AllFreeNovel
Share Us
8
ROSEMARIE
THE FOOL: WE ALL NEED TO TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH NOW AND THEN
Even When We’d Rather Keep Our Feet On the Ground
My delusion keeps getting more and more elaborate. Like when the shorter of the two gargoyles—who still stands a head above me—stared at me while he made the kind of vow featured only in fairy tales. When he took my hand, he looked at me as if I’m the fantasy who transformed from rock to real in an impossible instant. These two are comic book characters come to life, and I’m…well, just plain me.
This can’t be happening. No one would pledge their life to protect mine. Not even if the haunted house went all out to impress Val and Ava with their money and connections. No company would go this level of epic, blockbuster-movie-level cosplay and script a fight-to-the-death declaration for their tagalong friend who can’t afford a car with working A/C, let alone a ticket to this place.
I stop checking out the gargoyle holding me long enough to watch his counterpart who has the same blueish skin, heavy brows edged in small horns, and pointed ears. They each have hair worthy of shampoo commercials, but the one holding me has his long except for a single braid while the other’s rocking a man bun—a gargoyle bun?—that keeps his out of his face.
He heads down the stairs with his wings outstretched and launches into the air.
Into. The. Freakin’. Air.
My heart skids to a stuttering stop before skittering into a thumpity-thump even faster than the pounding it had going a second ago when the big guy holding me went all superhero hotness and lifted me. I can’t get enough air into my lungs.
What the actual hell is going on right now? This isn’t fake. They can’t be actors. No stunt man could fly like that, and hallucinations can’t make the wind hit my skin and blow my hair into my face when they take flight.
The gargoyles have come to life like the magic Lala believed in. Or the Underworld pumped some trippy psychedelic through the vents and I’m high. Either way, this trip has taken a sudden turn to bizzarro land.
I would tease Meg that I should get a massive level up for only freaking out on the inside, but where is she? Where’d Theo take her? And what’s happening with Val? My chest squeezes too tight. The blackness that’d crowded my vision had me worried I was passing out earlier in a repeat trip to knocked out land like I’d experienced after the mugging, but nope, it’s whatever darkness lingers around them. It’s as if they call the shadows to wrap themselves in.
Resisting the urge to start screaming, I let the giant carry me through the ruin of the front door my friends and I walked through only minutes ago. What the hell happened to this part of the house? Did a wrecking ball smash through it? My mouth goes dry as I realize what crashed through wood, brick, and stone—two gargoyle-sized wrecking balls.
Above us, the flying gargoyle spins midair before doing a jerky lap around the house while he’s looking everywhere except where he’s going. The flap of his wings and speed of his movement whips up air to add to the ocean breezes, ruffling the hem of my long skirt.
Huey dashes into the sky after him. Or the grey and white owl that looks so much like my Lala’s pet. It can’t really be Huey, right? He couldn’t have flown this far north. We’re hours away from home.
I flinch as the gargoyle above barely misses colliding with the house’s turrets. Twice. Hope you like flying, he said. I’ve been in a plane or two without a problem, but not that.
I cannot do that!
The big guy carrying me stomps down the stairs, and they creak beneath his weight. His blue hair falls forward across the geometric ridges on his forehead in a rakish fashion, and his wings unfurl even wider. He’s got a defined jaw, what Lala called good bones, and the man’s nearly naked with only black pants slung low on his chiseled abs. His full lips are a shade darker blue than his skin, and his lashes gleam metallic silver. His eyes have no white surrounding the silver and blue, and his gaze blazes bright without a human’s dark pupils. No cosplay could be this detailed, right?
The tattoo I noticed earlier on his chest stretches to his jaw, and I would try to figure out what it symbolizes except I can’t concentrate on anything but what in the world is happening?
I’m hallucinating. I have to be. The stress of not having a job, endless double and triple shifts, and twisting myself into whoever I need to be to make everyone happy—it’s finally caught up to me. This is all a vivid dream. If I concentrate hard enough, I’ll snap out of it. Focusing all my effort on the movement, I poke my finger against warm flesh instead of stone.
“You’re real,” I say. Not my smartest moment.
“As are you.” He keeps walking.
Away from my friends.
“My friends are still inside. I can’t leave them. They’ll be freaking out after the scream and the way you guys broke down the door. I need to check on them.” There, that sounds reasonable. No way can he argue with my legitimate worry, right?
Wrong.
He shakes his head. “Your safety comes first.”
“Not before theirs.” People pleasing takes a hard pass when it means ignoring the fact that my friends might be in danger. “Theo said some bad stuff was happening in there.”
“You will always come before all others.” The hard lines of his expression soften. Pity.
My stomach churns. I don’t want his pity.
