That’s our mate.
I’m sure of it. For one split second, it all makes sense, but then the thought disintegrates, and there’s no way. Just no way.
“You just tried to kill me,” she whispers.
“You ruined our chance at ever leaving!” Brio hisses back. “We’ll die here now.”
“You just tried to kill me.” She sounds so broken. “So, this is what I am. Everything and everyone wants me dead?”
The ocean holds its breath. My heart breaks, except it’s not my pain, it’s hers, I’m sure of it. I can’t breathe through the crushing agony.
“Good luck trying,” she snarls in a voice that is pure malice, and then she sketches another rune, and she’s sucked out of the world, disappearing like she was never here, and leaving us to our watery grave that we will never leave.
Chapter 3
Mei
Past
A few days after Mei is brought to Earth
Ihuddle tighter, drawing my arms up around me. The cold has gotten into my body, and I can feel it down to my bones. This incessant, endless torture of rain will not stop; it just keeps coming. My skin is so waterlogged that one harsh move feels like it will peel it off. My helpless wandering has provided no shelter or warmth, and my energy has dwindled.
I creep towards the hum of humans talking. Maybe they will show mercy; maybe they will have compassion. I just need to get my bearings. A corner to hole up in out of this miserable water.
“Nah, the umpire is blind, you saw that. We all saw it.”
What’s an umpire? How did it become blind? Were its eyes consumed by pure evil like mine?
“Dude, you are blind drunk, is what you are. It was clearly a foul.”
I don’t understand these words, but I creep closer anyway. The smell of meat fills the air, and my stomach growls violently. It took everything I had to heal the omega. It was long and rough, and walking out of there pretending I was fine almost undid me. A worse fate would have befallen me if the likes of the Grim, Styx, or those Fae had realised how weak I’d become.
Everything was going so well. My mother used to say that the best-laid intentions…I can’t remember what she said, but I had good intentions, and I laid them, and now they are ruining me. Two night cycles ago, it started raining and things have just become impossible. How can so much change so quickly?
Everything smells wrong and different, even the food. I can’t find my way in this world. I’ve never been more lost.
I must let out an involuntary sound because, all at once, the air is filled with electric tension, the scent of sour human fear. The rain doesn’t dilute the smell, but amplifies it until I’m gagging.
“What the hell is that thing?” one of the male humans asks.
“I don’t know. The freakish creatures that are invading our planet just keep getting weirder. But, fuck this, not in my backyard.”
Something heavy slides against metal, and I still my movements, suddenly conscious of the danger.
“Timmy, let the boys out!” the voice calls.
“Are you sure? What if it kills them?” The voice is younger, further away, full of fear.
“Nah, they can do it. Let them out. We got this, don’t we, boys?”
AROOO.
What is aroo? What is that scrabbling sound? It’s like the Grim but smaller. I step back.
“You with me, Jimbo?” the aggressive voice shouts.
“Heck, yeah!”
