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A moment before it begins to make sense.
A moment lost.
Wasted.
The threat realized so quickly I’m left wide-eyed and gaping when the boy—the one with the cold, empty eyes—becomes something else.
Something unrecognizable.
Otherworldly.
Something monstrous, demonic—born of dark fetid seed and other wicked foul things.
His mouth turned jagged, bloodied, and obscene—bearing sharp, fanged teeth that sink into my friend—flaying his flesh. Rendering his chest to a crushed, pulpy mess that stains the water a terrible red.
He rears his head back, emits a horrible growl. His eyes glowing the same crimson that drips from his chin as a hideous snake flares from his lips, inhabiting the space where his tongue used to be.
I reach for my friend, grasping, fumbling, in a frenzy to save him.
I can’t lose him.
Can’t let this happen.
Not when it’s taken sixteen years to find him.
Though the word has yet to be spoken, there’s no denying it is Love that we share.
Love that brought us both here.
We are bound.
Fated.
Some things you just know without question.
I lunge. Kick. Fight. Scream. Though my efforts are in vain—I’m no match for the snake.
It swerves around me. Plunges straight into the now-gaping cavity of my friend’s battered chest.
Returning with a sacred, shimmering sphere it suckles gingerly, gently, before consuming it whole—snuffing the life it beheld like a flame.
The demon grins—a hideous sight forever sealed in my brain. Then he winks out of existence—leaving me alone with my friend—my one true love—my destined one—now an empty sack of lifeless flesh lying limp in my arms.
nine
I wake with a scream. Lying facedown, my mouth mashed into a pillow in a way that muffles the sound. Still, I can’t help but worry that Paloma might’ve heard, might decide to come check on me and make sure I’m okay.
I kick the tangle of blankets and sheets from my legs and push them to the foot of my bed. Hauling myself up against the short wooden headboard, I cock my ear toward the hall, alert to any sign of my grandmother, convinced it’s just a matter of time before she bursts into the room bearing some strange herbal brew she’ll force me to drink. But all I make out is the comforting noise of kitchen sounds seeping under the door.
Water running, butter sizzling, along with the soft sucking sigh of a refrigerator door opening and the firm no-nonsense thump when it closes again. The everyday domestic soundtrack most people take for granted—that I only know from watching TV and movies.
For the past sixteen years, Jennika and I have been on the road, which means that most of my meals have come from airplanes, restaurants, foreign cafés with questionable health codes, and, when I’m lucky, the huge catered spreads they serve on the set.
The only time I’ve come even remotely close to experiencing anything resembling “normal” domesticity was when we found ourselves staying at Harlan’s on my twelfth birthday and Jennika tried to surprise us by making French toast. Only she got distracted while waiting for the edges to brown, and the next thing we knew the toast was smoking, the fire alarm screaming, and after the drama was handled, Harlan squeezed us all into his car and treated us to brunch at some vegan place near Malibu Beach.
But Paloma’s nothing like Jennika. From what I can see, she’s a living picture of Old World, Latina hospitality. Though as much as my rumbling stomach urges me to get out of bed and go join her, the rest of me is determined to hold off—to delay the moment just a little bit longer.
I push a clump of damp, sweaty hair from my face and waste no time exchanging the clothes that I slept in for the soft cotton robe Paloma draped over a chair. The horror of the nightmare so fresh in my mind that for the first time ever I fervently hope I never dream about that boy again.
