And why am I calling this thing a she? It’s not a woman. It’s not anything, really. It’s a fucking freak of nature. Well, no. It’s not even that. It’s a freak of… theunnatural. Because it’s not alive, it’s not real, it’s not?—
Little Baby Darkness takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. “You’re not listening.”
“You’re telling lies.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I’m not.”
“You’re not Little Baby. You’re not her.”
“Well, you’re right.” She smiles at me. “I’m not. I’m just a hallucination. But she’s still here, Josep. Little Baby is waiting for you in your cave. And trust me, I amher. I am all over her. I am inside her. Everything about her isme.”
I let out a breath and some dirt falls into my mouth, but I don’t even bother spitting it out because it’s all around me.
“You want her, Josep? Do you want the Little Baby? Your own creation to keep forever? As your partner? As your friend? As your lover? A blood lover just for you? This is what Ryet is to Paul. A pet. Do you want a pet, Josep? I will be your pet. Inher. Andthatis real. All you have to do is get up out of the ground and come find me. Then we can be together forever.”
I sigh, tired of this conversation with myself. Because that’s what I think it is. Me and my own damaged mind.
“You know that’s not true.” Little Baby’s voice is sweet now. And even though I’m under the ground with dirt all around me, I can see her plain as day. So it’s not real. And I’m not listening.
“OK,” she says. “Fine. I will tell you something true.”
I’m not looking at her. My gaze is focused on a twisted tree root in the dirt above my head. It’s white, and gnarled, and branches off in many directions that lead many places.
“I am the root, Josep.”
I scoff. “That’s your big revelation?” I scoff again. “Of course you’re the root. I’ve used you thousands of times to move across time and space underground.”
“But you see me as a highway. Something to be traversed.”
I don’t even bother scoffing. I just sigh, bored. Ready to die if none of this is going to work out in my favor.
“There is no death, Josep. This want of yours, this desire to evaporate into nothingness, it’s so irrational.”
I redirect my gaze to the girl on top of me and study her. Really see her. If she were Echo, it would be a reason to keep going. The two of us could hunt this Darkness together. We could subdue it, enslave it, drink its power, become a team, and rule the world as we built up the new American Vampires.
But I killed her. Not literally, she’s beyond that now. Because I gave her the blood we mixed during Ryet’s third birth and now she is part ofIt.
It is inside her. It has corrupted her. And I find that I’m truly sorry about that. I was too focused on Ryet and Paul. Too caught up in his plan.
“Yes,” Little Baby Darkness says. “Exactly. None of this is you, Josep.” She morphs back into Dark Me and I stare down at myself, suddenly able to see through his eyes.
“What do you know about me, Darkness?” I ask. But I’m watching myself say this as the words spill out of my mouth.
What a trip.
I lay my head on my own chest, then ask myself to hold me. “Hold me,” I say. But it comes out of both of my mouths at once. Like an echo.
My arms wrap around Dark Me, but this is when I realize I’m not the man lying in the ground, nor am I the man on top of me. I am both of us.
“Exactly,” Little Baby Darkness says, but only inside my head. “You are me, and I am you, and we are the same. This is why you’re insane, Josep. You’ve been touched by God. You’ve been touched by me because I am God. And your mind was never able to process it until now.”
“What’s so special about now?” I ask. There’s doubt in these words, but this insane dream is actually starting to make sense. In a small way, at least.
“Now, you can see yourself in me.”
Dark Me lifts his head up off my chest and we stare at each other. He’s pretty. That’s the word for him. He’ssofucking pretty. And the moment I think this, all the roots in the ground around me begin to glow the lightest of purples.
“I’m you,” he says. But I’m saying these words as well, at the very same time. So no matter which body I’m inside of at the moment, I’m saying this to myself.
