “Redgrave is only fifty years old. Harbinger had this idea of building a town on the edge of civilization and creating a unique community of settlers.”

Well, I’d heard part of that story and with a slightly different subtext. “That can’t be. I’ve seen the houses in town. The ones converted into businesses.” Like Conundrum. “They’re old. Hundreds of years old.”

Larpane nodded. “Yes, they are. But I’m telling you the oldest building built here is just fifty. Five-Oh. And that’s City Hall. Anything older was moved here. They aren’t local. Not by a long shot.”

I thought of the mint smell coming from Conundrum’s lower level, the feeling that the house was connected with Wade somehow.

“But what if you wanted to trace the history of some of those places? Aren’t there documents somewhere? Land claims?”

Larpane shook her head. “Not that I know of. The town archives take up a small shelf in City Hall. Records only go back to the day Redgrave became an official town.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “That’d be fifty years ago.”

“Yes, this June. We’re going to have a huge celebration. You girls will enjoy it.” Larpane smiled and left us with our stack of books and the geek leers from the next table.

Exactly seven minutes and twenty-four seconds later, I was done with research. Alec should have sent Brit after all. I slammed a thick book shut and scanned the stacks of others spread out around us.

“Ugh, this is painful,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“That’s because you’re going about it the wrong way,” Paige said, not looking up from her phone’s screen. “I am?”

“Sure.” Paige picked up a book, flipped to the back and began scanning. “You need to check the index first, find the keyword, and then…” She flipped to a page. “You get to the information you want. See?” She spun the book to face me.

Dream demons: The Incubus, succubus, and night mare.

“Wow, I’m impressed,” I said.

Paige shrugged. “When you hate studying as much as I do, you learn the shortcuts real fast.”

I paused, scared I’d spook her moment of clarity away. “So you hate studying, eh?”

Paige frowned. “I do? Then what on earth am I doing in a library?”

Sane moment officially gone.

Her cell phone demanded her attention once more.

“Who are you texting anyway?” I asked, wondering why the phone obsession. It wasn’t like my cousin had any friends at the moment.

“I’m researching for you.” Paige dipped the phone so I could see her Google search.

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”

Confused by my suddenly helpful cousin, I returned to my own research duties. I skimmed the section Paige had found, grimacing at the lore. Not many lived to tell the tale of their encounters with the night mare, and if they did survive, they couldn’t talk. They’d gone stark-raving mad.

Paige shuddered. “Ugh, did you read about this?” She shoved her phone at me. I stared down at the image on the screen. A gothic painting of a demon sitting on a woman’s chest. A demon with red eyes.

The same demon who’d been on my own ribcage that morning, crushing the life out of me.

“It’s called, ‘The Night Mare.’” Paige said. “Is that what you were looking for?”

Well, it was.

But I hadn’t really been looking for it. It had found me.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“It’s like Kate said, the night mare sits on your chest as you sleep, sucking out your energy.” I shifted in my chair. “The more powerful a creature you are, the more the night mare can enter our world, using your own energy to give it form.” I struggled to keep my voice low, but loud enough to be heard over the dull roar of the cafeteria crowd. “The more you fear or want something, at a subconscious level, the more easily the night mare can tap into that and torment you with all your secrets.” I continued to cough up the research Paige and I had uncovered, ignoring the stunned expressions of the rest of the crew.

We were sitting at our usual table in the cafeteria. With Paige.

Makeupless, friendless Paige. And she seemed okay with her sudden change of circumstances from fashion diva to quasi- hunter. The rest of us were still adjusting.

“Tell them the symptoms,” Paige urged. “That’ll get them going.”

I shot her a glare. “Symptoms include”—I listed them on my fingers—“exhaustion, shortness of breath…”

“You know, because it sits on your chest.” Paige put a hand over her heart. “And it’s really, really heavy. So that wouldn’t be very nice.”

Matt turned his face into Brit’s shoulder, but not before his eyes teared up with mirth. Earnest Paige
was
a bit comical.

I continued, “…loss of weight, loss of appetite…”

“So it starves you to death?” Brit said. “Well, that’s a bit drawn out and painful.”

“More than a bit,” I said, enjoying my role of information guru. “Plus it distorts your dream and waking lives. It becomes like you’re in a dream state all the time. You can’t sleep because of the nightmares, but you can’t stay awake because of the wacko stuff you see. The unreal becomes real. Victims slowly waste away, or they go mad. Kill. Be killed.” I gripped my plastic knife and stabbed it into my plate of gravy and ketchup-covered fries. “I really hate demons.” I shot a dark look around the table. “The night mare isn’t the only one we have to worry about.”

Brit all but pounced at me from across the table. “Did something attack you?” She slapped Matt’s shoulder. “I told you I had a bad feeling before lunch, and it had nothing to do with me being hungry.” Her gaze sliced back to mine. “What was it? More of our sand people creeps?”

