He frowned. “Why else would she do it?”

“I thought—” hoped… “—maybe it was recreational. Something she could quit, if she wanted to.”

His frown deepened as my point sank in—a little too close to home. “Kaylee, she’s not getting high. She’s surviving. It’s not her fault that food and water aren’t enough to keep her alive.”

“You seriously expect me to believe she doesn’t enjoy it?”

Nash started to answer, then his mouth snapped shut as two freshmen came out of the girls’ restroom, talking about some song one of them had just downloaded. When they were gone, he turned to me again, leaning against the painted cinder-block wall.

“I’m not saying she hates it. I’m just saying she has to do it, whether she likes it or not. Besides, what’s wrong with liking what you eat? Don’t tell me you hate pizza and chips and ice cream…” He did not just compare me to junk food. My temper flared. “I’m not draining someone’s life force every time I have a slice of pepperoni.”

“She’s a predator, Kaylee. She can’t help that, and you can’t change it. She has to eat something.”

“You mean someone,” I snapped, and Nash nodded, unfazed by my blunt phrasing. “But it doesn’t have to be classmates, right? Why can’t she eat bad guys? You know, feed from criminals. She could power up and serve society at the same time.”

Nash laughed, and I gritted my teeth in irritation. He’d taken me seriously before she’d shown up, hadn’t he? “Great idea, Kay. How would you suggest she identify these bad guys?”

“I’m thinking jail would be a good place to start.” She’d probably feel right at home there. “Or Fort Worth gang territories. It can’t be too hard to find someone worth scaring the crap out of, either way.”

Nash’s expression went hard. “I’m not going to tell her to drive downtown by herself in the middle of the night, to look for someone who deserves to be eaten in his sleep! She could get killed.”

“But what about that whole astral projection thing? If she doesn’t have a physical presence, she can’t be hurt, right?”

“What do you want her to do, walk her astral self twenty miles and back? She can’t fly, even when she’s Sleepwalking. Plus, there’s a limit to how far her astral form can wander from her actual body, so she’d still be in physical danger.”

“Nash, she’s a walking Nightmare. She’s probably the scariest thing out there, even in the middle of the night.”

“That doesn’t make her bulletproof!” He ran one hand through his hair and leaned back against the wall, obviously frustrated. “Look, I don’t expect you two to braid eachother’s hair and share lip gloss, but you sound like you’re trying to get her killed!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the wall next to the water fountain. “I don’t want her dead, I swear.” Though I might not object to a light maiming…

But if she poked one more metaphysical finger into my dreams, I’d probably be singing a different tune.

“Good. Because no matter how tough she talks, she’s really not that different from anyone else here.” His wide-armed gesture took in the whole school.

“Yeah. Except for that whole creep-into-your-dreams-and-ruin-your-life angle.”

Nash studied me, like he was weighing some options I didn’t understand. “You know how you got creeped out just from looking at her a couple of times?”

“Like I’m gonna forget.”

“She did that on purpose, because she’s threatened by you. But she used to have no control over it. Until she learned to quit dripping creepy vibes like a leaky faucet, everyone she ever met had the same reaction to her. Her parents left her on the front steps of some big church in Dallas when she was a toddler. She’d creeped out twelve sets of foster parents before she was fourteen. And she’s literally never had a friend, other than me. All because she was born a mara.”

I blinked, confused. “Wait, why would her parents give her up? Weren’t they maras, too?”

Nash shook his head, but didn’t explain until a throng of girls in matching green–and-white letter jackets crossed between us and into the bathroom.

“It’s different for maras than it is for us. They are always born to human families. Every seventh daughter of a seventh daughter is a Nightmare, and so is her life, until she figures out what she is and how to feed herself without driving off the rest of humanity. What do you think your life would have been like without your family? Or Emma?”

I didn’t even want to imagine it. “Fine. I get it. She’s had it rough. But that’s all in the past. She can control herself now, so if she chooses not to, the consequences are all hers.” And those consequences would include whatever happened when she eventually pushed me past my limit.

“I agree,” Nash conceded, pulling his bag higher on his shoulder. “But I’m not going to send her to jail or to inner-city Fort Worth to feed. She doesn’t deserve to get hurt just because you don’t like what she eats.” After another moment’s hesitation, he exhaled and shrugged, like our argument wasn’t worth fighting anymore. “It’s not like she’s hurting anyone. She’d never take too much.”

My inner alarm flared to life inside my head, like a warbling siren. “Too much? What happens if she takes too much?”