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I grip the spike tighter and step toward it.If I change. I can change back.I repeat the mantra to myself, hoping that I don’t forget what I have learned. “Run for the spire. Get home.”
Julie stares at him as though she hasn’t heard me. “How do you know my name?”
25
Julie
The monster knows my name. My heart pounds against my ribs, drowning out all other noise. Theo and the other monster are still fighting. I’m within sight of the castle and spire, and I don’t know if I will get any closer.
Joe is urging me to run. Theo is howling. Michael is lost.
They knew it was impossible but tried anyway.
I thought it would be hard, but that we’d all make it. That we’d make it home and everything would be alright. Michael was right. I am a fool, and I dragged them all along with me. My gaze drifts to the spire piercing the sky. We are so close, yet the climb will be the hardest part.
“I have been sent to fetch you.” The monster’s voice is like sandpaper over my skin. It’s all I can do not to shudder. It reaches for me, and I step back.
Joe is at my side, holding the spike like a sword.
I draw in a breath. “It’s here for me, not you. You run and get home.”
“No. I’m not leaving you. We shouldn’t have left Michael. We should go back for Theo. We can fight together.” His voice is quiet, like he’s made up his mind that this is it. Our last stand. If it is, then we should be together.
Unless we don’t need to fight at all. I lift my chin and pretend that I’m not scared. “Who sent you? And how do you know my name?”
“The queen sent me. She told me to call you Julie.”
The queen. The monster who pulls everyone through. Of course she knows who I am. She probably knows everyone she drags through. Does she get some kind of sick pleasure knowing that they will forget? Or does she place bets on who will die or change the fastest?
Joe moves closer and whispers. “Theo said we need to access the castle.”
That doesn’t mean that I want to see the queen.
Sloshing water causes me to glance back. Theo is being dragged out of the water. He is visible with no trace of the shadow around him, and he is bleeding. The other monster is too, from numerous cuts and stabs. Theo put up a good fight. My lips press together in a grim smile.
I’m yanked off the ground and a squeal escapes. I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but his skin is so rough that every movement abrades my skin, so I go limp, hoping to be a dead weight.
Joe charges at its legs.
The monster jumps back with a curse and drops me on Joe. I’m almost impaled on the spike before rolling to the side. Before I can take two steps, I’m yanked into the air again. The spike clatters to the ground as Joe is picked up by one leg.
“Any more fighting and I will eat this one,” the rough-skinned monster says as it jerks Joe up and down.
The one with the mandibles gives Theo a push. “Understand?”
Theo glances up at me. He is spent, exhausted, and wounded, and neither of us wants Joe to be eaten. I nod, and so does Theo.
At least we will reach the castle, and possibly get close to the spire.
I’m set on the ground, with its rough hand about my neck. Joe is treated the same. I reach out for Joe’s tail, the only part of him close enough to touch, and it wraps around my wrist. At least we are mostly together. I know I’m searching for the positives, but what else can I do?
The castle looms in front of me as we are marched closer by Shark and Mantis—that’s what they look like, sort of. In the way, Joe used to look like a cat-snake.
I’m even glad Michael isn’t here to fail with us. At least he can go on living whatever life he can carve out in Under. Perhaps he’ll make another house and save another person. The thought almost makes me smile.
The darkness of the entry swallows us.
I walk on, shivering in the cold. Guarded by monsters I don’t trust. What if they eat me? What if the queen wants some unchanged meat, and I am simply dinner?
* * *
