Page 20 of Phantom’s Mate

Nick looked up in surprise. “Do you get daylight here?”

Brittany said, “Now and then, it kind of almost gets light out. But then it always goes back.”

He nodded. They walked down to the road and he said, “Okay, let’s kick this thing’s ass.”

Britt privately felt it had an unkickable ass, but she gave it her best shot.

First Nick tried to help her kind of melt into the real world, but she couldn’t get the hang of it. Then he took her to what she thought of as the edge of purgatory, where his friend was waiting just outside with the car.

Which he could see, but she couldn’t. Her mind just couldn’t get a grasp on the real world, except near her memorial, where she could see the offerings.

That probably made her a self-centered narcissist who could only see things that shored up her ego.

She tried really hard to walk through the boundary, but every time she did she started to get the white flash, so she had to stop.

Finally, Nick had her close her eyes and take his hand again.

“Just think about me,” he said. “Listen to my voice, and feel my hand touching yours. Focus on keeping us connected.”

She walked forward—and suddenly she felt like she was an ant stuck in a puddle of honey. Elation shot through her—she must be inside the boundary energy field.

She could only move in slow motion, and Nick’s voice slowed down and dragged out, like a DJ slowing down a song recording.

But she was moving. They were still going. It was going to work…

She felt the jolt of impact and heard the sound of rending metal, followed by excruciating pain. She was alone… no one was going to find her… and then there was someone there… a man…

Time wavered, and she saw him holding something… something important…

She tried to scream, No!

Bright light. Disorientation.

And she was back by the side of the road, in the rain, and she had the Kraken costume on.

“Dammit!” she yelled, struggling to her feet. She wanted to rip the tentacles right off this fucking costume. But it wouldn’t help. It would just come back.

Tears were running down her face, which pissed her off even more. She’d done enough crying. If she had to stay in this fucking place one more minute, she was going to…

She balled up her fists and screamed at the sky—a huge, primal roar.

Suddenly Nick was there, holding on to her shoulder and one tentacle, trying to talk to her, but she could barely even hear what he was saying. Her insides were churning and she felt like she was going to spontaneously combust.

Some of his words penetrated: “…going to be okay… figure this out… take a deep breath… I get it…”

That finished her. She rounded on him, her tentacles waving.

“Really? You get it? You can wander around wherever the hell you feel like. Into purgatory, out of purgatory, home with your fucking friends. How would you like it if you were stuck in the same damn place in the same damn costume, in the fucking rain, soaked and covered in mud? Over and over again.”

He opened his mouth, but Britt had lost her shit completely and she didn’t even care. “At least you were fucking killed inside! And you had friends! Someone was there. You weren’t there for years all alone!”

He’d managed to find one of her fists among the tentacles, wrapping his big, warm hands around it. “Hey. Hey. I’m here. Just let it out.”

“I hate being alone. I hate being stuck here. And I hate you because you’re not stuck here, and you’re acting like it’s all going to be okay when you’re probably an agent of Satan sent here to torture me with things I can’t have. Well, fuck you! Fuck Satan! Fuck everybody. If you can leave, so can I!”

Some tiny part of her knew she wasn’t making any sense, and Nick didn’t deserve this, but she just couldn’t stop herself.

She ripped at the Kraken costume, tearing it to bits in a way she would never have been strong enough to do in real life.