I nod. No. I will never be okay again if Imogene doesn’t come out of that house in one piece. Hell, even a bunch of pieces, I don’t care. As long as she’s breathing. And she can forgive me.
I hear a soft voice speaking amid the eerie silence.
Imogene’s steady voice, familiar but different. Deeper. Colder.
“You could beg to be forgiven. Some monsters kill, but then repent. Reform. You don’t have to be evil. You could—”
I push my way past Charlotte’s husband.
“Don’t look—” he tries to stop me, but it’s too late.
Imogene is kneeling on Blase’s thick neck. He’s the size of my fucking car, and Imogene is ragged and bloody, with deep scratches all over her clothes and blood leaking from underneath. On the floor next to her is one huge black horn and a trail of thick, sticky-looking blood.
Blase makes one last attempt, grabbing at Imogene’s neck—and my wife yanks the chain wrapped around his horn and over his neck. There’s a horrifying crack that sounds like a bowling ball being shot into a concrete wall.
Blase is still. Head tilted sideways at a sickening angle. One horn missing, the round stump bleeding into my carpet.
Imogene meets my eyes, the chain in her hands, her face blank. “Baby?” she mouths.
“She’s okay,” I nod, and then sag into Milo’s huge arms.
“He’s dead. I killed him,” Immy whispers—and then she collapses.
I KILLED SOMEONE. Ikilled a monster.
I’ma monster. I’m a monster who killed a monster. Wait, what does that make me?
I tried to talk to him. After I maimed him. Why didn’t I talk first?
I was too busy forcing myself to breathe. Scream. Sob. Anything, just so I didn’t stop fighting and let him get up those stairs.
Artie is standing with me in the shower, holding me up, kissing my shoulders, begging for my forgiveness. He’s crying, I can feel his body shaking.
Mine is, too.
“Immy, please? Speak to me, baby. I’ll do anything. I’ll never leave your side again. I’m the stupidest asshole in the world, Ishould have just waited, I should have stayed in the house, I should—”
“You went to get your wife dinner,” I whisper in a hollow voice. “I told you to go. That we’d be fine.” I let out a tiny burst of hysterical laughter. “I’m the stupid one.”
“No! No, Immy, you’re—”
“A killer. I killed someone.”
“Yes! Yes, and I’m so sorry. I couldn’t even help.”
“Help?” I don’t understand. He wants to help me kill things? “You got Laurel out.”
“I should have helped you. You’re hurt, and it’s my fault! I’m the husband, the dad. I should have been fighting for you. Not the other way around.”
“He would have killed you. He almost killed me.” I say the words in a hollow voice, and Artie sobs harder, nodding against my neck.
“You were so badass. Such a hero, and I... I did nothing to protect you.” His hand is trembling when he turns my head, gripping my chin lightly.
The water stings. There are deep claw marks on my chest and arm. A slash against my throat that might have been fatal if my skin wasn’t so thick, if I wasn’t so fast.
Enraged. I hit and clawed with my soft, unclawed fingertips. I bit and kicked. I stomped and kneed. I used the chains to my advantage, grabbing them first and using them to keep Blase in check, using force and leverage to break off his horn—and then snap his neck.
I have welts all over me. Deep grooves in the skin on my hands and forearms from wrapping myself in the chains and fighting against him. The lengths that were still free while I worked to get them around his neck swatted me, bit into my skin like whips.
