Chapter Six
My breath comes in short, frantic gasps as I jog up the steps to Avery’s house and press the doorbell.
I can’t hear it ring beyond the heaviness in my head, the sounds of the street fading to garbled white noise.
When nobody answers after twenty seconds, I knock, wait another ten seconds, then knock again. Nothing.
Just because Avery’s car is here doesn’t mean she is too, but I can’t not check.
I know from Tyler’s turning that the change is instantaneous – one second, he’s there, the next, he’s a drooling hellhound.
The first time was chaotic, the new skin a shock to the system.
What if Avery wrecks her house or – worse – someone, rightly terrified of the monster that’s just randomly appeared in their home, wrecks her?
I don’t know what kind of monster Avery’ll become; if she’ll be an oversized mutt like Tyler or something weirder, like a giant, man-eating spider.
Knowing Avery, she’ll probably have poisonous barbs, something she can maim people with in lieu of her words.
‘Peggy!’ the woman next door screams again. ‘When I find you, I’m gonna—’
Hearing her panicked voice, I hug the trash bag from Seconds tighter. I know monster-Tyler spends his days mauling sleeping bags like a bored poodle, but this is Avery we’re talking about here. Would monster-Avery hurt a child?
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ I mutter on a loop, glancing around the street.
There’s no trace of a monster anywhere near, no screaming or sound of glass smashing.
Outside of Avery’s neighbour, everything is eerily quiet.
With my head down, I navigate around the side of the street and find the alleyway linking to Avery’s house.
The wooden gate to her backyard is only secured with a simple latch; I flick it open and step inside, shutting the door softly behind me.
A stone pathway leads to a small shed that’s been converted into a bar. A darkened neon sign that reads DRINK UP, BITCHES is strung up on the back wall above a row of shelves, each one lined with cocktail glasses.
Wringing my hands, I call out quietly, ‘Avery?’
There’s a rustling sound behind the bar. The muscles in my body lock as the sudden sensation that I’m being watched skitters across the back of my neck.
‘Avery?’ I say again, even quieter than the first time.
A soft sound, like something scraping along the bar’s wooden floor, answers.
Swallowing hard, I edge closer to the shed, heart pounding.
The same scraping sound whispers against my ears.
Somewhere far off, I register that Avery’s neighbour has moved into her own backyard, her shrill scream of, Dang it, Peggy!
Just when I think I can trust you! cutting through the tense fug of my brain.
Finally, I reach the threshold of the shed.
I shut my eyes for a few seconds, brace myself.
Then, biting down on my nerves, I cross through so I can see around the back of the bar.
Another sound streaks through my head, something loud and shrill, something that makes me want to cover my ears.
It takes a few heartbeats for me to realise it’s my own screaming.
Because heaped on the ground with one half of its body coiled, the other half streaked along the shed’s uneven wooden floor, is a gigantic snake.
I know by the sheer bulk of it, gathered on the floor like a firefighter’s hose, that it has to be at least five feet long.
Triangular black patches speckle its olive-green body, a head as big as my hand rearing up at the sight of me.
But instead of attacking or even hissing, it merely pokes out its black, ribbony tongue.
‘Avery?’ The word barely sounds. ‘Are you – is that you?’
The snake’s head tilts as if in question, tongue flicking.
‘Holy shit,’ I breathe. ‘Oh my God.’
A snake. I really am in love with Avery and now the curse has turned her into a snake.
When I think about it, though, it kind of makes sense.
It’s a well-known fact around Mount Luther that Avery started the rumour about Cassidy setting fire to the third-floor girls’ bathroom so Cassidy would be out of the running for senior class president.
I crouch down so I can face snake-Avery at eye level.
She seems subdued, peaceful, even – way calmer than I’ve ever seen human-Avery.
But where is she gonna go? I can’t just leave her here in the suburbs – somebody could trap her and take her to an animal shelter.
How would she explain it when someone came to work one morning and found a human Avery in a cage next to a German Shepherd?
But I can’t bring her back to my house, either; what would I say when she changed back underneath my bed?
Even though I visit Tyler in the cave, there’s no evidence he actually remembers anything from when he’s a monster, reinforced by the fact that he’s never actually tried to contact me when he’s human.
‘Damn it,’ I shout suddenly, throwing aside the trash bag from Seconds in fury.
Again. How has this happened again? I was so sure I’d never fall in love with Avery and now I’ve made two monsters.
‘Indigo?’
The sudden sound startles me so much that I jolt upwards, my head crashing into the bar. I quickly extricate myself, snatching the trash bag and pushing myself to my feet.
My head pulses faintly in pain as I stumble on to the grass, but I ignore it, too frozen by what’s in front of me. Because standing there, in tiny pyjama shorts and a sports bra, wet hair leaving streaks down her very human shoulders, is Avery.