I touch the place between her collarbones with one claw. “Where is your amulet now?”
“It was stolen and the first night I spent without it, I was taken. So she was right about it protecting me.”
I can’t imagine growing up knowing that monsters are real or having a parent, or grandparent, who cared.
Horn tilts his head as though the horns are too heavy. “And now you think we can protect you while you skip through Under to the center?”
15
Julie/Prey
Horn and Tail glance at each other. Maybe it’s the lift of an eyebrow or the curl of a lip, but I know they don’t want to go to the center, and they think I’m mad to try. I don’t blame them. I’m afraid that it’s a dangerous gamble that will end in death. But if everything ends in death, why not try? Since I can’t go home by going to the edge, then the answer lies in the middle, or with the queen, or king, or whoever has control when I get there. Someone will know the way out.
Though if they do, why haven’t all the monsters left Under and flooded my world?
I cross my arms and glare at them. “I’m not going to skip through Under.”
Certainly not while barefoot and wearing a silky purple robe. What had happened to the woman who’d been wearing it when taken? Had she been eaten, or turned into a monster?
“You might as well run naked and offer yourself to every monster there,” Horn says.
“Don’t be mean.” Tail snaps and for a heartbeat, I think he is on my side. “Some of them will eat her rather than fuck her.” Tail swoops in and snatches my wet clothes out of my hand and drapes them over a couple of rocks. “That’s what you need to realize, Julie.”
Horn flinches. “Prey, that’s all she is here. That’s all she’ll be to those closer to the center. They won’t care what she has to offer or what she knows.Weshouldn’t care.”
“But you do.” Doesn’t he? Does he still? “You pulled me out of the puddle.” The way Horn looks at me, I know something has changed. Whatever he remembered has changed him in a way that has hardened him. His blue eye is glacier cold, as though the heat between us never existed. There’s a lump in my throat that I can’t explain away. Not even a day and I have pushed him away. Am I that awful? “Don’t you?”
Tail slithers between us. “It doesn’t matter if he cares, it only matters that he wants to help you reach the center.” All four eyes turn to me. “You need to understand that we may all die on the way, that you may not make it as you are, or even if you start to change. Would you throw away any kind of life because you want the old one back?”
I clasp his clawed and furred hands. “It’s not that I want my old life back.” I know it was broken, but it was mine. I was so scared of becoming a monster that I never stood up for myself. If I had earlier in the relationship with Bret, he wouldn’t have slid so far, or maybe he would’ve left me. He didn’t love me. He liked the idea of who he could make me be. I don’t even know who I am. I’ll never figure it out if I stay here. I draw in a breath. “I want to go back, so I can do better. This is the place that has haunted my entire life, maybe now I can let it go.”
I imagine sleeping soundly at night, of not fearing the dark and odd noises. Of telling my ex to piss off instead of putting up with his shitty behavior.
“You are asking us to die,” Horn says. “And you don’t give a shit because we are just monsters to you.”
At first yes, he was just a monster and I had wanted to live, so I had done the only thing I could. Now…
I release Tail’s hands and walk toward Horn. “I do care, and I don’t want any of us to die. We should all be able to go home.”
He turns away. “And terrify everyone who doesn’t believe in monsters.”
“There is a way to undo the changes. But it wasn’t me that changed your fingers…it was you. Whatever you remember—”
He puts his hand over my mouth. “You don’t get to dig into my mind.”
I feel Tail move closer, rather than see him. “What did you remember? You didn’t grow new horns or lose claws after fucking her this time, so what changed?”
Tail didn’t have a physical change either—at least not one that he’d shared with me, but he also remembered something.
Horn towers over me, his one blue eye focused on Tail. My heartbeat quickens with fear. It’s easy to forget how powerful he is when he smiles, but he could pick me up and break me if he wanted. If he is done with me.
For the first time, I am truly afraid of him, more afraid than when I first appeared because back then I was afraid of everything. This is specific to him. I thought I knew him. I thought he had some kindness left inside.
I was wrong.
“She is the reason I’m here,” Horn snarls.
I try to shake my head. That’s not possible. I manage a squeak that Horn ignores. His fingers dig into my cheeks and his claws prick my skin. I want to pry his hand off. Would that be fighting back and giving into this place?