Page 165 of Her Psycho Beasts

Very wrong.

“What is it?” Lyle asks, sitting up and checking my body for signs of injury.

Savage leaps up from the bed, prowling around as if something is darkening his mind too.

“I don’t know,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead. He pushes the sheets off me and I scramble out of bed, going to the window to peer out of it.

The lawn behind the school is peaceful, lit by silvery moonlight. “Where did you say Scythe was?”

Savage comes to check the window too. He opens his mouth to reply, but then stiffens.

My head snaps to look out the window, and where before not a soul had stood, a single terrifying figure stands, looking up at us. Writhing shadows, dark as the void, cloak him from head to toe, leaving only red laser-beam eyes trained on me. The cherry red butt of a cigarette glows as he lifts it to his mouth and inhales deeply.

“Troubled little regina,”he whispers in my mind.“What will she do now?”

“Come here and fucking say that!”I snarl.

What am I missing?

Lyle puts his hand on my elbow. “Regina,” he says quietly.

Immediately alarmed by his tone, I turn around. In one big hand, Lyle holds a letter. White, heavy cardstock. “It’s addressed to you.”

I snatch it from him, not even caring for my manners and prising open the glue sealing it shut. It comes open easily, a fresh seal.

Heart pounding, I turn on the lamp by the bed and frantically read the words.

I’ve never seen Scythe’s handwriting before, but it’s sharp and sloping. Perfect and severe.

Aurelia,

I never expected you.

You know I have been watching you. And what I have seen confirms for me, that I made a very grave mistake in ever thinking you were my enemy.

Watching you with your friends. With Sabrina after she returned. With Minnie after the Titus incident. Then with Savage, the way you treat him. With kindness. With loyalty. All of it healed something in me.

Savage taught me how to love. But you… You taught me about devotion. About obsession. I am utterly obsessed with you.

I might be mad. I might be losing my mind. And if I truly fall apart, if I truly fall down the narrow crag of madness, let it be because of love. Because my mind may not be pure, but the love I have for you is.

When I look at you, my realities collide in the most violent and loving way, and I do not know what to do with that, Aurelia. I really do not know.

I used to know what I wanted: to do the work the Wild Goddess assigned to me and then return home.

And then you came along and threatened everything. I wanted to send you away. I wanted you gone. But now, I want you to stay, and it is I who must go.

I will always be with you. You with me. You run through my veins. You always have.

But I cannot stay here.

The darkness encroaches upon me. I need to end it before it swallows my mind whole. Before it takes who I am away from me and leaves me as nothing but the worst of the beasts who walk the land.

I only stayed long enough to make sure you would be okay.

You can rage, Aurelia. You can scream and swear all you want, but you must keep going. For Savage. For Lyle. For Minnie. For those who are not granted the choice.

You had to destroy a part of yourself in order to survive.

---