Page 28 of The Monster's Mate

You were given that name to mark you. I’m sure by now you’ve found that out. There is no place you can hide with a name like that, correct? Every job application, every doctor’s office, every organization you sign up for will think twice upon hearing your name.

It will spread like wildfire. The entire world will know who and where you are.

So, there’s no point in hiding, is there? Out yourself, or I’ll do it for you. Naturally I can’t have the likes of you out in the world. Show yourself, coward.

I read the article in the want ads of the newspaper three times, yet I’ve read it a hundred times before this. I’ve had plenty of time, having been off work for an entire week. The rafters in the old church finally rotted and fell, thankfully it was at night and no one was hurt. In fact, it happened on a night I was supposed to clean. I’d used the church phone to call Isabel’s boss, and fled without them seeing me.

But I know exactly who the article refers to. There are five people in the world who know my given name.

Me. Sam. My birth father, her uncle. And his sister, Sam’s mother. Now Isabel, though she’s not even on this planet.

And yes, he’s correct. If I had to apply for a job on my own, there would be no way to hide a hideous name like that. It would stand out and would be whispered among everyone, would spread like wildfire.

What has she, or her mother, done to warrant such a name?

The letters have been coming out in the want ads—apparently with enough money, they’ll take any type ad—since I was released from the home. Normally, a person leaves the home on their own two feet six months after their eighteenth birthday. Unless they have someone who comes for them, of course.

That person can claim them on the day they turn eighteen, which is when Sam did it. On my birthday. Her parents had been traveling and it was the perfect opportunity for her to sneak me into the basement.

Apparently, someone had been searching for me six months later, expecting me to walk from the home on my own. Except I’d been long gone and the records to sign me out? Gone also. There was no point in keeping duplicate paperwork past thirty days of my release. I would never be allowed back in the home after aging out, so they were automatically destroyed. A small point in my favor.

That someone had waited too long to seek me out and was probably kicking himself right now. He’d grown cocky over the last sixteen years and never suspected that I’d leave before the six months were up. I mean, why would anyone? When you’re offered free room and board but able to come and go as you please—a benefit the sponsored weren’t able to claim before—in order to find work and save our paychecks? Every person takes advantage of it. I would have been no different.

Except I had Sam.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d used her own earnings to encourage her parents to get away for a vacation, though she’d never said.

This was the first letter, one I should have showed Skiden. One I would have shown him, had I not become such a moody bitch over it. It was my fault he grew so angry and I can’t blame him. I handled it so badly and regret hit me as soon as the words left my mouth. I was so disgusted with myself but I couldn’t pull them back and go back in time.

God, his face. He looked so… betrayed. Exactly the way I’ve been betrayed by humans my entire life, and I did that to him. I showed him how humans behave.

What would I have told him if I could? We could have sat here, on this couch, the very next day and thumbed through these saved articles together. Then, maybe with someone understanding, I could have been brave enough to open that rolled up paper for the newest one. In fact, we would have had plenty of time. I’ve been home an entire week from work because of a construction accident. It happened during the day time, someone noticed a cracked beam and so the church has been closed for construction. I guess it means that much more work for me to clean when I get the call to return.

I pick up another article.

Lucifer’s Daughter,

With a name like that, it might not be what you’ve done, but what you will do. That name tells the good people of this world that evil grows inside you. What will you become? A serial killer? A jezebel, luring innocent, God-fearing men to their deaths? Will you work as a neonatal nurse and maim helpless and precious infants, which are already rare among honest people?

Underneath each message were a slew of comments from other readers posted through the month. Messages of fear and hatred and sometimes even violence toward me—a person who has never hurt or harmed anyone. But drama attracted attention to the paper and now they were more than willing to post the seeker’s letters, knowing the comments that would be stirred up during the month, views would be elevated and papers would be sold.

Security was ramped up in birth wards. Women my age were scrutinized thoroughly when they applied for nursing schools. Men started to demand birth certificates from their wives when they were courting—just in case a woman used a different name from that she was born with.

I didn’t know any of this until I moved in with Isabel and started to get the county paper. The very first time I saw my name entered in the sharp, horrifying font, I’d cried and cried. Isabel requested a ride from Sam—who’d stopped working as a chauffeur—but Isabel pretended she didn’t know that when she called the number, and Sam immediately knew something was up. She came over as soon as it was safe and I knew then why she’d always been so careful. Why she didn’t come over to Isabel’s at any time she wanted but waited for nightfall, or sometimes met one of us inside the grounds of the commune.

There was no way Isabel’s father would ever set foot inside the commune so being on the outskirts of it was a safe haven for us.

But that also marked the day when Sam and I came up with our code phrases.

That was the day the fifth person became aware of my name. Isabel would never say anything about it and I knew that. We’d become fast friends since that day.

She didn’t need to ask who my father was because it didn’t matter. There was evil in the world; hell, she knew that from her own father who’d shunned her so his friend couldn’t be convicted of molestation when she’d given birth. And of course, with the infant missing, it was probably likely that Isabel wouldn’t have been believed anyway.

So, if anyone understood how I felt, it was those two women who lived in my hell with me.

With Lucifer’s Daughter.

And part of me can’t understand why Sam called to say she’s bringing two more Bronian males to my home in the wee hours of the morning while the rest of the world sleeps. She knows this is a difficult day for me because another paper came out today, and I still haven’t been able to bring myself to read the last one. The one I’ve been holding since Skiden’s departure.

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