“My fiancée.” He uses his free hand to slick his black hair back with the moisture from his forehead.
“Fiancée?” She’s dead. He said she was dead. “But—”
“Ex.” He squeezes his piercing eyes shut and waves me off. “I called her Red.”
This day is never ending.I take a final scoop of sugared peaches in my mouth because the way this conversation is going, the night might go sour soon.
“She was raped by my father.”
What?Yes, good call with the cobbler. Fork is down. I’m listening.
He unbuttons his shirt halfway down his sternum. “My father was a cold man, with a large ego and a strong grip.” Another sip. “He had eyes like a snake and handled women like they were his puppets. And his words, his way of articulating a point, were his greatest weapon. He could strip a person down and expose their greatest insecurities with one sentence.”
He focuses momentarily on my plate, half-eaten cobbler, then back at his bottle to trace his finger around its lid.
“He never hurt me, though. He was much too prideful to harm his flesh and blood. It wasn’t until the night I proposed to Red that he pinned her down and forced himself inside of her.”
I clasp my hand over my mouth. I can’t believe he’s sharing this with me.
“She told me immediately after it was over. Never kept a single secret from me. We shared anything and everything,” he says sharply, eyes finding mine once more.
“Aurick—”
A hand goes up to stop me. “Which is why it is hard for me to be left in the dark by you all of the time. You come home—share a meal with me—and avoid all of my questions about the asylum.” He leans closer, bourbon poisoning the air around us. “You are my friend.Friendsdon’t shut each other out.”
I lean back into my chair, the hands of fear pushing against my shoulders, pinning me in my seat to stare at him.No.Don’t make me leave.
“You’re right… I’m sorry. You’ve been so gracious to me—it’s not fair how I’ve kept everything confidential. It’s only—the images I’ve seen—the torture haunts me. I did not want my friend to also bear that burden.”
And tonight, I finish my dessert and tell him about my experiences at the asylum thus far. Sharing the horrors, the treatments, the blood, the patients, their histories. We sit on my white, fluffy, feathered bed, and he listens. I tell him about my plans, about the plans Scarlett shared with me. I paint a vivid picture of Chekiss and Niles. And after it all, I’m weightless, floating to the ceiling, afraid I might fly freely into the world on a stiff wind with nothing left to hold me down.
Of course, not nothing. I didn’t dare share my moments with Dessin. The totems that brought ugly feelings from within my soul. The obsession with meeting him. I told him the bare minimum.
Because it is not my secret. It’sours.
23. Exodus 23:20
After I met Aurick, allI wanted to do was wonder the forest on my own. To make sense of my sister’s death. To mourn, to grieve, to wallow alone. There was one moment in that time that snapped me out of my self-pity, my depressed daze.
The forest is still and covered in nightfall and snow—a sleeping ocean before a cluster of waves. I crouch down to tuck my knees against my chest. Inside the coat pockets, my hand grazes a small box, cardboard, rough on the sides. Matches.
A crack. Like a foot stepping on a brittle tree branch.
I light one.“Aurick?” I call out. Another stick breaks, and this time I pinpoint the sound coming from my left, past a couple trees, and it’s close. Animals. He warned. Big ones. The flame burns down to my fingertips, I grunt and drop it, and it sizzles as it falls to the snow.
I pull out another match, watch the tiny flame ignite, starting from blue to bright yellow, then I hear the snarl, not exactly a growl, but something foul, sucking in air through its teeth and nose. I lunge back and trip over a root sticking too high from the dirt. The snarl elevates to a growl—a sharp gurgling in its throat, then a hiss, several hisses. The hiss becomes a scream, a squealing scream like a rat being roasted alive. And it’s getting closer.
I hold up the tiny flame and watch as a light-gray figure steps out from behind a tree, hunched over, arms hanging close to the ground. I stretch my hand out to get a brighter view of what it is. The gray isn’t fur; it’s skin. Bare skin. Leathery and dry. The eyes are white like its tears are made of milk, and the mouth is almost a snout but not quite. Its limbs are spindly, stretching outward to the snow like a dying spider.
It’s a night dawper.
I gasp, fresh blood pours from its mouth—I’m assuming a dead animal isn’t far. I start crawling backward, my fingers stinging in the snow, and my breath hitches in my throat as I attempt absolute silence for survival. My mouth clamps shut as I remember what my father would tell me.
Night dawpers are highly intelligent animals. They have no fur but can survive in the coldest of temperatures by consuming the blood and organs of other animals. They are born blind, with long arms to climb and long legs to outrun their prey. Their senses are heightened; they can smell blood, much like a shark, from miles away, and frighteningly enough, they can hear a leaf drop from that distance as well.
Asa child, I was told not to wander too far into the forest, especially if you have a fresh wound, especially in the winter. I look down and understand I’ve acquired my monthly visitor. The warm blood slowly trickles down the inside of my thigh. I know it can smell me. I can’t outrun it. A gazelle couldn’t outrun it. I decide to remain still. It has yet to pounce. The nostrils on its rather stubby snout are flaring—it must be confused because it can smell me, just not hear me.
I take my chances and stay still, breathing into my hand.
