Chapter 37 Forgive Me
Forgive Me
If not for the sense of Erik breathing right next to her, the tiny sounds as he shifted, and the absolute calm confidence in his voice, Liv might have done something embarrassing.
Like scream, or worse—her bladder was full, her back teeth all but floating.
It was probably terror doing something to her kidneys, or the morning’s latte looking for escape.
It was bad enough being chased by monsters. But to pee her pants was downright undignified, and she loathed even the possibility. She hated everything about this, except maybe Erik.
Hadn’t he been able to produce some kind of light before, when Jake let her out of her cell for the object lesson in monster reality?
Now, deep in a stone cellar, there wasn’t a single photon.
Just that pitch blackness, pressing against her eyes like a blindfold.
It was so dark she couldn’t even feel her fingers, and the thought that her body had been swallowed and she was simply a naked, shivering consciousness trapped in a cold black well was terrifying.
Still, it was hard not to feel charitable and a little less frightened when someone had carried you away from both a car wreck and hideous things screaming in the snow, their voices full of hard brassy hatred.
Even the thought that she wouldn’t have needed rescuing if they’d just left her alone was threadbare, the kind of justification that would keep you sane but wasn’t exactly, well, truthful.
It was hardly time for a reckoning, but Liv might as well.
She’d dreamed about the things chasing them, of course, almost every night since she could remember.
Her sleeping head was tuned to whatever bizarre station Erik and his friends lived on, and had been all her life.
Now the insanity had spilled into the daylight world, and she was stuck in it.
She might as well deal with the concept, in whatever time remained. Except she couldn’t quite figure out how, unless it was simply keeping herself from fear-based urination.
There was a deep grinding noise. Over it, the footsteps on the stone stairs beat an insistent tattoo, and the sounds were just plain wrong—some too light, some too heavy, some with a strange metal ringing and others with a clicking like dog nails on hard uncarpeted floor.
There were a lot of them, and a cold draft touched her cheeks.
It felt like there was an opening nearby, a big one. The fine hairs all over her body rose, sensing danger in the absolutely impenetrable darkness, and she wished, with a sudden vengeance, that Erik was still holding her hand.
“Jesus.” It just slipped out. “They’re on the stairs.”
“I know.” His voice was close. The cool draft intensified, stirring her hair, fingering her shoulders.
Was there a tunnel? If there was, it felt like something was coming through, pushing a wall of tepid air as it accelerated, and Liv was doing her absolute best not to scream, pee, cry, or throw up.
Her stomach was a seesawing fist, clenched hard. “Liv…”
“What?” For God’s sake, whatever you’re going to do, now would be a great time. “Please don’t let them eat me,” she continued, aware she was babbling. “Shoot me before they get a chance to eat me. Please.”
“It’s all right,” he said, heavily, and he’d straightened. She felt him, very close, and his fingertips skated over her cheek. A soft touch, yet she almost flinched. “Forgive me, lirai.”
What the fuck for? But he had her arm now, his fingers sinking in, and she knew what he was going to do a bare moment before it happened.
Erik took a single step to the side, half-turned, and shoved her into the abyss.