Alec’s lips pressed together. “If we could tone down the drama? We’re the center of attention—again.”

I glanced around the cafeteria, noticing the way most kids coincidentally turned their faces away.

Brit settled back in her chair with a
harrumph.

Alec leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “From the beginning and be thorough.”

I took a deep breath, struggling to match his calmness, to keep my voice steady as I told them about the demon on my chest, its touch, its weight, and how Kate’s protective bracelets had only kept the night mare from my dreams, but hadn’t prevented it from entering my room, touching me. My voice might have wavered a bit when I got to the part about Marcus and Sammi being possessed by the bounty hunters, because as soon as I forked over the details, Alec slid his hand along the table to rest atop mine. Silenced my fidgeting with the plastic knife.

“And for the nail in the coffin,” I said, “Paige here hasn’t just lost a few key memories. She’s practically been rebooted.” I shifted to face my cousin who was sitting beside me, her blue eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. Well, I had just informed her that her parents had been possessed. Or had I? “Paige, who was I talking about just now? Who are Sammi and Marcus?”

Paige looked confused. “You said they were your aunt and uncle.”

I shot a pointed look at the crew. Their shocked expressions indicated they were getting the full scope of what Kate’s spell had done.

“Right, but who are they to you?” I held my breath, hoping she’d get this one right, that maybe things weren’t as bad as I feared. “I don’t know, Eryn.” Paige ran a trembling hand over her hair, patting down some of her stray frizzes. “They’re your family, not mine.”

“Paige, they’re
your
parents.” I gave her a weak smile. “But don’t worry. You’ve only lost them for a little bit. I promise you’ll get your memories back.”

“Whatever you say, Eryn.” Paige nodded. “Since I met you today, everything you’ve done has been kind of crazy talk. Night mares, demons. It’s giving me a killer headache.” She pressed her fingers to her temples, her brow furrowed.

I turned back to the crew. “Do you see what I mean? She’s forgetting everything about herself.”

Brit’s eyes widened. She awkwardly patted Paige on the shoulder. “There, there, Paige. We’ll get you back, don’t you worry.” The entire table grunted in agreement, but we all knew that meant having the real Paige back, and none of us were looking forward to her return.

Alec cleared his throat. “All right, so we know the night mare has attacked, gained substance from Kate. Her protection spell worked for the rest of us?” He waited until Matt and Brit nodded. “But her magic is slipping. Paige is proof of that. And now the night mare is targeting Eryn.” Alec’s dark eyes held mine. “Any idea why?”

I bit my lip. A heart carved into the tabletop captured my attention, and I traced it with my thumbnail. I
did
have a theory. “Eryn,” Brit said as I hesitated. “If you’ve got something, you have to tell us.”

“It’s like I told you before,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Wolven have vivid dreams. My mom always used to say the expression,
Let sleeping dogs lie
, originated with us. We hunt in our dreams. If you try shaking us awake, you’ll risk losing an arm.” I kept my head down to avoid eye contact. “I think that was why Wade’s mom was able to pull me back in time, to show me how Logan turned Wade all those years ago.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Mentioning Wade tended to do that.

Matt tackled the topic head-on. “So you’ve got superhero dream skills, and the night mare figures if Kate is off the menu, you’re the next best thing?”

I raised my chin. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” And dreading. I fidgeted with the beads on my bracelet, spinning them around and around, listening to the laughter and muted conversations of the kids around us. Our lives were so beyond average teenage angst and high jinks, yet part of me wished I was sitting a different table, living some other life.

I wondered if we all had those kinds of moments. Or was I the only one?

“I did a bit of research in the computer lab,” Brit said. “Not that I didn’t trust you to actually go to the library, Eryn, I just wanted to cover all the bases.”

I laughed, thankful for the break in tension. “I wouldn’t have gotten much if Paige hadn’t helped.” Boy, I never thought I’d say those words.

My cousin sat taller in her seat, a smile on her lips.

“One website mentioned a way to defeat the night mare,” Brit said. “You have to meet it in the dream realm and take it down. If you kill it in its own world, it’s destroyed.”

“Like the theory if you die in a dream, you never wake up. You die for real,” Matt said.

Brit nodded.

Alec raised a brow. “Did the site say
how
to kill the night mare once you’re in?”

Brit shook her head.

Alec got that gloomy look on his face again. I had to spin this in a positive way or he’d insist on keeping close tabs on me. And wear down my resistance at the same time. I was determined to keep my distance, to keep Alec safe.

“If this particular night mare is especially powerful, can it become corporeal in our world? If it can, aren’t we already existing in the same realm?” I said. “Aren’t we sharing the same turf? Right now?” I glanced around the table.

Alec leaned back in his chair. “Maybe. But what if it’s only vulnerable in the dream world?”

“Then we fight it there,” Matt said.

I held up a hand. “You mean
I
fight it there. I’m the one with the super-duper dream chops, remember?”