Page 40 of Pretty Nightmare

“I just said it was me, Nathan. What the fuck do you want?”

“Is Adam still there?”

I don’t have it on speaker, but it doesn’t matter.

“Yeah, I’m fucking here. Where the hell are you?”

“Nathan.” I turn my back to Adam. “Where are you?”

There’s traffic noises on the other end of the line. I can hear him breathing. People talking loud. Like he’s in a city.

“Nathan!”

But he just hangs up.

Adam snatches the phone, presses call back, and puts it on speaker.

But it just rings, and rings, and rings.

PART TWO - BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Here’s the short reprieve.

The calm before the storm.

The stay of execution.

One final deep breath before you go under.

Better take a big one.

Because you’re going deep.

CHAPTER EIGHT - McKAY

FOUR YEARS AGO

OLD HOME

INDIE’S TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY

I just stand there looking at the scene before my eyes.

What. Is. Happening?

Nathan’s face is so fucked up from Indie’s attack, for a moment I wonder if that’s how he dies today. Choking on his own blood.

My head is spinning with confusion because I’m wearing jeans and I’m pretty sure I was naked just a second ago. Donovan is yelling at Adam as Adam struggles to pull on his own pair of jeans under the pavilion. “Take her now! Now, Adam! Now!”

I don’t even know what Donovan’s talking about. But he’s squeezing my shoulder hard with one hand while the other desperately tries to hold on to Indie.

She is wild. Her eyes have the look of crazy in them as she pulls away from Donovan and rushes back over to Nathan, lying on the ground, face up, his normally blond hair stained scarlet and a long gash in the side of his head that is leaking blood. It pools under him, shining an almost surreal candy-apple color as he coughs and tries to roll on his side.

Indie doesn’t allow it. She kicks him in the ribs over and over. And then the face and I swear I hear a snap or a crunch. And I look away.

When I look back, Nathan’s body is just still. He’s not moaning or trying to roll over anymore. He’s just… blood.

Donovan lets go of me and scrambles to catch Indie again. He locks her in a bear hug and drags her backwards, towards the house, as she writhes, and screams, and kicks her feet.