Page 105 of How to Seduce a Slender

Giovanni took her by the elbow, tugging her toward the lawn. “Come on, Mel. What are we even doing here? It’s supposed to be you and me against the world? And here you are, waltzing with these rich bozos?”

Melody lurched, leaning out of the doorframe. Glancing up from the ash wood of the porch, she stared into Giovanni’s face. The round face that was nearly identical to hers except for the scraggly beard that was struggling to form along his jawline.

He’s wrong…this is all wrong…

Melody realized all too quickly as she focused on the prickling sensation at the back of her skull, that she knew this feeling. This tug of war in her mind between going forward and stepping backward. It’s the same sensation she felt hobbling down the alleyway with a bleeding leg.It’s the same as when I ran away from the witch who took you.

“You’re not real,” Melody whimpered, leaning back toward the house.

“Mel?” Giovanni breathed. His face fell.

Melody’s lower lip quivered, shaking her head more. The string went taunt again, tugging her backward. “You’re not here. You’re not real.”

“Mel! It’s me!” Giovanni snapped, his face twisting up instantly.

“No! It’s! Not!” She snatched him by the lapels of his jacket and wrenched him backward with her. “You’re not stealing my memories away from me again, witch! Come…”

Melody crashed backward into a tree, Giovanni stumbling with her. They both crumpled to the forest floor. Melody immediately scrambled away from him, searching left and right for the manor.Oh no, no-no-no-no. Her body thrummed with the vibrations of a thousand angry wasps surging through her veins. Melody spun around. Her skirts swooshed with her as she searched every inch of the woods around them.

“This is a trick!” she snarled, returning her glare to Giovanni.

He climbed to his feet, returning the feral anger. “No more than the dirty trick you played on me.”

“What?” Melody barked, her fingers snatching up the front of her dress.

“She told me what you did. How you left me for dead in the woods. Did it make you feel better to leave me there? Dying? Crying out for help! Choking on my own blood. Tricking me into the trap she laid for him, leaving me there mangled and half-alive so you could have the last bit of our parents’ money. And I thought it was us against the world, Mel. I really did.”

Melody roared, tossing her skirts aside as her claws burst out of her fingertips. “What are you talking about!”

“You left me for dead!”

“You werealready dead!” Melody screamed. Her voice bounced off the haunted trees around them. Some of them skittered away as the birds rushed to the sky above them. Snow crunched under her feet as she stormed forward. The cold didn’t even touch her skin, the flurries melting inches away from her. “You are dead, Giovanni.”

“Shut up!” His face twisted, the beginnings of a snout beginning to grow out of his face.

Beware of the dead things.Melody’s ire seeped out of her like poison from a wound. Icky, thick, and dribbling down her body till it sank into the snow. The forest grew quiet as she took a shattered breath in. “You’re dead, Giovanni. You’ve always been dead. This whole time she’s had you like a puppet on a string. Just dragging your corpse anywhere she pleased. Making you do what she wants. You’re dead.”

“No! You’re a liar!” he snarled, a third eye popping out of the center of his forehead. A single tear of blood dribbled down his scalp, down his nose, and across his lips as it stared at her with red hatred. “You’re lying!”

“I saw your body, Giovanni!” she croaked, her throat threatening to close. A truth she’d always known but never gave up hope it was a lie. Because if he wasn’t dead, if she hadn’t been covered in his blood, she wasn’t alone.

But she wasn’t alone anymore.

Melody’s skin broke out in goosebumps as she stared down at a body transforming. The illusion was giving way. Half his face fell off and sizzled into the snow. A shattered skull, caught between transformations stared back at her from one side of his, the other the mangled, bruised flesh of the dead thing he was. His busted lip was purple and green, his cheek pale and speckled with blood, his hair full of rot and mushrooms feeding on his decay. A corpse pulled taut on a string. Melody motioned at him weakly. “Look at you.”

“Look at me?” He growled, eyes flashing red. “I am what I am because of you! My mistress can’t heal!”

“No, she can only ruin! Because she mutilated you! She took what pieces were left of you and reanimated them. You’re a zombie, Giovanni. You’re a ghoul! You’re! Dead!” Melody’s body rattled as she mourned her brother once more. It washed over her like the scar tissue over her heart was ripped open. Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at the dead thing her brother had become. “She’s using you to hurt me because she can’t control me! I already have a master.”

“She doesn’t want you!” Giovanni barked, lunging forward. Melody gasped as she jerked out of his reach seconds before he ripped through a tree.

“Giovanni! You died because you never fucking listen to me!” She dodged blow after blow as he launched from shattered tree to shattered tree. Melody snatched up the skirts of her dress, avoiding him with very little margin for error. Her heart raced in her ribs, begging her to move faster. The woods expanded out in front of her, and she sobbed.No! I need to get back! I need to watch out for Smith.

“Stop running from me!” he snarled as frosty claws tore through her shoulder.

Melody hit the snow, hands falling through layer after layer till her palms collided hard with frozen solid dirt. The jarring feeling rattled up her bones and into her teeth. Blood poured from her shoulder. Snow melted in large chunks around her as she watched the pure white slowly fill with ruby.

“I didn’t run from you.” She let out a slow puff of air that tickled her cheeks as it rose.

---