A weight settled onto the edge of his bed. The mattress sank under it, tilting Brandon forward.

He could see it now. Her. An old woman with black hair, dark skin, and black veins running up her arms. A long veil covered her face.

It—she—was moving closer to him. Gliding.

She climbed onto his chest.

A great weight pressed on him. He couldn’t breathe.

He was panicking again.

Brandon tried to push the woman off him. He couldn’t lift his arms.

He tried to take a gulp of air. Nothing came.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

He was going to die after all.

The woman above him laughed, a deep, throaty sound. She murmured something he couldn’t hear in a language he didn’t know.

Brandon tried to heave his chest. To see the thing’s face. To breathe in, to fight—

He was paralyzed where he lay.

The old woman lifted her veil, and she wasn’t old at all. Not anymore. She was young and beautiful.

She was Maria.

The scream died in Brandon’s throat.

“Hey! Dude!” The voice came from so far away Brandon didn’t think it was real at first. “Hey, wake up!”

Something squeezed his hand. Brandon jerked away, out of the thing’s grip.

He could move again.

He jumped up, pulled away, tried to make his legs work so he could run. It—that thing—whatever it was, it couldn’t have him.

“No!” he cried.

He was breathing.

Oh, thank God, he was breathing.

The thing that looked like Maria was gone.

Brandon rolled onto his side, taking in the dull glow of the desk lamp, the still-unfamiliar sheets, the empty bed on the other side of the room under the vintage poster of Carrie Fisher in a gold bikini.

This wasn’t even his room. It was Mateo’s.

He’d imagined the whole thing.

“Hey.” Mateo was shaking his shoulder. “You all right? Were you having a nightmare?”

“Uh.” Brandon sat up and hugged his knees. “I guess.”

“The same one again?”

“Kind of.” Brandon wished he hadn’t told Mateo about that. The dreams had been embarrassing even before zombie Rafael had shown up.

Mateo put down the battery-powered lamp he’d been holding over Brandon. “It’s a rough night all around.” He rubbed Brandon’s shoulders. It would’ve felt nice if only Brandon could stop trembling. “I had a bad dream too. Hey, did I ever tell you about La Llorona?”

Brandon couldn’t remember, but he shook his head anyway. He liked listening to Mateo talk. Ever since Delilah’s accident they’d been hanging out a lot more. Brandon figured it was because they’d been so freaked out by the accident, but when he mentioned it to Maria, she gave him this speech about how it meant they were “conflicted about their own mortality.”