“That’s okay,” Dad cut in, taking Avi’s wrists and gently folding the man’s arms across his chest. “Don’t scratch now, son.”
Isobel’s heart pounded as she passed over the first aid kit.
“Lenny left me there to die,” Avi moaned. “She-she came out of nowhere and”—his voice took on more volume and energy, his one good, bloodshot eye popping open—“heleftme!”
Chapter 29
The Monster
There was once a lonely little boy who reached inside the deep and darker parts of his subconscious for a friend. What he dredged from the depths of his own mind was something else entirely, something that would have frightened other little lonely children like him.
But Arthur wasn’t like other children. He never had been.
The monster worked itself into the cracks between their wills while Arthur slept, one arm slung around his bee girl. It put the monster at ease to see him finally rest. This mind had been made for both of them, no matter what Arthur had tried to convince himself of over the years, shoring up his mental defenses as though the monster was an enemy.
As though they had never been friends.
Filling the hollows Arthur left unchecked felt like sliding a hand into a glove. Despite what Arthur believed, the monster didn’t relish making the boy feel helpless. It usually let Arthur guide the actions of their shared body.
But the monster always showed up when the boy needed it. Just as he did now.
Arthur twitched, unaware of the shift in control happening while he slumbered on. The monster slinked delicately into the notches of the boy’s subconscious. It wasn’t ready to wake him yet. The moment Arthur woke, he was sure to fight, and the monster wanted to use this time to plan their next step.
Most pressingly, they had to get off this mountain. Arthur’s fever was worsening with every passing hour, and while the monster tried to soothe him and cool the heat burning him from the inside out, it didn’t have the power to truly heal. It could numb, and for a short while it could shoulder a world of pain for the boy it loved so much.
But nothing would stop the march of death itself if they didn’t get Arthur to a hospital soon. The boy likely had no idea of how much the monster was already carrying for him, or how much worse he could feel.
Cautiously, the monster blinked Arthur’s eyes open. The room around them smeared, waterlogged and rheumy. One of Arthur’s arms was still flung across Eva’s waist. He’d wanted to keep her from falling off the cot. The other arm was currently serving as a pillow for her, Eva’s cheek propped against the honeycomb tattoo. Some of her hair had found its way across Arthur’s cheek and into his mouth, so tangled and folded together were their bodies.
The monster watched the rise and fall of Eva’s chest. She sighed, as though she, too, were close to waking. Maybe that would be to their advantage. She needed to agree to the monster’s plan, after all, but it was hard to wake her when she looked so peaceful.
Arthur’s already aching body had been rendered more sensitive by infection. The monster stretched itself, feeling like a tentacledcreature in its effort to cool and soothe all the places where Arthur’s fever made it hard for his body to rest.
Eva’s eyes fluttered.
The monster’s awareness telescoped, and it took in the change of her heartbeat and breath with a new kind of fascination, flexing Arthur’s hand and running a thumb over the soft, pale flesh of Eva’s stomach.
“Hi.” Eva’s voice was dry and raspy. Her fingers knit into Arthur’s as she let out a sigh, still sleepy. “The… storm?”
“It stopped.”The words tasted strange on Arthur’s tongue, causing a shiver of delight to run through the monster. It felt good to hear its voice through Arthur’s vocal cords. It felt good to bereal.
Eva stretched, her back arching as she yawned. “Finally.”
The monster didn’t usually get to be this near to her, to smell the damp of her hair or feel where her freckles lay flat against Arthur’s skin. It loved her freckles.
Eva’s touch had a tendency to push the monster back. At times, it had wondered if her absence had been the reason the monster had managed to slip past Arthur’s defenses so completely after Charlotte died.
The monster held its breath as the acute sensation of summer grew heavy around the two of them, but the sunny feeling didn’t hurt. Ithummed.
Their eyes latched. Hers were summer-sky blue. The monster tenderly brushed a thumb across the dip in her waist again. Arthur’s body was weak right now. He needed the monster. It would be… irresponsible to relinquish the helm before the boy was well and safe.
“Hungry?” Eva asked. “There might be something in that trunk.”
The monster nodded, ignoring the physical protest of Arthur’ssore muscles as it extricated itself limb by limb from Eva’s embrace. She’d found one of Jack’s old flannel shirts in the trunk. With the storm gone, a streak of sunlight turned the total blackness of the shed into a hazy gray. The monster could just make out where the buttons of Eva’s shirt had been improperly aligned, exposing a bit of her stomach.
She lowered herself carefully to the floor again and fished through the trunk. There were more overlarge and musty clothes inside, including a weathered pair of hiking boots with a hole in the toe that must have belonged to Jack. They wouldn’t fit Arthur quite right, but they would protect his feet better than nothing. Hiking without shoes had left Arthur’s soles aching.
The monster fished a few things out for itself as well. The sun was leaking through the cracks in the shed walls, rapidly heating the space inside. It had to be… what, late morning maybe? They hadn’t slept long.
