AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hold my arm out, the way Michael does, instead of letting her curl up in my tail.
She moves in close and rests her head on my chest. I wrap my arm around her and kiss the top of her head, and for a few breaths I can forget that my spine is about ten yards long and ends with a rattle.
I close my eyes, content to listen to the sound of her breathing and the beating of her heart. Just as sleep catches the corners of my mind, she speaks.
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.” And I want to lash out and rage, but the only one I’ll be raging at is myself. That hasn’t been working for me, so it’s time to try something new. “I used to be scared every time I went home after school. I never knew what mood he’d be in. One day I stopped trying to placate him. I stopped tiptoeing around and trying to anticipate what would happen…and you know what changed?”
She shakes her head.
“He didn’t change. He was still a prick, whose mood could turn on a dime. I changed.”
I changed.
“I started living.” And now I couldn’t stop talking, and the memories were bubbling up. “I still got beaten when he felt like it, but it wasn’t because of anything I’d done, it was because of whatever was going on in his head.” My claws rake through the tangles in her hair, carefully unknotting the strands. “At some point, I got angry that he was taking his issues out on me and I lashed out.” And I’ve been lashing out ever since, not wanting to be punished for shit I hadn’t done. “We fought a lot, and he always won.”
I’d sworn that one day I’d be big enough to stop him, and I had. But I’d became the monster long before I’d been taken by Under. I’d became like him, fueled by a rage that damaged everything it touched. The memories that I thought stolen claw their way to the surface. Rising like so many rotted corpses, wanting a second chance at life. I want to shove them away and forget about all the rows, the shouting and his whip. The untreated breaks in my ribs, the healed fracture in my wrist that was only found years later when my arm was properly broken.
“I’d moved out, got myself a place with friends and I’d gone back to get the rest of my things. I think I’d been gone for a week. He had a fire going even though it was the middle of summer, and he was burning my shit and calling me names, the same as usual. That’s when I snapped.”
I should have walked away and never looked back.
I had a moment, one chance, where I could’ve done the right thing by everyone, and I hadn’t. I had become him, the thing I hated most.
She’s so quiet I think she’s gone to sleep, which is for the best. No one needed to hear me spilling my guts about my tragic upbringing.
“You remember it all now.”
Damn, she heard everything. “I guess so.”
“Your changes have nothing to do with me.”
“They do. You made me realize I don’t have to be a monster. I chose to be one.” I go to press another kiss to her head, wanting to thank her for opening my eyes, all four of them, to the way it was all me. For so long, I blamed my father for making me lose my temper when it was me giving in. A pain like someone is ripping my spine out and using it to peel my skin off tears over me. My back arches and my hands curl. I can’t even breathe.
I’m going to die the same way he did.
The only difference is someone gives a fuck.
My skull is breaking open, and everything goes white hot, but I can hear her even though I can’t see her.
She’s calling my name. Her hands touch me, my chest, my face, making the pain so much worse, but I can’t talk to tell her. I’m locked in my own body as it changes.
I know it’s changing.
What I’ll be when it’s over, I don’t know, but nothing ever goes in my favor.
I’m not sure which will damn me faster; becoming a bigger monster or weak human prey?
20
Michael
Theo tries to talk to me a few times before giving up. I should have tried because now all I can hear is Joe and Julie whispering beneath the overhang. The jealousy is bitter in my mouth and hot in my veins. I want to get up, stride over and throw him into the ravine on the other side.
I found her.
I pulled her out of the puddle.
