“There isn’t anything to think of. You get one shot with things like this.”
“But I don’t even know what the shot was, Jack. I don’t even know what spell I originally cast. All I remember is writing on the windowsill for someone to come, in that horrible place, but I don’t think—”
She stopped dead then. She had to.
She could see it all clearly now, behind her eyes. Being on that table, waiting for them to do something terrible to her. Hearing the fire alarm go, and everyone rushing out. Being so afraid she’d scrunched her eyes shut tight, and only opened them when she felt the things holding her down being ripped.
But by something that shouldn’t exist.
Something that almost had a face, but didn’t.
Something that was nearly a young man, but wasn’t.
No wonder you blocked it out, he wasn’t completely formed into a human shape, she thought. But that wasn’t what she focused on. She couldn’t focus on that. She was too busy hearing the words he’d said to her.On your feet, soldier, just like she’d imagined, just like Kyle Reese coming for Sarah Connor.
Then they had run, her hand in his.
And when she couldn’t run anymore, he had scooped her into his arms.
“It was you who carried me out of there. Oh, it was always you,” she said, through a flood of tears. Knowing he wouldn’t deny it, but being healed by the words all the same.
“Whenever you needed me, I always came.”
“Like on the path through the woods.”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“And my busted taillight.”
“You could have been killed.”
“And when they strapped me down, and tried to force magic from my mind.”
“I defied every rule to set you free, and rained hellfire on all who opposed me,” he said, then she felt him shake his head. Like he’d said the wrong thing. He even added on the end, “Because I was your monster.”
Though of course she knew the truth now.
“Because you were my prince. The one I dreamt would save me.”
He shook his head, rueful. “Honestly, the universe is terrible for interpreting a young girl’s longing like that. You wanted a golden-haired guy in shining armor, riding up on a white horse. And instead you get a seven-foot-tall demon in a pickup truck that hates you.”
“I would never have had it any other way.”
“Come on. You must have had something slightly different in mind.”
“To be honest, all my stories about finding someone to love me? They were always a little weird. Full of tangled forests and talking animals and terrors. Meeting a monster at the crossroads and making him my friend. Living in haunted places with a curse that won’t let me leave. I didn’t want to leave, in any of those tales. I wanted them all, but with a happily ever after. Though of course I never—” she babbled, half into that sentence when the end of it struck her like a gong.
Harder than it had when she realized who had rescued her.
So hard that this time she almost had to sit down.
And so much so that he felt it. He knew.
“You got something, don’t you. A way out,” he said, as he eased her away from him. So he could look into her eyes, and see how much hope was possibly there. So he could gather some of it to himself, like a starving man scrabbling for crumbs.
But the thing was: she didn’t think they were crumbs at all.
This was something. She could feel it. It thrilled through her witchy bones.
