Page 15 of Monstrous

“But why me?”

My lower lip trembles and I’m not sure what to say or what to do with myself. Sitting on the couch feels a bit like giving up but the three of them have me surrounded again. Slipping closer with each breath I take.

The answer comes from the middle shadow, with the longest horns curving out of the back of his head through slicked back wet-looking black hair.Because you belong to us, Marianna. You’re ours, he replies possessively.

You’re our property, the left one tells me.

I jerk in his direction without really seeing him. I keep my eyes on my feet instead. “I’m sorry. What?”

They’re silent for a long moment.

In exchange for our help, you need to obey, Righty says.We were there during the attack, and we have been keeping you safe for some time. But you are ours.

Nope. No way. I can’t handle it. Freaking out, I bolt from the couch and slap my hand against the switch on the wall. Praying with every atom in my being that the lights will work, that the light will drive them away.

The moment my fingers flick the switch, the overhead ceiling light pops on. I exhale a long breath and glance over my shoulder toward the living room. The three men are gone.

With those last words echoing in my brain, I race around to turn on every bulb in my apartment. To drown them out.

ChapterFive

The lights continue to burn for the rest of the day and long into the evening. I’ve been trembling since I saw them, heard them speak to me, and all I can think about is getting more of my medication to get myself right again, but I’m too scared to step foot off the couch. My blankets are up to my chin and every limb is tucked safely beneath with the brightness in my apartment so bright it burns my eyes.

What if it’s not in my head? It seemed real as fuck to me, but like my doctors have said, my brain likes to play tricks on me. I can’t trust my own senses.

I just don’t know anymore. I feel so lost, so out of my own body and I hate it.

I’m barely hanging on, barely making it through life anymore, and a gut feeling tells me that no pills are going to help me this time, no matter how I wish they were magic.

Maybe I need to make another doctor appointment.

I curl up in my living room for most of the day like it’s a life raft in the middle of a stormy ocean. More blankets. More pillows. A mug of hot Earl Gray tea and the fuzziest pair of pajama pants I own.

The lights blaze brightly, sentinels against the dying sun outside. I barely made it through last night. No way I’m sleeping tonight either. I’m wound too tightly. Whatever is going on has me feeling unsafe in my own home.

There are demons out there.

Of the human kind and the supernatural kind, and I’m not sure which realization scares me more. That I can be attacked outside of my job or that three shadow creatures with fangs and glowing eyes can show up, beat the shit out of my attacker, then tell me that I belong to them.

Both are bad.

Both are very bad because I’m not safe or sane anymore. I’m also too paranoid to sleep.

I replay yesterday’s events in my head and nothing adds up for me. I never got a good look at the guy who attacked me, although I’m sure it’s Mark Smith, but I definitely got a better look at the three shadows, those things who aren’t supposed to exist in this world. My teeth chatter the longer I stay trapped in memories.

Eventually my eyes are so tired, my limbs so heavy, my chin drops to my chest and I jerk awake with a sharp inhale. No sleeping, I remind myself. If I sleep, I risk everything. But I’m so tired and the pajama pants…comfortable beyond reason.

That’s when the lights shut off.

All at once.

One second they’re shining and the next,pop. Complete darkness.

A cold chill rips through me. This is not natural, not good.

“It’s got to be a power surge,” I tell myself out loud. “Or a blown breaker.”

Except I don’t want to move to check because moving means I’m susceptible to the dark. Which is a crazy thought for a crazy person! Most people are not afraid of the dark, are they? Or rather, whatever it is in the dark that—

---