“Yeah, and I’m never doing it again because your head isreallymessed up.”
I laughed. “This is the nicest dream I’ve had in a very long time. If you really are Trey, then why are you kissing me?”
“Because…” his mouth twisted, as though there were things he wanted to say but he couldn’t find the words. He sighed. “I don’t know how much time we have. We need to share what we know. After you jumped out the window, my father grabbed your phone off the table. He took me away to some dark corner of the school. He tried everything to get me to tell him where you were. He even tried to bargain with me. And when that didn’t work, he…” A shudder ran through Trey’s body. “You don’t want to know what he did. But neither Quinn nor I would give them anything, I swear. They didn’t like that. We’re still here at school, but they took away all our privileges – our rooms, our Club membership, our access to the common room, everything.”
“What about Ayaz?” My breath hitched.
Trey didn’t answer. “It’s not important now. Where are you? Did you get to Zehra?”
“No. There was a cave-in. Zehra wasn’t there. She could’ve been caught in it… I waited all night. That’s why I came back.”
Trey shook my shoulders so hard my brain wobbled inside my skull. His eyes blazed. “You never should have come back. But where are you now?”
“I’m in the Dunwich Institute, of course. Because I'm cuckoo bananas.”
Trey swore. “You’ve been right here in Arkham this whole time? Fuck my father.”
“Gross. No, thanks.”
Trey’s cold smile lit up my heart. He drew himself back from the rage that threatened to carry him over the edge, squaring his shoulders and tightening his jaw – that look he always got before he blew everyone away in class. “Agreed. Okay, so you’re at Dunwich. And they haven’t hurt you?”
“Not really. They restrained me after I bit a nurse, but it probably hurt her more. She bled everywhere.” Trey looked aghast, and I laughed. “They just give me lots of drugs. They’re fixing all my broken memories.”
“What broken memories?”
I poked him in the ribs. “Like you. Like Ayaz. He told me we’d never been together, but I have all these feelings…”
“Of course. That makes sense. They can’t hurt you physically because they don’t want to hurt the god, but if they alter your mind, they can control you.” His thumbs dug into my shoulders. “Hang in there, Hazel. We’re getting you out.”
“How do you plan on doing that? You can’t leave the school, unless that’s another of my broken memories.”
“I’ll find a way.”
He said the words with such fierce assurance that I believed him. I believed this dream boy who I’d created in my mind would come and save me. My chest soared with hope I knew I shouldn’t feel.
I shook my head. I couldn’t indulge this. Dr. Peaslee said it wasn’t healthy. “Don’t bother. I’m here because I’m sick. They’re going to make me better. I had all these hallucinations about you, about us, about gods and monsters and rats in the walls—”
“They weren’t hallucinations. They were real.” Trey kissed me again. “What we have is real.”
“Of course you’d say that. You don’t want me to take the drugs and stop hallucinating you—”
“Is this a hallucination?” Trey grabbed my arm and swung me hard against him. His fierce kiss burned through my soul, his lips rough, possessive, burning with unchecked need, with a desperation that pulled me under his spell…
I woke up, my whole body drenched in sweat, the ghost of Trey’s kiss sizzling across my lips.
I replayed the dream in my mind. Trey’s touch had felt incredibly real. Moving slowly, swimming against the tide of drugs sweeping across my mind, I held up my wrist. My fingers trailed over crescent-shaped dents where his nails had dug into my skin.
Real.
But then, dreams always felt real, didn’t they? According to Dr. Peaslee, my whole life since I arrived at Derleth Academy was one weird-ass dream. The drugs they had me on probably made Trey seem more real, more Technicolor.
I rubbed at the crescents. A faint, familiar smell wafted across my nostrils. Spring herbs, wild-blossoms, fragrant cypress wood – light and airy and calming.
Trey’s scent.
I sucked in a breath, letting the taste of him linger on my tongue. Through the high, barred window, the moon traced a path over the cinder-block walls, illuminating the pits and scratches from the other inmates who’d had this room before me.
For the first time, I trulysawthe great deception. I’d fallen right into their trap.
