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“Wait… Nipples,” I mumbled blearily.
“Uh.” Holt sat back on his heels. I was lying on the floor of the private viewing box, and he was sitting beside me. “Nipples?”
“I want to watch.” I managed to sit up, using my sleeve to wipe the water from my face. “The wrestling.”
“Uh…” Holt darted a look at the windows. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
Because they were all monsters. Demons. Creatures or something. Not human.
Oh my god.
“It was all true, wasn’t it?” I blurted. “Everything you told me last night. You’re not a cosplayer. None of you are cosplayers. You’re an emotion-piggybacking… um, impin—no, empyn, right? And the… the shapeshifting strippers and…”
“Damn, dude, you told him everything?” Larkin chuckled from across the room. “And you got mad at me for accidentally bringing a human down here? Cold, boss.”
“Corey’s an actual orc, isn’t he?” I burst out, scrambling to my feet. Holt quickly rose, his grey face growing paler. “And… and Blood Suckapunch is a real vampire. He turned into a bat. And that old lady is a giant freaking lizard.”
“Oh, you mean Ethel?” Larkin piped up. “She’s dope. An actual party animal. Like, for real. No one can keep up with her.”
Holt swallowed thickly. “Taylor—”
“This is why you didn’t want to invite me. You said you shouldn’t.” I was still a little light-headed, breathing hard. “And… and you told the wrestlers to tone it down tonight because I’d be watching, didn’t you? And you tried to make sure I didn’t see anyone changing out of their… human forms. Those two cops… those two cops are freaking demons.”
“Bryce and Heather,” Larkin noted sagely, back to playing on his phone. “Fuck yes, twenty-four moths. Noice.”
“Taylor—” Holt began again.
“That’s why it’s so exclusive.” I stared at him with wild eyes. “And why you asked me not to tell anyone. You’re… None of you are human.”
“No doy,” Larkin muttered. “You seen my wings, bro? They’re sick.”
“Larkin, you’re not fucking helping,” Holt gritted out.
Larkin huffed and looked up from his phone to gesture at me. “He’s already figured it out, boss. I mean, you did let him come back to watch. Taylor’s not stupid. He was gonna figure it out.”
“Taylor,” Holt began desperately, taking a step closer to me. “It’s not—This isn’t—”
“Please don’t lie to me, Holt,” I croaked. After everything we’d shared, all the secrets we’d told each other, it would hurt especially bad if he tried to make me think I was crazy or seeing things or being a total idiot who believed the special effects were real.
I knew what I’d seen. It may have taken me a little while to realise—it wasn’t like my first thought was ever going to be, Oh, okay, all these people are actually monsters—but Lizard Granny had been the last straw. The slap in the face. The thing that had finally opened my eyes to what I was witnessing. I’d literally seen her transform into a giant fucking lizard.
Holt’s face was tight with tension as he stared back at me, before he let out an unsteady breath and rubbed his forehead. “Larkin, go take Cora for another walk.”
“What? Why?” Larkin whined.
“Just go,” Holt barked. Larkin seemed to realise that now was a good time to actually be a half-decent assistant, because he scooped Cora back up and left without another word.
“I’m sorry,” Holt croaked the moment the door had closed behind him. “I just… I wanted to hang out with you again, and you wanted to watch the wrestling, so I thought I could try and stop you from realising… I just didn’t want you to freak out, Taylor.”
“I understand,” I said, sounding calmer than I actually felt. In my head, I was chanting, Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. “So it—it’s true? You’re not… human? This is… this is what you actually look like?”
Holt’s throat bobbed, but he nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. I’m not human. None of us are human.”
I went light-headed again, wobbling a little on my feet. Holt lunged forward to gently help me sit on the couch like I was an overwrought Victorian lady.
“S-so… you told me all that stuff last night because that Axel guy really can wipe memories. He was literally going to make me forget all of it, so you thought it’d be okay.”
“Yeah,” Holt rasped, perching awkwardly beside me. “I was a fucking idiot. I just”—he shrugged stiffly—“wanted someone to talk to, and you seemed nice, and then… I was having a lot of fun.”
