Page 58 of Memories Like Fangs
And then, I burst free.
The shattered chrysalis rained down around me in a flurry of glittering dust as I settled into my new form. I was taller now, my body being at least twenty-four feet long or so. My wings pulsed on my back, feeling the wind like it was a second heartbeat. I couldn’t wait to feel it underneath me, surrounded by my family with the stars kissing my scales.
I didn’t have to wait for long.
Mom and Pops roared, the sound loud enough to make the earth and forest quake. I roared in response. Then, we took to the sky.
Pops led the way with smooth, confident arcs. He was precise, sure, and in his literal element, but there was a freedom in the movement of his wings and sway of his tail, too, like it was the wind that had control over him rather than the other way around. Mom, on the other hand, was being a total show-off. She did loops and twists while snickering like a dragon’s version of a giggle. I couldn’t help but make the same sounds before I joined her. I darted, spun, barrel-rolled, twirled, and did all sorts of tricks. Mom and Pops roared, and I instinctively knew it was their way of cheering me on. I could hear they weren’t the only ones. Down below, the others watched with their faces tilted upward. For the most part, pure wonder painted soft, broad strokes across their expressions. Betty bounced on the balls of her feet in unfiltered amazement. Max watched with an easy smirk on her face. Quinn’s face was my favorite: just pure love and admiration.
Without a sound, the three of us dipped low and offered our backs for folks to board, just like we always did.
Max was the first to decline, as always. “Oh, I had enough of heights years ago. I will keep my two human feet on the ground, thanks.”
Talli and her family, on the other hand, were quick to split themselves between the “very pretty red one” and the “wicked blue one.” As they climbed on Mom and Pops, I noticed that Everett had shifted into his griffin form at some point already. From his front legs to his head, he looked like an enormous eagle. His wingspan with brown eagle feathers rivaled that of Mom’s, and the bird-like claws on his front legs were longer than mine. His back half was that of a lion, his sandy tail flicking behind him. Teddy was on his back, just waiting for us.
That only left me and Quinn.
She walked around me slowly, taking me in fully. Under her gaze, I preened, standing taller and vibrating my wings softly.The wind blew her curls back from her face, and I could easily see her breath catch. She stopped in front of my face when she was done. She reached to touch, and I met her halfway. Soon, she had embraced my snout, something that was about the same size as her. Quinn whispered into my scales. “Nunca dejas de sorprenderme con tu belleza, mi tesoro.You never stop surprising me with your beauty.”
I wagged my tail behind me in joy at the compliment, not realizing how adorably dog-like it was. Quinn laughed at the reaction.
I lowered myself, and Quinn climbed on easily. Even without the supernatural strength coiled under my scales, it felt like she weighed nothing. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. When we rose into the sky again, I could feel her heart pounding against my scales. Her laughter bubbled from her lips freely.
“This is better than flying a jet any day!”
We soared together for a while. Mom flanked me on one side, Pops on the other. Everett hovered above us. Below, Max had shifted into her hellhound form, chasing the shadows of us on the ground and barking in joy with us.
For one perfect moment, everything was perfect.
It was my dream, everything I could ever want.
But, none of it was real.
I knew it from the very beginning. I could tell from how I couldn’t feel Quinn at all, how nonexistent and dead our bond was without any emotion. Her touches were just as hollow and empty. While not cold, they were not nearly the same fiery warmth that I knew so well. There were parts that didn’t make sense either. Like, where were Simone and Maisie? If all my family were truly in one place, they would be there, too, like the sisters I always thought of them as. If my parents were alive, why hadn’t they taught me how to shift like Pops could? Why did I have the same tattoos that I do now? The games we played werejust like the ones I had played before, every move happening the exact same way, like I was rehashing them.
Everything was like that, just like I remembered, with very little that was original and new. These weren’t new memories. It wasn’t the present. It was the past. Yet, it was combined with everything from my past. It was a hollow amalgamation of memory and dream, of nonfiction and imagination. As much as I wished it to be real, longed for it so badly that it felt like my chest was going to cave in from the ache, it simply would never be.
Still, none of that stopped me from relishing in the heat and strength of Mom’s embrace, the calmness of Pops’s presence, the wisdom of Auntie Max’s words, and Quinn—well, my idea of her and how it would go if she were there. None of it stopped me from enjoying the feel of the wind beneath my wings as I enjoyed what could have been, yet never would be.
“Merry Christmas, ladybug!”
I groaned, taking my time to open my eyes and come back to reality. It still managed to feel like a crash-landing compared to the fake reality I was in before. There, I had freedom and happiness. Even if it wasn’t real, it was an escape from this. It wassomething. It was something more than this stillness that there was too much of, this quiet that was too much and too loud.
I was no longer flying. Hell, I wasn’t even standing. I was strapped to a wooden chair this time, still at my ankles and wrists. Still with my wings and tail tied to the chair. Still being bled just dry enough to keep me alive.
What had changed was where the chair was.
The space smelled strongly of pine and dust. The walls surrounding us were made of polished logs of wood with furniture to match. A cabin. It wasn’t one I recognized, unsurprisingly, but it did have the cozy, rustic vibe of a postcard or aesthetic social media vacation post. It was a tiny cabin, one of those where everything was visible in one room, minus a bedroom and bathroom that I presumed were up the stairs to my left. In the living room in front of the stairs, a stone fireplace raged before a couch with heavy plaid blankets. An open-concept kitchen stood in front of me. There were no Christmas decorations up, but the television above the mantle was playingElfat a low volume.
I groaned again.
Great. Now, I was literally being tortured and having to watch my least favorite Christmas movie. What did I do to end up on the Naughty List?
At least this place had windows. They were covered with thick beige blackout curtains that were drawn tight to not show any glimpse of the outside, but sunlight still filtered in around the edges. It was a pale winter light. So, it was snowing wherever we were. That would explain the chill I felt threading through the cabin floor. Were we still in Montana? Were we close to Quinn’s house there? Or, were we in a secluded snowy woodland far away from everything and anyone who could hear my screams?
Obviously, it’s the last one, Byrd. Let’s use our brains, mmkay?
Lilah sat across from me on the kitchen counter. Her legs swung like she didn’t have a care in the world. She sipped from a red mug with a chipped handle. She wore a rich purple velvet blouse and leather pants with her feet bare despite the cold. Her black hair was braided lazily to the side of her head. Despite the clear ease she was feeling, there was something about her aesthetic that didn’t make sense here and felt off.
