Nightmare (Joker Night #1), page 1
Copyright © 2022 by Bethany Winters
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Ria O’Donnell at Graphic Escapist
Edited by Zainab M. At Heart Full of Reads Editing Services
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Blurb
Playlist
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Acknowledgments
Also by Bethany Winters
About the Author
BLURB
VIOLET
He’s spent the last seven months in prison for assaulting the guy who hit on me.
I’ve spent the last seven months wishing I could forget about him.
I ignored my parents and friends when they told me he was bad for me. I loved him in spite of his crazy. Maybe even because of it.
But when the cops dragged him away that night, I decided I needed to do whatever it takes to get over him. I ignored his calls, refused to visit him and pretended he didn’t exist. I froze him out, hoping that would be enough to get him to leave me alone.
It wasn’t enough.
ATTICUS
She’s all I’ve thought about for months. The entire time I was locked up, I was out of my mind thinking about her alone out here without my protection. Not being able to see or speak to her almost killed me, but I survived. Barely.
She thinks ignoring me will get me to disappear, but she should know me better than that.
It’s Joker Night—my first night of freedom—and I plan on making her pay for what she did. Right before I do whatever it takes to remind her how much she loves me.
Living a life with me won’t be easy. I know this. But living one without me just isn’t in the cards for her.
I’m taking my girl back and keeping her this time.
This is a 21,000 word novella with themes some readers might find offensive. It is book 1 of the Joker Night series but can be read as a complete standalone.
PLAYLIST
Fire Up The Night by New Medicine
1x1 by Bring Me The Horizon & Nova Twins
Sick & Tired by Iann Dior, Machine Gun Kelly & Travis Barker
Popular Monster by Falling In Reverse
forget me too by Machine Gun Kelly & Halsey
Play with Fire by Sam Tinnesz & Yacht Money
deathwish by Stand Atlantic & nothing,nowhere.
NIGHTMARE! by Slush Puppy
Parasite Eve by Bring Me The Horizon
E-Girls Are Ruining My Life by Corpse
Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon
Gangsta by Kehlani
Centuries by Fall Out Boy
Listen on Amazon Music & Spotify
“Therapist: You saw the red flags though, right?
Me: I thought it was a carnival.”
- Unknown
For Keiron <3
CHAPTER 1
ATTICUS
I’m going to kill her.
I mean, I won’t actually kill her, because I’m not the type of crazy who likes to fuck dead girls, but I’ll still wrap my hand around her little throat and squeeze until she admits she belongs to me.
It’s been seven months, for fuck’s sake.
For seven months, she wouldn’t take my calls, reply to my letters, or come visit me. I was in prison, and she was out here doing fuck knows what. Without me.
Does she not know how crazy that made me? How I paced my cell every day and night and tore my fucking hair out, wondering who she was with and what she was doing while I was locked up in there?
Of course she fucking knows.
She knows me better than anyone.
Maybe that’s why she left me.
Fuck that. It’s definitely why she left me. But too bad for her; I don’t give a shit whether she never wants to see my face again or not. I’m out now, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make her mine again.
“Where to?” the cab driver at the train station asks, meeting my eyes in the rearview.
I give him the address and tip my chin at his center console. “Can I use your phone?”
“Something wrong with yours?” he asks, passing it back as he pulls away.
“I lost it,” I tell him as I dial the number I memorized, pressing it to my ear once I hit the call button.
Technically, that’s not a lie. I did lose it, along with my freedom the night I beat the shit out of Violet’s study partner and set his dorm room on fire.
Fucking prick.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Atticus? What are you—” He stops talking, probably looking at his phone to check the number on the screen. “Wait, whose phone is this?”
“My cab driver’s.”
“You’re in a cab?” He sounds baffled. “Dude, please tell me you didn’t just break outta jail.”
“I didn’t just break outta jail,” I say just to placate him, giving the driver my best smile when his eyes widen. “They let me out four hours ago.”
“What? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that? I could have been there to pick you up.”
“Because you would have told her I’m coming.”
A short pause, and then he sighs, not even bothering to deny it.
I know he loves me like a brother, but he loves her like a sister and he’s never tried to hide the fact that he thinks she’s better off without me. He’s a fucker for it, but I can’t say I blame him. I’d probably tell her that too, if I was a better person.
“I take it you need a place to stay?”
I grin at that, shaking my head even though he can’t see me.
