His fingers clenched into fists. “I’m not crazy. I’ll prove the monsters exist. Just come.”
Dove said nothing, but he knew she thought he was having a mental breakdown. Logical, factual Dove who thrived on color-coded spreadsheets and itemized to-do lists would only ever see her delicate, dreamy brother as the unstable one. Well, she’d find out the truth soon enough.
He needed her to see.
He was so tired of suffering because he moved through the world differently from everyone else. This wasn’t only about goddamn monsters. It was about how he never seemed able to cope, how the world didn’t fit against his skin, how he felt too much and hurt too often and couldn’t pack his emotions into neat, palatable boxes. He needed help. He needed someone to hold on to. Heneededto be believed. It didn’t matter if what hurt him was an invisible weight inside his head or something that left real bruises against his skin: His pain was real.
Moonlight lit a silver path across the sports field as they walked toward the fence, looming tall and ominous against the dark. Dove kept a step behind him, her fingers fluttering at his sleeve in a half-hearted attempt to slow him down, but he moved with dogged determination. He saw the problem first.
The fence had been ripped open, the hole wide and jagged with bloodied, matted bits of feathers and fur caught against the serrated chain links.
“See? The monsters busted through here. They got into the school.” He whirled on Dove, but her mouth stayed a thin line. “They murdered Bryce Kane.”
“You know seniors party in the woods, right? Obviously cutting the fence is an entirely new brand of stupid, and people are totally going to get expelled for this.” Dove picked up agore-slick feather. “The sad part is some animal’s been hurt because of it.”
He snatched the feather off her. “This is from amonster. You’re literally holding the evidence and you still don’t believe me.”
“Can you even hear yourself, Andrew?” Dove waved helplessly at the forest. “It’s a bird feather because birdsexist. Maybe there are wolves out there… I don’t know. Do they have wolves in Virginia?”
Frustration turned hot in his chest and he plunged through the hole in the fence. She followed, taking her time so as not to tear her uniform.
He stormed deeper into the trees, not caring how dark it was or how far Dove lagged behind, her footing unsure against the roots and tangled undergrowth. She broke into a jog, calling for him to wait, and he felt vindicated that she seemed spooked.
“Five minutes,” she said, as if her compromise was a gift. “Then we go back, okay? Together.” She said it like a treat, and it felt so patronizing he wanted to scream.
The forest licked its wicked lips, watching them. Still and silent. Nothing moved in the underbrush, nothing breathed out with lungs of vines and brambles. The thick smell of loam and leaves stuffed up his throat, but no monsters lurked in the shadows with viscid intestines unspooling from their perforated skin or poison drooling from their sharpened teeth.
No wind touched the trees. It had never been so perfectly
still
Dove touched his shoulder and he flinched.
“Thomas is probably down here,” he said. “He would’ve gotten the hatchet and then come to find me.”
“Andrew…”
But he cupped hands around his mouth and called, low at first because he knew this would invite an attack and he’d forgotten until now that he was unarmed. But when no response came, his voice rose. Nothing moved in the forest, no monsters, but no Thomas, either. Maybe he was still in the dorms, snatching the hatchet from under the bed and swapping his too-short dress pants for jeans that could take the gore and mud of battle.
But something felt… wrong.
Andrew kicked through the leaves until he found a rutted path. He turned in a slow circle, but only trees stretched out as far as the eye could see. The air shivered, both tremulous and expectant, as if it hid a boy, or a monster, and it didn’t want to show either.
“Thomas isn’t coming.”
Andrew stiffened, a sick dread fisted in his gut. He struggled to keep his voice neutral. “How would you even know that?”
In the dark, Dove’s face had been lost, only the shadowy outline of a nose, a jaw, the curve of an eye socket pooled with black. “Maybe I was wrong staying away from you this semester. But I thought you needed space to adjust.”
Dread thickened in his mouth. “What are you talking about?”
Dove took a tentative step forward. “Sometimes you choose your own reality, Andrew. You’ve always been like this, and I’m not angry at you. I understand. It’s like when we were little, you’d tell these sprawling, fantastical stories, but they neverended. Even when I got tired of playing, you wouldn’t. You’d lie on the carpet for hours just playing alone… in your head.” Hervoice had gone thin and rusted, and she fought to steady herself. “Thomas made you interested inthisworld. And I get it. I’m grateful to him. But…”
His ribs began to buckle inward, roots twisting and snapping as her words took him apart like scissor blades.
“What are you… So I had a big imagination as a kid? What’s that got to do with any of this?” He started to shake. “I’m nothallucinatingmonsters.”
Dove’s fingers brushed his hand, and his scars seemed to light up like they’d been brushed with acid. “No.” She’d never sounded so gentle. “I think you’re hallucinating Thomas.”
