Page 24 of Misfit Monsters
I stop a couple of steps from the net and hold myself rigidly still. More snickers bounce through the room.
I don’t like this feeling. It’s too much like the worst times—I can’t let myself dwell on it—can’t let myself get too upset.
I can’t admit to the man who wanted me kicked out that I might not be able to handle this lesson.
Gnash speaks in a growl. “Once you’re wrapped in one of these nets, you’re stuck. If you see one, you hightail it in the opposite direction. If humans throw one at you, drop as low as you can and dash or roll at top speed. We’ll practice with regular rope nets.”
He nods for me to step back. As I retreat, my legs sway again.
The brawny woman strides past me, stomping her heel very purposefully on my toes. “Now who’s the wimp?”
I never insulted her. I only wanted to help everyone.
But all I feel are the glares and the smirks. The mutters aimed my way. My pulse pounds in my head.
Gnash is just putting the metal net away when the peal of the bell signals the end of the class period. “We’ll try the practice nets next session,” he announces.
As we head for the door, my nerves scatter all over again.
To feel those bindings pressing against my skin—the coarse texture, the interlocking pattern?—
I hurry down the hall, not thinking even of Fen. Amocking call reverberates after me: “I don’t know if you can run fast enough, weakling.”
I dig my fingernails into my palms.
I just have to get away. Somewhere quiet and alone where I can simmer down.
A door up ahead shows darkness through the small window. The label above the frame calls it the Media Room.
With a renewed burst of speed, I push inside.
I stagger to a halt at the edge of a big dim room. Faint light emanates from screens behind glass booths along the edges of the space. A handful of beings are sprawled across sofas opposite the door, watching an image start to play on a larger projector screen.
“Mortals all over the country have been watching this show for years,” one of the shadowkind tells the others in an eager voice.
Then the bouncy tune of a sitcom opening theme fills the air.“When you reach the end of the day, well, it’s another day over.”
The most stating-the-obvious of all possible lyrics. I freeze in place.
“And you can’t forget all the things that you really should go for.”
That painful half-rhyme. A whimper builds in my throat.
The sound hurls me back to the dank room that held cages blazing with light, to the small TV always buzzing and jangling off to the side.
His favorite show. Every day, that song. No matter what he was doing to us?—
The cloying voice continues as if trying to win an award for triteness.“But open your eyes, open your arms, and?—"
The horror rolls over me, too heavy for me to shove it away. Like the net, like when he caught me?—
The whimper bursts out in what’s closer to a wail. Ihurtle back into the hall and stumble into a chemical-smelling space that looks like a supply closet.
And the thick, dark agony I’ve tried to tamp down explodes out of me.
It sears through everything nearby as forcefully as my joyful glow did at the wedding. Terror and anguish and fury blare together into a deluge of misery.
Through the flood, I feel a yelp and a rasp of pain. A shudder and a sharp sting as if my darkness has sliced right through someone’s essence.