I lived with Violet in an apartment off campus before I was locked up, and it’s kind of cute that he thinks I want to live with him now. Like I won’t be back in my own bed by Monday morning.
“I’m in Black Ridge, Phoenix. I’m going home.”
“Atticus…” he warns, hesitating a moment before he decides to risk his life. “She’s moved on. She doesn’t want you anymore and you need to d—”
“If you tell me I need to deal with it one more time, I’ll cut your tongue out and feed it to your mother.”
“Jesus,” he hisses, just as the cab driver looks up and makes a face at me. “The fuck, man?”
“Are you coming or not?” I mutter, feigning disinterest, but I’m secretly hoping he will.
Maybe just a little bit.
I don’t need him or anything. I can get my girl back all by myself. But Joker Night has always been our thing—his, mine, Violet’s, my twin sister’s, and our two other best friends’—and it’ll be way more fun if we’re all there together.
“Yeah,” he finally answers. “I’m coming.”
CHAPTER 2
VIOLET
“Are you sure you wanna go tonight?” Andie asks, coming up behind me and wrapping her arms around my waist, dropping her chin on my shoulder.
I frown and look at her in the bathroom mirror above the sink. “Why wouldn’t I wanna go?”
She doesn’t respond because we both know the reason.
It won’t be the same without him.
Every year on Founders’ Day, we come home from college, go to the parade and smile for our parents like the good Founding Family children we are, and then we get ready for what we call Joker Night—the night me and my five best friends made up when we were badass high school freshmen, where we all wear Joker paint on our faces, get fucked up in the woods of our hometown, and let the other partygoers search for the Joker card we’ve hidden. Whoever finds it gets to ask one of us for a favor—one we can’t say no to—but no one’s ever found it, and hopefully they never will. I’m pretty sure some people think the card is just a myth by this point, whereas others take it super seriously and search all night.
We all know it’s a stupid, childish tradition, but it’s our tradition and we like it.
But it won’t be the same.
I blink at myself, then clear my throat and look down at my chest. The old chain I’m wearing is long, the black, chunky cross pendant hidden between my breasts, but it still feels like a choker most of the time.
Andie’s arms tighten around me, and I resist pulling the necklace out to run my fingers over it.
Don’t think about him.
“Want me to finish that for you?” she asks, tipping her chin down at the paint on the counter.
I smile and turn around to let her do my face, trying and failing to listen as she talks to me about whatever drama her mom’s cooked up lately. I barely hear a word she’s saying, and I sure as shit can’t stop thinking about him.
Atticus Lee—the boy who stole my heart six years ago and refuses to give it back.
He’s toxic. Reckless. Dangerous.
Bad for me.
But even
When I open my eyes in the morning, it’s him I think about when I’m lying alone in the bed he used to tie me up on.
When I go to get my coffee before class, it’s him I think about when I give the good-looking barista my order, because it makes me think about the way he used to kiss me in front of him, because I was his and he made sure every guy knew about it.
And when I used my best friend’s shower tonight, it was him I thought about while I was soaping my body, remembering the way I hooked my fingers over the glass door as he fucked me from behind on this very night three years ago.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“No,” I admit, laughing at the face she makes.
“You could at least lie.”
“Since when do I lie to you?”
She guides me out of the bathroom and into her childhood bedroom, placing me in front of the floor-length mirror so I can look at myself. Happy with my outfit and the creepy, bloodred slash across my cheeks and lips, I run my eyes over the length of my body. My long, dark brown hair and my toned, fishnet covered legs. My short black skirt and the black top that shows just a little too much cleavage. My tattooed arms and the piercings in my ears.
I study every scar and every flaw, and I can’t help wondering what he’d say if he could see me now.
Would he tell me how much he hates this outfit on me, because it’d drive him wild with need, having to watch me wear it all night?
How long would it take him to sneak me away into the darkness, shove me down against the ground, and rip my shirt down the middle?
What would he say if he knew I still think about it…?
“Violet,” Andie whispers, a little too soft for my liking. “Jesus, are you about to cry?”
“I don’t cry.”
“What are these, then?” she asks, touching the tears leaking from my eyes.
“Allergies.”
“It’s October.”
“Maybe I’m allergic to your shitty makeup.”
Her jaw drops, probably in outrage that I’d say such a thing. “My makeup is not shitty.”
“Can we just pretend that it is?”
She snorts and wraps her arms around my shoulders, careful not to smudge our faces as she hugs me. I close my eyes and hug her back, mad at myself for acting like such a pussy, but this night is…special to me or some shit, so I’m cutting myself some slack.
