Page 105 of Her Feral Beasts

The Friday before the trial, things change for the worse. Honestly, I was just waiting for something to happen.

I have my shift at the hospital wing to distract me from the multiple threats coming at me from all directions. After my shift, as usual, the guards check my pockets and pat me down before they escort me back to the dining hall where Minnie is waiting for me. We have a quick hot chocolate with the other animas before heading back to our dorm.

Minnie is finishing up her turn in the shower when I flip my duvet back to climb into bed.

I’m met with a bloody red mess.

A dead python lies on my mattress. Its severed head is hanging by a single tendon, and its throat is bleeding out all over my sheets.

A scream tears from the depths of my lungs.

Minnie comes crashing out of the shower, naked and dripping wet, her pink curls coming loose from her bun.

“What in the godfather is that!” she screeches. “Call the guards!”

Gertie chatters by her ear and Henry joins in, panicking, and they both start zooming around the room.

“No!” I cry, waving my hand and throwing the duvet back over and rubbing my eyes like I can scrub the bloody image from them. “No, no, no. Wait, let me think. Oh WildMotherGoddess.” I stumble back from the bed and continue swearing until my head stops spinning, but the vision of all that blood just sticks in my mind like tar.

There’s a dead snake in my bed. A corpse. Iknowit’s animalia by its scent.

My entire body feels petrified, like someone has me in a vise. I can’t move. I can’t think.

This can’t be happening.

But I know what I saw.

“Lia.” Minnie’s voice is shaky as she comes to my side, wrapping herself in a towel. “It’s alright, Lia,” she says softly. “We’ll report it. They’ve taken it a step too far. This is a class-A offence.”

Murder. He’s murdered someone and put his body in my bed.

“Minnie.” My entire body trembles like a leaf. “It’s not—” I swallow. “It’s notthem.”

Minnie looks at me like she can’t believe what I’m saying.

“Lia.” Her voice breaks. “This is a dead body. We need to report it.”

It’s a message to me. A clear fucking written-in-blood message. My anima shrieks inside at the soul-wrenching realisation.

There’s a knock at our cell door and we both violently jump back from my bed.

But it’s just Raquel, their face peering through the bars. “You g-guys screaming in here?”

“We’re fine!” Minnie and I both say at the same time.

“Just a spider. Sorry, Raquel,” I say.

Raquel frowns but says nothing as they leave and when we hear the door next to ours click shut, I breathe, trying to feel my body again.

It’s my heart beating a thunderstorm in my chest.Myburning eyes that saw that snake’s corpse.Mynose that can smell the clotting blood.

“If it’s notthem,then who?” Minnie hisses, tugging on her hair.

Slowly, reluctantly, I ease the duvet back. Minnie holds her breath as she sees what I’m pointing at.

There’s a tiny piece of paper lodged under the snake’s severed head. Written in blood is a single line of text.

You were always mine first, Aurelia

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