She looked up at him. Water washed over her face, stung her eyes, and dribbled into her mouth. “Mom gave me to him.” The tears she couldn’t cry soaked every word. “I was a wedding present. A present.”
He didn’t offer vacant words of comfort. His face said everything. His freckles recognized her vulnerability. His tattoo offered her protection. His eyes were a promise of devotion and affection.
He settled on the slate floor next to her—a silent offer to share her pain. She scooted the few inches to him and leaned against him, letting him cocoon her in his strength.
*
Austere, infinite whiteness surrounded Evanee.
The White Place.
After her last visit, no relaxation existed in the space. Intuitive fear bubbled up inside her. And then she felt it, felt the presence of evil. Fear wrapped its cold, dirty fingers around her. The skin on the back of her body tightened, flinching as if waiting for a blow. Her heart double-kicked against her sternum. Duh-dum. Duh-dum.
She snapped her eyes shut. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.” Her voice boomed around her as if she were in an amphitheater hooked up to a thousand mikes. Knives of pain pierced her ears from the megaton volume.
The sound vanished. Gone. Not even an echo. Like it never existed.
Silence. Heavy and expectant.
The evil thing was still there. Behind her. Waiting.
Should she turn and face it? Or should she play the if-I-ignore-it, maybe-it-will-go-away game?
She’d never been fond of games.
She flung herself around before she could talk herself out of it.
A woman that wasn’t a woman anymore—a monster—stood behind her.
The woman’s head was cocked unnaturally to the side, ear touching shoulder. Brown stringy hair hung in her face, obscuring all but her mouth and one filmy eye that was locked on Evanee.
Dirt caked every crevice of the woman’s naked body. Her enormous breasts sagged to her waist, like socks filled with pennies. Her left foot faced the wrong direction, heel toward Evanee, toes pointing backward.
Backward. Her foot was backward.
Abhorrence rolled through Evanee’s stomach. Her throat opened. “Bbwwaa.” The gagging sound crashed through the space. She clamped her lips closed. Every sound she made was a punishment. She forced her gaze away from the foot before she actually vomited. Her hearing wouldn’t survive that particular cacophony of noise.
No movie monster could compare to the hideousness of the woman standing in front of Evanee. She tried to back away, but hit something solid, something immense, and she knew the Thing that immobilized her last time had her again.
She tried to run, her muscles twitched, mimicking the action of running, but she remained motionless. Invisible fingers pried her eyelids wider open.
Not again. Please, not again.
Adrenaline shot through her system, burning a tail fire of energy, but she couldn’t move. Her muscles, her innards, her eyeballs shook from the unexpressed pressure building. It hurt. Tears drizzled down her cheeks. That only made her mad. She wasn’t a crier. Never had been. Crying solved nothing. And yet her body wept.
The woman’s torso tilted to the side, head still stuck on her shoulder, her arms swimming through the air. She swung her backward foot forward, plunked it down. Then a relatively normal step. Then the mutated step.
The woman stopped in front of Evanee and opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something, but one of her front teeth fell out.
Duh-dum, duh-dum, duh-dum. Evanee’s heart pounded a panicked rhythm. Maybe she’d have a heart attack and it would all be over.
No. She wanted—needed—to be with Lathan. A tiny bit of the pain and panic eased as she pictured his face. His tattoo. His freckles.
The woman bent, her breasts swinging wildly from her torso, and retrieved the tooth.
She reached into her dirty hair, fishing around under the locks, and pulled out a tangled mass.
Evanee’s arm rose. But she wasn’t in control of the movement. The Thing that had her on lockdown moved her arm.
No. No. No. She screamed the words inside her head, fearful of making a sound. The woman carefully placed the hair in Evanee’s palm, curling it into a nest, and then set the tooth in the center like a precious egg.
Evanee couldn’t breathe.
“Monta?as. Guadalupe. Parque. Nacional. Monta?as. Guadalupe. Parque. Nacional.” The woman pointed to herself as if that was her name.
The Thing released Evanee and she fell.
And fell. And fell.
*
Evanee slammed against the bed. She fought to sit up in the jumble of limbs—hers and Lathan’s. Her body convulsed as if it were being electrocuted repeatedly. An absurd need to scream and release some of the suppressed energy came over her, but enough of her sanity remained to know that wouldn’t be a good idea.
“What’s wrong?” Lathan’s voice in the dark. His arms around her. “Holy Jesus. You’re shaking.”
She clutched at him and sagged in the safety of his embrace.
“A nightmare. Another nightmare. It can’t be like the last one. It can’t. That can’t happen again. It can’t.” The words rushed from her mouth.
“Honey, I can’t hear you. I don’t understand. Let me turn on the lamp.”
She gripped him as tight as she could, knowing she’d twist off into crazed oblivion if he let her go. “It was only a nightmare,” she yelled against his chest.
He winced, but his arms tightened around her.
Someone pounded up the stairs.
“What’s going on?” Gill ran into the room, flicked the light switch.
More than light filled the room. Certainty filled her mind. She pulled back from Lathan and looked down at her fist.
She flung her fingers open. Hair. Tooth.
She screamed then. Couldn’t contain it any longer.
“How the fuck…” Gill said, but his voice began to fade—or maybe she was fading. She felt an odd sizzling sensation inside her head. The world burst into blinding X-ray color, then went black.
*
Soft afternoon light filtered through the bedroom window. Evanee lingered in the delicious place between waking and sleeping, where dreams of anything were possible.