Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

“You’re wearing my dress.”

My heart hammers. This dress was made for Miss Aimes, but we can make her another.

“Uh,” I stammer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

She shrugs and adjusts her lipstick in the mirror. She’s wearing a black dress instead, something that hugs her curves. She didn’t need this red dress. She’s perfect in anything she wears. I can see that much.

“I’m Ashley,” she tells me, and she smiles in the mirror. “And I hate these things too. I can help you, you know.”

“You can?”

She nods.

“Let’s get out of here. I’ll show you where I hide during these horrid things.”

Her smile is one of camaraderie, and any port in a storm.

I follow her right out of the ballroom, and I feel Dare’s eyes on us as we go.

When we’re in the driveway, she turns to me.

“Maybe you should’ve brought a wrap. You might get cold.”

But she puts the top down on her car anyway, and the breeze is cold as we speed through the night, away from Whitley.

“Where are we going?” I finally ask her, relieved to be so far away.

She glances at me.

“Someplace you should see. If you think you want to be with Dare, you should know all about him.”

There’s something in her voice now, something rigid, and I startle, because maybe I shouldn’t have chosen this port.

She turns down a dark road, a quiet lane, and then we pull to a stop in front of an old, crumbling building.

“Come on,” she calls over her shoulder, traipsing up the steps in her black high heels. I feel clumsy as I follow, and she doesn’t slow down. The sign by the door says Oakdale Sanitarium and I freeze.

“What is this place?” I whisper as she opens the door.

“You’ll have to see it to believe it,” she murmurs.

In front of us, a long hallway yawns farther than I can see, the walls crumbling with age, the lights dim when she flips a switch.

There’s no one here, but I can hear moans, screams, whimpers.

“I don’t understand,” I feel like whimpering myself. Ashley rolls her eyes.

“Do you really think someone like Dare is without baggage? Grow up, little girl.”

She pushes open the doors as we pass, and they’re all empty, every single one.

But I feel presences here,

Ugliness.

When we’re almost at the end of the hall, Ashley turns to me, her gaze ugly now and I should’ve known.

“His mother was here for years,” she tells me, like she’s confiding a secret. “After what Dare did, it’s no wonder.”