Page 90 of The Whispering Night
Winnie has never believed that story because—gastric acids that should kill you aside—why on earth would being inside a nightmare’s stomach mutate someone into a half nightmare? And shouldn’t the consumed hunter have been transported away with the dawn mist too?
Of course, whether or not the Korean hunter actually mutated is moot. Winnie can appreciate the moral of the story: if you can’t kill a nightmare, then run the heck away. She thinks of that moral as she and Erica creep through the pump room. As the plumbing and heaters gurgle like a digestive tract ready to suck them down.
Kill or flee.
Winnie has already killed once. Would she do it again?
She has no idea what time it is outside. Midnight, dawn—it doesn’t really matter. Jenna’s secret corner was a time capsule; now Winnie and Erica are the contents ejected into a new age.
They reach the hot room without incident. Another small hatch leads them into a corner of the maze Winnie doesn’t recognize. Then again, without the steam or any light, everything looks different. Feels different.Breathesdifferent. There is only Erica’s phone beaming around to guide them, and Winnie feels like she’s trapped in a horror film. The kind wherea monster will jump out from any one of these bleak, concrete corners filled with shadows.
Except right now, Winnie would rather face actual monsters because at least she understands nightmares. But Tuesdays? Jeremiah? They’re incomprehensible.
She would also rather face nightmares than the thoughts this maze stirs inside her. She imagines she can smell bergamot and lime. She imagines Jay holding her while water sluices off them.
What happens if I change while other people are around, Win? Then what? What do Ido?
You die.
He’s not dead though, because Winnie won’t let him be.
The gurgles of the hot room are gone now. The swamp serpent has vanished, and soon Winnie and Erica are just two hunters trying to navigate back into life. The mist can’t have them. The scorpions can’t either. And they will not emerge from here mutated into nightmares.
The air gets colder, sharper as they continue onward with Winnie in the lead. She thinks she hears footsteps. She definitely hears voices, which means the exit must be near. Erica snaps off her flashlight; Winnie tows her close, close, close enough to hug. “Guards, probably,” she whispers. “Cast the spell, and we can sneak by.”
Winnie feels Erica nod, but doesn’t see it. They are once more in darkness, and although the rods in Winnie’s eyes grapple and claw to find photons, so far they are coming up empty. Then she feels more thanhearsas Erica offers the words of her spell.
Static skates over Winnie, plucking at her arm hairs all over again.
And her locket, she notes, heats up. Not a scalding, violent heat, but a noticeable warmth against the spring bite nipping around them.
Winnie’s glad she’s still holding Erica, because now that they are enmeshed by this spell, she can’t evenlookin Erica’s direction. It’s like her brain won’t let her. Every time she tries to find her friend, her eyes get shoved aside by magnets.
Winnie sinks back into her creeping stance. She tugs Erica onward. And photons do gradually sift into her pupils. In minutes or maybe only seconds, she has hauled Erica to the stairs out of the hot room. Two daysago, she met an ambush at the bottom of these steps; now she hopes to avoid one at the top.
There are no voices, but there is a gravity ahead, a sense of movement and weight that signifies people. How many, Winnie can’t guess. She just hopes she and Erica are quiet enough not to alert them.
She shouldn’t have worried. It’s only two scorpions framing the door in the dead of night. They are fully armored with their faces masked and guns in hand. Large, terrifying guns that Winnie knows nothing about because hunters only use firearms as a last resort—they’re too loud. Too violent, even for the nightmares of the forest.
Kill or flee,she thinks again.
The two soldiers are relaxed but ready, both staring out over the surrounding forest filled with shadows. They aren’t expecting their targets to creep past them with magic—which is silly, now that Winnie ponders it. Jeremiah believes Winnie is a Diana, so wouldn’t heexpectspells and sources and power?
Maybe that’s why the scorpions have guns.She doesn’t know why she is disturbed by this thought. She doesn’t know why she has a sudden urge to cry.Kill or flee. Kill or flee.
Winnie releases Erica, trusting her friend to know thatstraight aheadis the best option for them until they are far enough from these scorpions to pick up the pace and run pell-mell for the Saturday estate.
Winnie creeps forward, feeling as clumsy as a pounding droll. Loud as a slathering hellion. The scorpions definitely hear her. They both shift their weight and lookexactlywhere Winnie is. She dares not slow, though. Dares not see if their eyes skate off her like hers did with Erica. She moves faster, each footstep an overloud drumbeat.
And that is when it happens. That is when the spell fails them.Thatis when Winnie sees her own body suddenly burst into the night, and the two scorpions see her too. One barks out, more sound than word—but the meaning is clear:There she is!And the other scorpion instantly snaps up their gun. Menacing, massive,wrong.
Kill or flee. Kill or flee.
Kill,Erica decides, and now Winnie sees her friend is not behind her at all but standing in the doorway where the scorpions haven’t noticed heryet. Horror blanches her skin as mist coils from her abdomen like tentacles on a squid. Then two arrows form and rocket outward. A smell like burning plastic cuts into Winnie’s nose.
Her locket scalds instantly.
One arrow hits the guard on the right. They scream, dropping to their knees. The second hits the other guard, the one with their gun aimed and ready. The scorpion pulls the trigger, but not before thesagitta aureastabs through.
