Except it is, isn’t it? It’s exactly what I wanted: to take back every pound of my flesh that’s been consumed by others till I’m so full, I’ll never be empty again.
CHAPTER 22
The world is red, swirling, and thick.
I am in a room, on the floor, twisted in a blanket. I flex my jaw since it’s now back in its socket. The taste of carbon and earth coats my tongue and the insides of my cheeks.
The decimated body of a god lies next to me. Its blood has formed a lake as shining and thick as oil on the floor.
Ripley is curled on her side in the puddle. She’s frozen in time on her last breath. Mouth slightly ajar, her gums are a pale pink that stands out against the sea of black. It almost feels like she’s only sleeping when I cup her cheek. She can’t stay here. Even if she’s gone, I have to get her out. I go to scoop her up—
A sharp pain rips through my chest, like my ribs are doing their damnedest to break through the cage of my skin—like there’s something in there trying to get out. My legs crumple like rotten wood and spill my limbs onto the floor when I try to stand.
A hysterical sound comes out of my mouth. It’s a laugh. Why is it funny? I don’t know, but it is.
“Hello? Help!” A faint voice comes from down the hall. The words are followed by rasping, heaving coughs.
The world narrows to a point, and saliva fills my mouth. A vague humming shakes the space between my ears. The humming spreads to my eyes, then down my throat, across my stomach, until the entirety of my body is zinging with trapped energy. An achy fever settles in the hinge of my jawbone. Clenching my teeth and grinding my molars does nothing to dispel the feeling.
I follow the sound and find a cultist crawling through the doorway of one of the other bedrooms. I can smell her—the salt of her sweat, the iron tang of her blood, the astringent chemical scent of the product in her hair. I breathe quick and fast to get more of it in my nose and on the back of my tongue. It’s good. It’sgood.
She doesn’t notice she’s not alone until her hand bumps my bare foot. A strangled noise of surprise breaks up the steady coughs contracting her lungs.
“Oh my God! Can you help me? Oh my God, please. He left. He left us!”
It takes her panic-flushed skin on mine to realize how cold this body is and how desperately it needs to be filled with something warm.
The cultist looks up. What she sees wipes the mask of desperation from her face and replaces it with the sort of fear that lingers in the primal, hidden parts of a body.
She’s on her back and I’m on her. The skin of her neck splits around my teeth. Her honeybee earrings tangle in my hair. There’s blood dripping down my chin; blood on my hands; a chanting in my head that I embrace like a missing friend.
I find a cultist shuffling down the stairs through the ocean of smoke. I crack his neck like a twig and taste the ropey muscles of his back. Another limps through the foyer toward the front door. It’s the tall woman with the willow-thin wrists.
She holds up the crosshair. “Get back!”
A hiss like a startled cat comes out of my mouth. Even the sight of it is repellent.
But I don’t have to look at it to take her to the ground. The rune goes flying. A puff of hot, terrified breath hits my cheek. I have the urge to eat it directly from her lungs, so I do.
She shouldn’t have tried to hurt me. She shouldn’t have tried to hurt Emma or Ripley. None of them should have.
They deserve it, the goblin says.
Except, there never was a goblin, was there? It was just me. The goblin was the voice I gave to the destructive urges and intrusive thoughts that kept me up at night. People give names to the things that scare them all the time. I’m no different.
The thing inside urging me toeat them hurt them break thembite?
That’s not me. Not the goblin either.
Outside, I tilt my face up to the moon. Nothing like thesky out here. These mountains might be older than bones, but not older than the stars. I touch my cheeks and trace the unexpected upward tilt of my lips. It feels good to smile.
A figure rushes through the front yard toward the driveway. Cars have filled it up since I was out here. The figure lurches toward the last one in the line. A set of keys jangle in his hand.
Ellis freezes with one hand on the car. Fear sounds like him swallowing with a dry mouth and smells like ammonia leaking from his pores.
The fever in my jawbone throbs. The sores from the box burn. He locked me in and took me out to brag, for meaningless ceremony, to bless his small life, and to never, not once, be satiated—
I shake my head and press both hands to my chest. The pressure inside builds and builds. My bones are going to crack and my flesh is going to split. Outside, nothing happens. No splitting, no breaking. Inside, it’s socrowded.