“Better?”
“Not really.”
“Ready to go make absolute fools of ourselves and drink all our problems away?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Did she text you back yet?” Andie asks, referring to Nova—our other best friend and my ex-boyfriend’s twin sister. “She’s ignoring me.”
“She ignores everyone,” I say as I pull my phone out, not surprised she’s ignoring me too.
She’s the biggest loner I’ve ever met, and we’ve been dragging her to parties by her hair—sometimes literally—since we were in high school. She’s quiet, but not in a sweet way. All she has to do is look at someone with that glare of hers that says I’ll cut you, and they’ll walk the other way.
“I’m gonna go grab her,” Andie decides, turning left onto her street. “You coming in?”
I nod, and she pulls up outside the house, hiding the new text message on her phone by shoving it into the center console. I raise a questioning brow at her—because that’s the fourth time this has happened tonight—but she pretends not to notice.
Fine.
We climb out of her car and walk up the path toward the porch, both of us banging on the front door like crazy people until she answers.
“All right, all right!” her mom calls from inside, pulling the door open and shaking her head at us. “Damn Joker Night. Nova, get your butt down here!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Lee,” Andie says sweetly. “She isn’t answering her phone.”
Michelle chuckles and waves her off like it’s nothing, smiling sadly at me as she takes in my appearance. She’s always been nice to me, having known me since I was a baby, and she felt bad for me when her son and I broke up—or when he went to jail and I ghosted him—but I know she thinks we’re better apart than we are together.
“Violet, sweetheart. How are you holdi—”
Nova chooses that exact moment to appear behind her, staring at us over her mother’s head without saying a word. It’s kind of awkward and creepy, the way she’s just standing there with her hair in her face, but that’s Nova for you.
“Well then, you girls have fun,” Michelle says cheerily, walking away toward the kitchen. “But not too much fun!”
“We will,” Andie calls to her, looking confused as she thinks for a second. “I mean, we won’t!”
Nova continues to stare at us, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her stiletto covered foot. I don’t worry that she’ll ask me if I’ve talked to her brother yet, because I’m pretty sure she hates him just as much as she hates everyone else—probably even more. She and Atticus might be twins, but they don’t have any type of special twin bond or anything. The only thing they have in common is their tendency to get mad at the drop of a hat. Other than that, they’re two completely different people. He’s loud and chaotic and up for anything, whereas she’s none of those things. His hair is even darker than mine, whereas hers is so blonde it’s almost white. I’m pretty sure she dyes it like that to make herself look nothing like him. It doesn’t work all that well. I still see his golden-brown eyes every time I look into hers.
“What?” she bites out at me.
“Hello to you too, friend,” Andie teases, raking her eyes over Nova’s form. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Andie’s smile falls, and she narrows her eyes, probably at her lack of Joker paint. “You’re not ready.”
The two of them have a silent stare off for about ten seconds, and then Andie rushes her inside and drags her upstairs, me following behind as they struggle and fight each other. I watch in amusement as Andie pins Nova to her own bed, straddles her waist, and takes out the makeup bag she brought with her to paint her face.
“You crazy bitch,” Nova grits out, wiggling around beneath her.
“Hold still, sweetie.”
“I hate both of you.”
I roll my eyes and drop down on the bed next to her, chewing my lip as I stare at the door leading to the bathroom she and Atticus shared all through high school. She’d probably hate me a hell of a lot more if she knew how many times he fucked me on the counter in there.
Guy has a thing about bathrooms.
I push the thought away and look back at the girls, finding Andie cocking her head at me with a knowing look on her face. “You need to sto—”
“You wanna tell me about these secret messages you keep getting?” I cut in, because if she wants to play dirty, I can play dirty just as hard.
“They’re not secret messages,” she lies. “It’s just my mother. High and broke, as usual.”
“Your mother.”
“Yes, my mother.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm,” she mocks me, flicking her curly blonde hair over her shoulder. “Talk to me when you can stop breaking your own heart over the boy you fucked in his sister’s bathroo—Damn it, Nova, keep your mouth shut.”
“What?!”
“How the hell do you know about that?” I ask at the same time, my cheeks heating when Nova hits me with that creepy death glare of hers.
“Vi, he used to make you scream like he was killing you,” Andie answers, grabbing Nova’s head to keep her still. “It’s kinda hard to ignore when you’re sleeping in the next room.”
