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I push the butt of the rifle into the mud and use it as a crutch to push myself up. My knees are like a bundle of twigs, ready to collapse under my weight. I don’t want to do this, but how can I not? Yes, Dave could’ve been a better man, but there are certainly worse monsters in the world.
“Look away,” I say, drawing my rifle and pointing it at his heart. My eyes go from tearing up to a full-blown waterfall. “Dave. Please? Look away.”
“Oot, Lake. Oot.”
I can’t shoot him while he looks at me. I can’t.
But I have to.
I feel my soul disintegrating. How can he ask this when I’ve been there for him year after year? Through every shitty part of his life, I’ve been there. And now he wants this?
Crunch!
I turn my head and find Gabrio standing there. From the corner of my eye, I see there’s an ax sticking out of Dave’s chest.
Gabrio just saved me from something I would never recover from.
I look away, drop the rifle, and cover my face. “Thank you.”
“Don’t,” Gabrio says. “He wasn’t worth your time. A waste of good clean water.”
“He was the first man who loved me,” I mumble.
“Doubtful. But either way, he won’t be the last.” Gabrio turns away, marching toward the main house. “Now come. We have business to discuss with Alwar.”
Master stays by my side as I follow Gabrio up the hill toward the main house. “You okay, boy?”
He lifts his furry head like a prideful man saying, Do I look hurt, silly woman?
I let it slide. I’m too deep in shock to get into it with him. Especially because he’s a dog. Mostly?
“What happened to the men you were hunting?” I ask.
Master licks his lips in an exaggerated way.
“Oh.” They ate them. Or part of them. I’m happy to be alive, so I’ll spare him the moral inquisition. “Can you at least tell me if the men were originally human?” I want to know if the human man Benicio originally contracted to kill me in Monsterland was among the dead.
“We do not know,” calls out Gabrio, who’s way ahead of us. “They all taste the same.”
“I’m going to forget I ever heard that because it means you know what people taste like.”
“I meant cowards. Cowards all taste the same. Weak. No flavor. Like chewy porridge. The species does not matter.”
Good to know, I guess.
We enter the house, and my head is still spinning so hard it doesn’t occur to me to ask what the situation is back at the wall. I don’t care.
“That No One was Bard,” I say, hoping Gabrio might explain how it’s possible. “He said he wanted to eat me, and then he attacked Dave.” I skip the part about him ripping a page from the notebook. I can’t confront that right now.
“That was not Bard. It is what’s left over.”
“He remembered me.”
Gabrio keeps walking through the main house.
“Would you stop!” I bark.
Gabrio turns.
I add, “I need a moment here. Okay?”
“We do not have a moment. Alwar is waiting for us in the attic.”
“He’s here? Now?”
“No. He’s waiting at the last open window. I found your grandmother’s keys in her freezer, inside a bag of frozen spinach. Everything is secure.”
“So you want me to go up there and lock the door behind you.” I’m guessing.
“No. Alwar has forbidden me to return. Has your female urge to talk been satisfied now? Because the wall is falling, and Alwar does not have much time.”
Female urge?
Gabrio turns away and heads toward the foyer. Master pokes me in the ass with his nose.
“Stop it. I’m going.” I walk after Gabrio, passing under the dusty old chandelier by the front door. We take the grand staircase, with the leaning handrail and cracked marble tiles, to the second floor. The entire time we’re walking to the back of the house, my heart won’t stop thumping away. My knees feel like they’re about to give out. I can’t believe Bard’s a No One. I don’t understand why he’d attack Dave.
I take the small stairwell on the second floor that leads up to the attic. It’s narrow and made of wooden planks. I hate it as much as I hate the space up there. It’s right out of a horror film, filled with cobwebs and old rotting furniture. An owl lived up there for years until we had the roof repaired recently.
I go through the door that Gabrio left open. The smells of must and mold hit my nose. To my right, past a huge pile of old rocking chairs, is Alwar in the window. His chest has claw marks, and there’s blood on his face.
“What happened to your hair and beard?” He’s cut it all off, but it clearly wasn’t done by a professional barber. There’s still a ton of scruff on his face, and his hair is choppy.
