Page 95 of Terror Tuesday
“What?” I ask.
“I can’t believe I’m making a bed…with my stalker.”
We set to work, and I try to mimic her movements, but she laughs. Full-out beautiful chuckles erupt...from the woman who just murdered her rapist.
“And you’re doing itwrong,” she says between breaths.
Looking at my messy handiwork, I shrug. “There’s arightway?”
She hip-checks me to show me how to fold the top sheet into ahospitalcorner. “Like that.”
“Got it.” I tap my temple. “I’ll make our bed from now on.”
Her forest-green eyes go wide, and the smile drops from her face, replaced by a stunned look. “Ours…”
“Yeah.Ours.”
There’s a tiny twitch of her lips, as if she wants to accept it with a grin. “I’m tired.”
“Yes, stabbing rotten meat will do that to you,” I tell her, and she glances at me with a sly look on her face. Because now…we sharealmostall our secrets.
She slips beneath her covers as I hover nearby. Maybe it’s angels singing, but when she asks, “Will you stay?” I could swear Heaven opened up and shined down on me.
In answer, I kick off my boots, toss my hoodie onto her chair, then lay on top of her bedding in just my jeans, T-shirt, and mask. Trembling fingers trail over my chest until I snag her hand and place it firmly against me. Then, I bring her up closer until she’s resting on my shoulder. “Get comfy, Monarch.”
We’re silent for a long while, until I reach into her nightstand and pull out her diary and a fountain pen. She watches without protest as I flip to a back page and begin to draw.
She’s tucked against me like she belongs there. Damp hair curling over my arm, lips slightly parted from exhaustion. Pages of her journal resting half-open across my lap, and with one hand, I sketch.
Slow strokes. Clean lines. I don’t need a reference. I’ve memorized every inch of a Monarch’s wing.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Just…watching videos of other people and tracing, I guess. Practice. Time. Dedication.”
“So you stalked butterflies, too, then?”
My head hits the headboard as I chuckle, low and long. “Yeah, I suppose.”
She grows quiet again for a good while, but her eyes are still open, watching me.
“This one’s female,” I murmur, voice hushed so I don’t break whatever this moment is.
Shifting just enough to look, her thigh brushes mine. “Oh?”
“Males have black scent glands on their hindwings. Right here.” I dot them in with the pen. “Females don’t. Their veins are thicker. Coloring’s slightly duller, but more grounded. They do the heavy lifting, the egg-laying. Males just fuck and die.”
She hums against my skin like she’s barely listening, but she’s not annoyed. That’s all I care about.
“Thereallyfascinating part is how they migrate. Four generations removed from the forest they were born to reach…and somehow, they still find it. They find home. It’s stored epigenetically. Inherited memory encoded in DNA. So even if they’ve never seen the place they fit, they’ll die trying to get there.”
A pause.
I shade the edge of the wing darker, trying to perfect the symmetry. I don’t look at her until she speaks.
“You’re such a weirdo.”
My lips twitch under the mask. “And you let me come inside you a couple times tonight.”
