The vision dissipated, and I once again rocked on my feet, ready to topple over, but there was a strong grip on my shoulders that held me in place. As I came to, I looked up over my shoulder to see Cilas holding me still. He was staring down at me, his white eyes burning with something a little more feral than usual.
I blinked the darkness from my eyes and looked around, my thighs still pressed together after what I saw. I was surrounded on every side by my monsters, and they were all gazing down at me like I was a fucking meal.
“I take it you all saw that, huh?” I was assuming, of course, but from the lust and need rippling off of every single one of them, I knew that something had happened to them as well. Kaz nodded, his black eyes full of hunger as he moved closer to me, and my body flushed from head to toe. “Then let’s do this thing so we can pick up where Creature left off.”
Kaz glanced at Creature with a raised brow. “Creature?” he asked skeptically. Creature faced him and shrugged one shoulder in a terrifyingly human manner. Kaz chuckled. “He says you took it upon yourself to name him. Clever girl.”
My mouth dropped open. “He talks to you?!” I glared at Creature. “Have you been holding out on me or just lying?” I wanted to hear him speak more than anything, but I honestly didn’t see how that was possible, since his face was nothing more than a skull.
Kaz laughed, shaking his head at me, and I felt the shadows rumble at my back as they chuckled at my naïvety. “He speaks to me the same way he speaks to you, with images and feelings, only I’ve known him for centuries, so I’ve learned a thing or two.”
I wanted to pout, but I had other things on my mind. I was letting them distract me, and I could feel the rain in the air already—my window of time was rapidly closing. Bending down, I hoisted a gas canister into my hands and took the cap off. I gave my monsters a sweet smile before shoving them aside, surprised at my ability to do so, given the fact that they were all unreasonably massive.
I began at the front of the house by the front door and started pouring, coating everything I could with it. I’d always loved the smell of gasoline. It was a weird little quirk of mine that Magnolia had never shared. The smell of it permeated the air, and soon, the canister was empty. Before I could turn back to fetch another, one was being passed to me. Creature had it dangling off one long talon, and I imagined that if he could, he would have been grinning.
One by one, I was passed canister after canister, and the tiny cottage was saturated in gasoline in no time. By the time I’d circled the entire house, I was just emptying out the very last one, needing to use every single drop of it if this was going to work.
Thunder crashed in the far-off distance, heralding the oncoming storm. It was now or never. I glanced back at the four monsters that flanked me and smiled widely. “Are you ready for your meal, boys?”
One by one, they stepped closer, both Cyn and Cilas licking their lips in tandem, while Kaz’s eyes began to glow bright green in that sea of blackness. Creature’s claws were extending, and he seemed to be growing even taller if that were possible, looming over me so high that I had to crane my neck to see his antlers or meet the voids he called eyes.
I could feel them urging me on, begging me to finish this. Not a single one of them really cared about me, I knew that. I wasn’t deluding myself into thinking that they wouldn’t tear me apart piece by piece without a second thought. To my surprise, I realized I was okay with that. I hadn’t come to this place to change it. I didn’t want to sway these creatures into becoming anything lesser than what they were born to be. All I wanted was for this place, for them, and for all the darkness inside me to consume me.
I pulled my lighter from my pocket and flicked open the lid, sparking the flame that flickered in the darkness. With a deep breath, and one last glance back at the house that loomed behind us down the mossy path, I tossed the lighter at the steps of the cottage and watched as it all went up in flames.
* * *
I ranbefore anyone could stop me, crashing right through the door of the burning cottage. The entire house was on fire, flames licking up the walls as the roof began to collapse in on itself. Heat hit my skin, and smoke filled my lungs immediately.
I coughed as I stood in the very center of the living room, staring at the front window, where the glass was beginning to crack. On the other side in the light of the fire, there were my monsters, watching me as the fire spread across the floor, as my clothes began to smolder and my hair began to singe. It wasn’t like the movies, where the main character could run through a burning building, and as long as they got out fast enough, they came out unscathed. Fire didn’t care about those things. All it wanted to do was consume so it could grow.
The flame on my skin hurt, but I welcomed the pain. This was what I’d come here to do. This was how my life would end. I would die in the place that started it all, in the house where I’d made all of my mistakes, and hope to whatever god was out there that my family knew what had happened tonight. I was making this right for them.
I screamed as fire climbed my legs, singing the skin and muscle. My hair was catching, and I could hear the sizzle of it like the crackling of static. Already, my clothes were burning away, falling to the floor in piles of smoking ash, and soon, I was left naked with flames approaching on all sides.
You think you can just burn me away and you’ll be free?
The voice laughed at me as I was engulfed. I opened my mouth and screamed as my skin melted slowly, charring and cracking until I was nearly unrecognizable. I screamed and I screamed as the voice cackled in the back of my head.
It’s just you and me, Iris.
It’s just you and me, Iris.
Blackness hovered around the edges of my vision, and the pain began to lessen. I knew that meant it was nearly over, because my nerves were burned away, leaving behind a husk of a body that couldn’t feel a damn thing anymore. Her laughter got quieter and quieter, and a spark of hope lit up inside of me. It took seconds for that laughter to taper off entirely and fade away, leaving behind nothing but the melodic roar of the fire.
I laughed as I burned—laughed so hysterically and so maniacally that I hoped it could be heard for miles around. I hoped it echoed in the ears of the officers who’d lied to me. I wanted it to follow the townspeople who gossiped, and I wanted it to haunt that house for the rest of its miserable existence.
I smiled through the flames, closing my eyes softly. “I’m on my way, Mags…”
Then the shadows converged. My vision went black in an instant, and a coldness washed over me, as if I’d been plunged into the void of space. I was still laughing, unable to stop myself for even a moment. I laughed as shapes began to appear in the blackness and voices murmured to one another. I was floating in a sea of nothingness, and there wasn’t anything that could hurt me ever again.
It took a matter of seconds for my voice to stop working. Coldness slipped down my throat, as if I’d taken a drink of ice-cold water. It filled my veins until I was nearly frozen, and yet I couldn’t move. I felt a flat surface beneath me and realized I was lying down on something solid, but still, everything was just blackness.
Those shapes in the distance began to take form, and strangely enough, they were more of a gray color while the rest of the world was a black void. They were blurry at first, and for a second, I wondered if my shadow men had lied to me and I was seeing ghosts for the first time. There were four shapes, and as they approached me, they grew larger and larger until they towered over me, the one on the right so tall that it might as well have been a giant.
Then I felt hands on me, groping my arms and legs, their touch warm and soft and alive. I didn’t understand. I was supposed to be dead, right? I shouldn't have been able to feel anything.
Those blurry gray shapes began to solidify, and in seconds, I realized I was surrounded by my monsters. Cilas, Cyn, Creature, and Kazimir peered down at me with eyes as black as the void we were trapped in. Their teeth were elongated, and their faces were more angular and severe than I remembered. Drool was dropping from Creature’s sharp teeth, and his claws had tripled in length.