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And then I’d kept screaming because it was the only thing I could do. Like I’d compressed all the horror of that moment into some pocket of my soul and now that I’d tapped it, it all had to pour out, like a science fair volcano—I would have to scream until the screaming was through, and if it turned out there was no end to it, and I needed to scream for the whole rest of my life, that was what I would do.
The next thing I remembered,after waking up with a sore throat, was finding myself shibari’d into a little knot.
Had Niannen needed to protect me from myself? Did he think I was going to run off of cliffs, or into walls?
The second I moved, he was there, setting me down on the ground and cutting me out of the thing. I picked it up when he was finished.
“Did you make me a ThunderShirt?” I asked him. I knew what those were, because I put them on my dogs on the Fourth of July. He just gave me one of his inscrutable looks, and I shrugged. “Whatever. I’m not going to question it.”
Then he handed me some freshly woven clothing—which was good because I really didn’t want to look at any monster bloodstains. I changed, and he offered me the end of our water and some of the goo packets. I took both and finished off the water without thinking, before I realized that meant there was none left for him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, handing the bottle back. “I’m just a taker, Niannen. It’s what I do.”
He appeared confused by this as well, before making one of his circles.
I made it back at him, half-heartedly. “Don’t worry. I’m still here. You’ll still get your money.”
He went entirely still, then—so still that I looked behind me, expecting to perhaps find something surprising and awful lurking there, but no.
He was just looking at me.
And then he reached forward, not with his hands, but with the smooth back of one of his spider-leg’s claws, to rub it up and down my throat.
“What the fuck?” I asked him, without moving away—and then I realized what he was trying to get across. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, I won’t sing again.”
He didn’t stop his strange motion—and his touch wasn’t nearly as repulsive as it should have been.
“I mean it, sheesh,” I said, pushing his leg away—but he ignored me, brought it back, and then made some hissing sounds, like he was trying to sing himself but couldn’t.
“You’re like the little mermaid,” I muttered at him, before sighing, and looking around. “Shouldn’t we get on the road here? Don’t we have things to do?” I reached my hands up for him to help me up—and the fucker took a step back.
I blinked at him.
“Are you kidding me right now?”
He opened his jaw and made another hissing sound atme. I crabbed myself over to the nearest wall and used it to help get myself up—my quad opposite my broken leg was gonna be jacked by the time all this shit was through.
“Oh, you want me to make pretty sounds instead?” I asked him—and all he did was gesture to his own throat. “Fine,” I snarled, and then came up with something stupid to assuage him. “In your maze of threads, I’m the singing doll, here’s my performance at your crawling call, in your fucking eerie concert hall!”
I belted it out like I was pissed, because I was, but he came nearer when I was through.
“Motherfucker,” I cursed, as he lowered himself to let me climb aboard.
Nineteen
NIA’N’AN
Sloane wasangry and quiet for much of the next day, but after that, she started talking. Ostensibly to me—and sometimes she’d pretend that I was answering her, posing herself rhetorical questions—but her mind seemed slightly more intact than when she’d been prostrate and screaming.
I hung on every word.
She told me things without meaning to—places she’d been, and places she wanted to go back to. She seemed enamored with the beach, so I knew all this time in darkness had been rough on her. She missed her mother, who it seemed like had passed long ago. And her voice drifted now and then, telling me—or herself—a story about a friend, who I gathered had passed during her kidnapping.
I had known many people who had passed. Working with the Monster Security Agency was hazardously dangerous. My heart beat for hers.
And the whole time I wished she would begin singing again. Not just because I made her—but because when she sang she sounded happy, and I wanted that for her.
Three days passed. We’d found additional safe water sources, but we were rapidly running out of food. I wanted to save all the packets for her, but she was so upset when I didn’t eat that she wouldn’t eat without me. It was kind, but it meant that our food stores were being depleted twice as quickly as they should have been, and the time came that I knew I needed to go out to hunt.
