I hesitated. Long enough for two more bites. “Maybe.” But I just wasn’t sure I had any more chances for Nash left in me.

I’M AT MY DESK with my laptop open, scouring the internet for a good price on a spray can of mara repellent, when the room suddenly feels wrong at my back. I don’t turn. I don’t even look up, because I know neither one will help. For several long seconds, we both pretend I don’t know he’s there. That the back of my neck isn’t prickling with fear.

Finally he says my name and I can’t ignore him. I slowly close my laptop and swivel in my rolling desk chair to confront the impossible.

“You can’t be here.” Yet me knowing that hasn’t prevented it from happening.

“Surprise,” Avari says, and he sounds truly thrilled. Somehow he’s managed to cross into the human world in his own body, and as far as I’m concerned, he brought hell with him.

The hellion looks different than I remember him, but that’s no surprise. Hellions can look like whatever they want, with one exception: they cannot replicate the exact form of any other living or deceased being. There will always be some small difference—finding that difference is the key.

At least, that used to be the rule. But if he can cross over now, do any of the other rules still apply?

Avari is now shorter than I remember him, with lighter hair. But he hasn’t bothered to change his voice, and his eyes are still the featureless ebony orbs I can’t forget—spheres of chaos and infinity. Madness at a glance.

“Get out.” It’s all my overwhelmed brain can come up with while the rest of me fights the waves of fear and despair emanating from him like radiation from ground zero.

“Not until I have what I want.”

I don’t ask, because I know what he wants: me. But I don’t know why, and he’s never felt inclined to explain. Hellions can be bargained with—I’ve seen that firsthand—but they never give information for free, and I’m not willing to pay.

“So how does this work?”

He takes a step toward me, and I stand, my heart beating frantically. I want to retreat, but there’s nowhere to go. My desk is already cutting into my spine. “I grab you, then I drag you kicking and screaming into the Nether, where I’ll take good care of you—until the next new toy comes along.”

“And how are you planning to keep me there?” I’m impressed by my own nerve. I was stalling—for what? The cavalry? A brilliant idea?—but also digging for important information.

“Oh, after a couple of hours with me, you won’t have the strength to cross over. You won’t sleep and you won’t eat until I’ve broken your mind as well as your body, and after that… Well, it simply won’t matter what happens to you after that. You’ll never know the difference.”

“You won’t break me.” I sound much more sure than I really am. I have this strange calm now. It almost feels like acceptance. I can’t fight him, and I won’t scream for help and doom my would-be hero. And that means he’s won, before the fight even begins. So what’s the point in fighting?

Then he’s in front of me, and his hands have become wicked claws. He grabs my arm and his claws sink through my wrist, and suddenly I remember the point in fighting.

Pain, the moment he touches me, and not just where he rips through my flesh. I double over, struggling to breathe through an agony like electricity being run through me. He is the lightning and I am the rod, and the strike never ends.

Pain everywhere. I smell my skin cooking, hear my hair crackle as the follicles pop from the heat. In the mirror, I see no change, but I feel every single bit of it, like life is fire and I am the fuel, forever burning but never quite consumed. He can make me hurt in every cell of my body with a single touch. He will do this for eternity, if I go with him.

And he hasn’t even started on my mind yet.

NO! I’m screaming now, the magic word. They teach us in preschool. If something bad happens, shout NO! and parents will come running. If a stranger touches you, shout NO! and the police will take him away. You can always shout NO! and there will always be someone there to protect you.

But that’s a lie. No one comes. NO! is a lie, and safety is a lie, and the only truths are pain and forever, and pain is everywhere, and forever has already begun.

He pulls my arm, and the pain doubles, though that shouldn’t be possible, because how can you double infinity? I fall to the ground, because I can no longer stand. I can no longer think. I can only feel, and hurt, and scream, and know that it will never end. And that my grand delusions of resistance are like wielding a breath of air against a brick wall. There is nothing I can do. Giving in will not stop the pain. Begging will not stop the pain. In the end, even dying will not stop the pain.

And as my world fades beneath a swirl of gray fog, I know that I am lost, and that I will never, ever be found….

IT WAS STILL DARK when I opened my eyes, and the only sound I could hear was my own breathing, too hard and too fast. Still panicked from the nightmare. I stared up at the ceiling without seeing it, more afraid of the understanding now burrowing its way into my head than the dream I’d just escaped.

It wasn’t Sabine. My nightmare about Avari didn’t feel like her work—which I was definitely starting to recognize. It wasn’t personal enough. There was no angst and no self-doubt, the primary colors of her dream palette.

This dream felt like…Avari. Like the hellion was playing with my mind, messing with my very psyche. But that was impossible, right? Hellions couldn’t give people nightmares. Could they?