Maybe he’s hungry?
I wish my human lover had a phone other than the one she carries with her. I would find a way to call her and make sure thisis correct. Or maybe... Maybe Aggie already knows. Her father could have come back unexpectedly, called her, met up with her in town, and had a nice lunch. Then Aggie gave him a spare key so he could come here and rest after his long travels. Yes. That makes sense.
“Wasteful little slut.”
I stagger inside my swirling, weightless void. What father would say such a thing about his child? I make sure I’m concealed, and in a stroke of sudden genius, I make the surface of the mirror a pretty floral pattern, something that taxes me but lets me stop shifting so I can just watch.
The man who comes into the room carries a briefcase and wears a suit. He doesn’t look like I would expect a medical missionary to dress, but what do I know?
I know that Aggie’s screensaver is a picture of her with her father and June because I’ve been staring at it all day as the audiobook plays.
This is not that man. He’s soft and pale and doughy, and the man on the screen is rangy and tanned with shorts and knobby knees.
“Where does she keep them? What are you hiding from us, little girl?” the voice snarls, and I almost break my camouflage.
It’s Arnie, the stepfather. Arnie the stepfather is ripping open her drawers—rummaging for pills. As he finds them, he looks at them, shakes his head, and snorts, laughing and scoffing.
“Midol? Aspirin? Where’s the real stuff? And—” he pulls up a paperback from her drawer and looks at it with a disgusted sneer. “Little slut, reading this filth!”
For a moment, I think he’s going to tear the book, but he doesn’t. He puts everything neatly back in place and then goes to the bathroom. A short, triumphant cry delivers him back to the bedroom, and this time I see what’s in his briefcase.
Pills. Dozens and dozens of bottles and clear plastic bags of pills, all shapes and sizes.
He holds up Aggie’s two prescription bottles, squinting, and then opens one, counting out small white ovals and muttering.
That bastard is going to drug my Agatha! Panic grips me. I can exit the mirror—I think. But am I strong enough to fight this human? Will I survive long enough to warn Aggie?
“This will put her in a nice, comfy hospital bed with full restraints in a few days.” Her stepfather separates half of Aggie’s pills and holds up a bottle with similar-looking contents. “White versus pale yellow... Hmm. A little dusting in powdered sugar should fix that...”
This man is a pro. He shakes pale yellow pills the color of rich cream in a small vial of white powder and tips them back next to the discarded pills. “There. She’ll never know. She never did before, anyway...”
The sinking feeling in my middle soars back up, a fierce eagle ready to tear out Arnie’s liver like he’s some wicked Prometheus. I topple through the mirror in a nest of eight-foot-long tentacles and vicious hands, reaching for the one who hurt my empress.
“You poisoned her!” I scream. “You’ve been tampering with her pills whenever she was getting better! She knew it! She knew it, and you made it so hard to find, so impossible to trace, especially while she lived under your roof,” I crow, snatching at him, pouring out all my strength to grab the human and wrap him in a stranglehold.
It’s gratifying to see Arnie panic, to watch him struggle and fail as I smother him. Even Berry emerges and goes for his balding head as I wrestle him to the ground. Her little claws make bloody work of his rapidly graying face.
“What are you?” he gasps.
“Her protector!” I spit. “And you are her captor!”
“No! She’s ill. She’s not right. She was trying to do too much, had to move back home after college. I kept an eye—”
“On her? And once she was home, you thought, ‘Ah, here is a vulnerable young woman. A beautiful young woman. I’ll mess with her medications and keep her unbalanced so she leans on me—and soon, I’ll make my move.’ Isn’t that it?Isn’t it?” I demand, hoisting him up in the air and shaking him wildly (much to Berry’s dismay). The kitten falls off, and I hear bones snap in the man’s rib cage.
I don’t care.
I don’t care if I kill him. But I care if Agatha is punished for my crimes.
And I care that I’m getting weaker the longer I fight him—and that he’s in just the right position to launch his legs out together and kick me in the eyes.
Blind, I grope and hiss, holding onto him as he gasps and gurgles up blood.
“She’s a slut. A demon-worshiping slut. What are you? Some twisted thing she turned real with her whoring?”
“What whoring? Never mind. Don’t talk. I should have shattered your windpipe instead of your ribs.”
“You won’t always be around to protect her. She’s mine. She’salwaysbeen mine. I get what I want, and I—”
