Page 71 of Little Nightmare

I pried her hands free and went to my side of the bed. I lay down facing away from her and stared at the wall, and for the first time in a very long time, rather than get angry—I let myself feel the sadness wrap around me like a choking blanket and tortured myself to sleep.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord, my soul to take.

Though it deserves less.

Take it anyway.

And give her more than I can.

22

RAVEN

The one with the homework.

Things went from spinning out of control to almost feeling like normal. It had been two months since the appointment, and Ace had been incredible. I stared at the professor as he droned on and on about international business and stole a glance at Ace standing in the corner of the room, AirPods in. He never overstepped, he never engaged, though it was as if that night when I asked him to stay he’d finally made is choice and it wasn’t me.

He’d drawn a very blatant line in the sand.

I would reach for him, and he would gently pull away.

I would playfully shove him, and he’d give me a polite smile and keep his distance. He was suddenly the opposite of Louis. He was doing his duty perfectly as both my husband and my bodyguard, and part of me knew it was right, he was doing the right thing, the mature thing.

But most days, I wanted him to throw caution to the wind and just do something, anything.

I mean he never even got angry anymore.

I used to be terrified of him and also want to set him on fire.

Now I found myself saying thank you more than I’d like and getting annoyed when he didn’t give me shit about how much I talked.

Every morning, my vitamins were on my nightstand with a glass of water. The fresh smell of decaf always filled the house, and the guy even grocery shopped. I started feeling weird drinking milk, so he bought not just oat milk, but hemp, coconut, and almond and told me to let him know which one I liked the best.

I said all of them just to be extra.

He continued to buy all of them.

The only time he left my side was when he sparred with Ivan and went grocery shopping as an excuse to listen to his new podcast obsession.

Oh yeah, he was into podcasts now.

True Crime.

He said the only reason he listened to them was to correct where the murderers went wrong, almost like he was a teacher with a chip on his shoulder and an aggressively large red pen.

It was alarming how eager he was to use that pen. In fact, it was becoming an obsession or at least it felt like it. He always had his AirPods on and said it was True Crime he was listening to, and I always gave him a stare likeyou do realize who you are and what you do for a living, yeah?

I didn’t want to be that person, but he was making me that person—in fact, making me crazy because other than his duties—he was ignoring me.

I never thought I’d actually think it, but Ace was a great roommate except I craved more. And I knew I shouldn’t, given the fact that I was carrying another man’s child and that on more than one occasion Ace had caught me crying.

I was convinced if it was Louis, not Ace, things would be easier, but I was starting to question my memory of him. He was great, but things had been so new, and he’d given me attention and distracted me from the very real threat of being Dante Alfero’s daughter, but the more I tried to remember why I’d loved Louis so much, the more my brain and heart reminded me why I was so thankful I had Ace.

It made me almost resent Ace in moments, though, for making everything so easy, for making liking him suddenly like breathing, for being cute with his stupid podcasts even though it made me jealous every time I saw those stupid AirPods.

“That’s it for today, please have your papers turned in to the portal by midnight tonight if you haven’t already.” Professor Alino checked his watch. “Dismissed.”

---