It's blood. I can smell that it's blood, but he's not hurt. He was doing something to those bad people, I realize. That's what he came here for.
In my head, I send a prayer of thanks to the gods for him.
"Someone had an awfully messy bloody nose," the boy tells me, putting a metal lighter away in his jacket pocket.
"You're lying."
"Yes, I am."
"Are the other kids okay?" I ask, worried.
"Their ride home will be here soon." Before he's done talking, I hear sirens somewhere nearby. He looks at me, his voice kind even though he's covered in other people's blood. "Do you know where your family lives, Heidi? Could you give me directions?"
The only time I leave my room at the top of the big Frost house is for doctor's appointments for my face. I don't know where it is, so I use the only thing I know.
"D—do you know where Alaric's house is?"
The boy goes still. "Alaric Frost?"
My mom told me it's against the rules to talk about where I'm from or what legacy family I'm in, so I quickly say, "I just live at his house. I'm not a Frost."
The boy's attention moves to the birthmark on my face for the first time, as if he's finally understanding something about it. He says a few very bad words with my family's names.
"Now who's lying? So, you're Frost's little sister. He must not know you're here."
I shake my head. "Everett doesn't know."
The boy leans down to meet my eye better. "This is important. If anyone ever tries to take you away from that place ever again, ignore your damned mother and don't trust those other Frosts, either. Run to your brother first. He's a muppet, but he'll keep you safe. Got it?"
I nod before a sudden wave of horror makes more puke try to come up. I push it down. I don't want to face these feelings ever again or remember any of this, but I know I will.
"That bad man lied to my mom to take me," I whisper. "He said…he said those bad people wanted legacies like me. But I don't like being a legacy. I don't want to be one anymore."
“Don't be, then. Be whatever you like and fuck what anyone else has to say about it."
That dark, dreamy memory ends, but I don't wake up. Instead, I find myself sitting completely naked on the same stained, frayed couch again in that dark, smelly cabin.
I'm not a kid anymore. I'm my own age, but a new unease creeps over my skin—a feeling like someone is watching, their gaze slinking across all my bare skin.
This dream feels exactly like the tendriled, dark, sickening dreams I used to have in the Nether.
When I try to wake up, I can't.
"Sibin esthu,”Veld’s voice echoes in this dream. "Thae,tam breachra."
I wrap my arms around my vulnerable body, disturbed to be in this place again, even in a dream. I stand off the couch and try harder to wake up.
When nothing happens, no matter how hard I struggle, alarm and panic set in. I turn in a circle in the nightmarish, dim cabin living room, looking for the door that will let me outside.
It's not here, though. There are no windows, either. It's getting even darker in here as shadows stretch across the room. The TV flickers to life in front of me, but instead of the cartoon I remember,I'mon the screen. It's me watching myself, naked and terrified and confused in between all the static.
"Mihi toilethas a'than volutlathem,"that same voice chuckles softly.
Those same empty, nauseating emotions curl around me.
Oh, my gods.
The incubus is in my head. He’s in this dream, tormenting me.
