28. Aliana #2
God. Who the hell am I? I’m worried about hurting a monster’s feelings! And now, a different monster has hurt mine!
Fucking tongues is a terrible, terrible thing. I’ve never been so tied up in emotional knots in my entire life.
But Dev—shit, I’m even calling him by a casual name in my head now—called me his mate. Claimed I was his forever. He said monster mates are forever…didn’t he? Then where the hell is he now? It can’t take that long to deal with a couple tongues. What the fuck is with the radio silence?
I rub my hands up and down my arms, trying to erase the goose bumps that have formed there. I feel cold inside and out.
What an idiot I am for believing that bastard. I had the right idea about him all along. Goddammit.
Fuck this.
I run to the closet to find my combat boots. It’s time I leave this place for good. The longer I stay, the more muddled my thoughts are getting. I can’t even tell who my enemies are anymore.
“Monsters killed your parents, Aliana,” I remind myself as I grab a man’s button-up suit shirt and a pink scarf from the closet.
Of course, there are no fucking pants to be found.
Fine. Fucking fine. I’ll run in my panties, thank you very much.
I yank on my socks and the black boots, then lace them violently.
I pull open the door to my room with so much force that something in my shoulder twinges, a ligament or a muscle or something that’s fucking painful. “Bastard!” I yell down the hall, which is eerily silent. “Where are you, fucker?” I yell.
No one appears in the hall. No one. Chills travel up my spine, and I hug my arms around myself as I make my way down the hall.
Something is horribly wrong, and I have no idea what it is. Did the rebels set off nukes or something? That’s a pipe dream we always talked about...hunting down some bunker somewhere and just fucking over the monsters who stole the planet.
We’ve never done it because it would kill us too. But did it come to that?
My throat tightens—I’m not sure what side I want to win.
And that right there is a big fucking red flag.
Hello, Stockholm Syndrome, you evil bitch.
I’m over here making excuses for a monster who hit it and quit it.
I’m over here wondering about end-of-world scenarios and fucking worrying about him. And Creep—
A blast outside in the courtyard makes the walls shake, the light fixtures above me swinging wildly on their chains.
The percussive force smashes into my eardrums. I cringe where I stand, my hands cupping my ears protectively.
To my utter surprise, the door on my right opens and Creep appears.
What the hell?
Creep steps forward, his blue eyes full of concern. His lips move, but I can't hear a word he’s saying. I can't hear anything but an unending, high-pitched beep.
Losing my hearing feels like losing a limb. I’ve fought all kinds of teeth and tongues—but hearing them coming, being able to hide and hear when they slither past has always been an essential component of survival.
I dart my eyes around wildly, trying to make up for the loss of another sense. But the cloying, cloudy dust outside the window obscures my view, and all I can see through it are a haze of shapes that might be arms or tentacles or even sandworms.
I can’t tell who is here or why, but I know one thing—Dev’s under attack.
My stomach curdles as I wonder more about monster culture. Is it common to attack their leaders? Has a rebellion been brewing? What will happen to me if Dev’s dead?
I feel utterly ignorant.
And then another thought infiltrates my head, one edged with painful thorns. What if Dev never came back because he’s dead?
I sway where I stand with my hands still clasped over my ears. My mind has trouble grasping that this moment is even real. That this is possible.
I thought that the Terrors were the most powerful monsters in existence. Isn’t that what Filia said?
If that's true, surely he’ll win.
Then why does my gut sink?
He’s going to win, Aliana. He has to.
There’s movement in my peripheral vision, and it startles me because I didn’t hear a damned thing. My heart leaps up into my throat, and I move into a fighting pose automatically.
But it’s just Creep moving closer. His lips are speaking but nothing computes. I wave a hand at my ears to show him they aren’t working. I’m not even sure my mouth works either. Speech seems impossible.
He steps forward and gathers me up in his arms without warning, carrying me bridal style. I cling to him as he turns and runs for the end of the hall, so quickly that my heavy mane of hair streaks out behind us.
