Page 36 of Grotesque Love

With shaking hands, I push back the covers and rush to the window, peering out into the inky blackness of the night. Will I catch a glimpse of the creature that pursued me through the woods, or will it remain hidden in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike?

I’ll see you later,he’d said. The words echo in my mind, more like a promise than a threat.

Unlocking the window, I reach out and open my hand, letting the pills fall into the overgrown weeds below before quicklyclosing it again. For once, I’m grateful for the locked windows, their sturdy frames offering a semblance of protection against the things that lurk outside. I eye my bedroom door warily. I wonder if there’s some way to bar it shut because only Carver has a key.

Maybe…maybe it was never about keeping me in and more about keeping the monsters out.

I change into my nightgown and clamber back into bed, huddling beneath the covers. It feels like there’s a storm gathering on the horizon, waiting to unleash its fury upon the unsuspecting world, and I’m in the eye of it.

My eyelids grow heavy and I finally succumb to exhaustion, and the darkness of sleep envelops me like a thick fog. But instead of the blissful oblivion I long for, my dreams are haunted by whispers.

Faint at first, like distant echoes through the corridors of my mind. I toss and turn, the weight of unseen eyes watching me from the darkness keeping me on edge. The hushed words are joined by hands.

Reaching for me, grabbing and pulling. Scratching. Biting into my skin as the whispers grow louder. More insistent and intense, growing and swelling until they seem to fill the room like a cacophony of voices all speaking at once.

And I scream.

SAX

As I stand in Ari’s bedroom, my gaze sweeps over her fragile form before landing on the restless figures of my brothers. Mal is leaning with his arms crossed against the doorway to the bathroom while Jas perches on the end of the bed. They’re eager, impatient even, to rush our plan, to push Ari further than she’s ready for. The air is thick with tension and tinged with the bitterness of frustration.

Ari stirred earlier, her sleep restless and filled with screams, and I couldn’t help but feel unease as she seemed to glimpse usthrough half-opened eyes. It’s too soon for her to know of our presence. She’s not ready.

I worry about the way she fled from Jas and Mal in the woods. The fear she must have felt. Did she hurt herself in her panicked flight?

Clenching my claws into fists I pace softly back and forth. Mal and Jas mean well, but their impatience could undo everything we’ve worked for. I understand their urgency, their need to see Ari safe and free, to have her with us to complete our little family.

But their impatience could jeopardise everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve. We must proceed with caution, or risk setting her progress back even further. Rushing her will only deepen the wounds already inflicted upon her fragile soul.

Ari shifts in her sleep, a small whimper escaping her lips, and a surge of protectiveness washes over me. She’s ours to guard, ours to guide. We cannot afford to let her down.

“We need to be patient,” I say quietly, yet my words carry the weight of conviction. “We must tread carefully if we are to earn her trust.”

“You didn’t hear her!” Jas cries back in a whisper. “She’s so lonely my heart is breaking for her. I just wanted her to know she isn’t alone.”

Mal nods in agreement, his jaw set in determination, while Jas offers me wide, pleading eyes that beg me to understand.

And I get it, I do.

But just because Ari’s lonely, it doesn’t mean she’s ready to accept that monsters are real. How could we expect her to understand that we want to protect and befriend her?

The others know that I’m right, I can see it in their eyes. We may be driven by different motivations, but our goal remains the same: to see Ari liberated from the darkness that threatens to consume her. So for now, we wait.

Only once she’s free can we truly make her ours.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ARIANWEN

Ihave the strangest dreams and when I wake the next morning, I still haven’t decided if what I saw was real…or if I am actually crazy.

Carver treats me like I am, he wants me to think that my mother’s death pushed me over the edge and into oblivion…but has it?

Stretching and staring at the ceiling above my bed, I realise that I’m finally starting to feel like me again. Like an actual person, with thoughts and feelings, and not a grieving waif, drowning in sorrows.

Does it still hurt?

Like a hole in the head.

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