Page 32 of Monstrous

The lights snap on again, only now, after a bit of time to adjust, I actuallyseehim. I see my mother wrapped in shadows. They keep her legs and hands tied down tight with another shadow across her mouth like a gag.

Everything inside of me lurches forward. “Mom.”

I struggle toward her only to have the shadows near my feet wrap around me to keep me in place.

“How can I not know her?” Darkness asks. “We’ve been through a lot.”

Rising from the side of the couch now, the nebulous shape of Darkness begins to coalesce. And Mark Smith stares at me.

“I knew it,” I growl out at him.

Mark arches a brow at me, meeting my gaze without blinking. “Youthinkyou know. And for a brief span of time, this is the face I’ve used. The face I’ve lived in, in order to blend in since I’ve been stuck here.”

He spits the words out and I sense the pain behind them, but I refuse to feel sorry for him.

“Whatever you’ve been through is your fault.” I’ll never forgive him for killing Walker. “Now give me my mom back and let’s end this.”

“End this,” Mark repeats. I guess I’m getting into comedy because he laughs in earnest. “No, there’s no ending to this. Tonight is the beginning for us.”

“It seems there’s a lot of wanting me going on and I’m just not getting the allure here. Care to explain?” My teeth rattle and I clamp down, tensing my jaw to still the movement. I certainly don’t need to advertise my fear.

Mark dives his hands down in his pockets, the Average Joe you’d see on the street and never really stop to look at. Except I’m still getting the weird creepy feeling from him and now I understand why.

“This body has been the shield I’ve lived under. Trapped here, unable to move forward or go back to the void. You called me here the same way you called the others. And when I tried to take you, seeing you for what you are, Marianna, I ended up taking someone else instead. Except it was impossible to be him after the police filed their reports.”

The chill in my blood takes root in my heart at that, and even if I had the ability to shake off the shadows binding me, my body is immovable.

Suddenly I’m shaking and my lips round on the one word I want to say. No. No, what’s he saying? No, he’s not—

Mark Smith disappears an instant later. And in his place is the very man I’d given my heart—my everything to. Walker Toth.

ChapterTen

Everything inside of me comes to a screeching halt, my heart skipping one beat, then two. The breath catches in my throat until dark spots dance across my vision and my knees liquefy.

“Walker,” I manage to get out in a strangled garble of sound.

How is it possible?

Mom stares up at him from the floor with her eyes wide and dark, shaking her head back and forth before looking to me for an answer I don’t have.

He holds his arms out to his side with the quirky little half smile I used to love.

I fucking hate the universe for forcing us into this situation.

“You’re not just wearing his face? The way Zane does?” I ask. Seeing the monster out of the corner of my eye as he creeps forward in an attempt to get to Mom.

Walker shakes his head. “It’s me, Mari baby. Don’t you recognize me? It’s been so long since we’ve stood in front of each other.” He reaches a hand toward me. “Let me touch you.”

Shifting into this form seems like the biggest cosmic joke of my life. Especially when he so casually tosses out the pet name he used to use for me.

“Darkness came for you because you drew it into this world with your sketches. Unfortunately, he grabbed me instead, so I became the darkness. A vessel for him to survive here. Except my face isn’t exactly easy to miss. I can’t just slip under the radar. We had to borrow Mark Smith’s, to survive. But this is me,” Walker explains further.

Like we’re sitting down over a couple of lattes at our favorite café. No time has passed at all and suddenly we’re eighteen again, just starting out and bursting with all these plans for the future. I hear his screams echo in my ears as the nightmarish blob sucked the life out of him.

Except, that wasn’t what happened. Was it?

Arc reaches out to take my hand and center me inthismoment, because I’m on the verge of losing it.

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