Glancing over his shoulder, I see a door blasted off of its hinges, bits of wood flying through the air.
A giant, hairy spider that’s the size of a Jeep squeezes through the damaged doorway.
Instead of eight black eyes, he has eighty.
They dot nearly every surface of his body not covered in hair.
A primal shiver of disgusted fear rattles my already aching skull as he turns his eighty black eyes onto me.
Blood drips from his mandibles, and he spits something onto the floor—a black- and yellow-striped arm.
Zeelof.
I barely have time to gasp in horror before a string of web flies through the air at us.
“Fuck!” I scream. That sound is the only one I can hear because it vibrates inside my own head.
We’re dead. We’re dead. We’re so dead.
I have no weapons, and Creep—he’s just a child's nightmare, the stereotypical monster under the bed and in the closet. He doesn’t—
Creep lifts a hand, and pitch-black darkness encases us, like we’ve been thrown into a tomb. Not a droplet of light can be found.
And now, I’ve lost two of my senses. Touch is all I have left. I dig my fingers into Creep’s shoulders, and I bury my head in his neck.
I feel every inch the helpless maiden at this moment—and I absolutely fucking hate it. I need a gun, a knife, a glass bottle. Fuck, I’ll settle for a little girl’s jump rope—I’d try to wrap it around that tongue’s neck and squeeze.
I open my mouth, planning to ask Creep if he has anything, but he yanks open a door I didn’t see and steps through…right into a portal.
The squeeze of the air all around me compressing tightly and flickering black and white shapes are a consolation after that total darkness.
When we pop back into existence in some random broom closet, I almost cry with relief because my ears are no longer ringing and I hear his feet hit the floor with a thump.
“Stay here, little warrior.” Creep brushes my hair back behind my ear and gives me such a tender look that I forget he’s a monster for a second. I don’t see the curling horns or the blue skin. I just see him.
But then he turns, clearly planning to portal out of here, and I latch onto his bicep.
“Wait! What’s going on?” I need to know.
His look grows hard, but I can tell he’s not thinking of me. His eyes drift to the side as he says, “There’s a group of Eights and Nines making a run on Dev.”
“But—”
He gently untwines my fingers from his arm. “But I have to go help him.” He pops out of existence before I can say another word.
Goddamned monster.
Fucking Terror.
I want to punch something—both because I’m pissed he left me when I wasn’t done talking and because the massive amount of adrenaline surging through my system demands release.
I am not the princess who gets locked in the tower. I’m the bitch who takes out the dragon.
I turn around, searching this ancient broom closet. There’s a mop bucket, a mop, and some bleach.
A grim smile crosses my face as I walk over to them. That’ll do.
Ten minutes later, I emerge from the closet with a broken off mop handle that’s sharp as fuck on one end and covered in bleach—which I hope affects monster skin the way it does a human’s.
I follow the sounds of destruction through the maze of rooms inside the Cloisters until I come to the entry room, the one full of silver statues. That’s where I find Dev in his twelve-foot wolf form, his claws slashing at a giant, winged snake.
The indigo snake hisses, spitting venom in an arcing stream. Some of it splatters across Dev, and he snarls as his fur starts smoking.
He slashes at the snake, and when he moves, I realize that’s not the only monster Dev is fighting. There are three others fighting him from the ground—a giant, panda-shaped creature whose skin is covered in boils, a writhing shadow, and a giant rat.
Behind all of those monsters pacing forward with their eyes locked onto the Devourer, Creep stands, his hands throwing up a wall of that black shadow he blinded us with before. A tentacle flails out from behind that wall, and I realize that he’s holding back even more monsters behind it.
Dread crashes down like a felled skyscraper—tumbling on top of me, the weight of it suffocating.
They’re both outnumbered. Dev’s going to die. Creep might die. I should run—
My grip loosens on the broomstick I’m holding as these thoughts flash through my head in quick succession.
But before I can move, before I can blink, a hand wraps around my waist and another clamps down on my mouth.