by Glass Eileen
Doesn’t snap at me, hardly looks at me.
“It bothers you doesn’t it? He’s your beast. He submitted to you. But look. I’ve got him tamed like a kitty. He listens to me, you know.” I lean in, stand on tip toe to whisper in his ear, “Just want to get to her, okay? Just acting is all.” And when he grumbles, I soothe, “Shh, shh. Let me.”
I make this look like lovey talk for the old hag, petting him while I speak, shooting her a dastardly sideways glance. Look what I’m dooo-ing, that glance says, and she snorts like a disgruntled pig.
“Tell her your name, Sweetie.”
He grumbles, but obediently grunts, “Sweetie.”
“Good boy!” I say jubilantly, but inside I’m wincing. I’ll apologize later, I promise. Just an act. I hope he knows I’d never mean that. “Now tell the old lady why you didn’t eat me.”
“Different,” he says, and I flush. I expected him to say that he liked me. Or that I’m not for eating. I forgot about different.
He nuzzles me briefly.
“Different how?” the old hag asks, interest narrowing her eyes.
The ink rushes out to envelope me in a hug, swirling around me like my own protective hurricane of chaos. I almost feel like a wizard when the ribbons rush around me, like they’re mine though technically they’re his.
Keyword: wizard. Or sorcerer, I like that word too. But not witch, not sorceress.
“What’s so special about you?” Edith’s nose wrinkles up like a pug.
The junk in my panties. The bob disguised by the high collar at my neck. My flat chest isn’t an A-cup it’s no-cup.
I smooth my hands down my blouse, checking to make sure all the buttons are intact. “I guess I just have that special touch,” I say cheekily and make a show of petting him behind the ears like a good horse. In truth, I angle my front into him to hide from her increasingly narrowed gaze. I turn my wrist and tilt my hand to be extra feminine.
There’s a part of me that can’t wait for her to find out. I’ve never been sadistic, not a bit, but after what she did to the little creature on her table, after what she did to Rex, I would love to flash her before she dies. Teabag her for reals, that’d show her what is so different about me.
I roll my lips together like I’m hiding a laugh—but I make damn sure she sees me do it.
I’m on the edge, always, of wanting to outright attack her—and knowing I won’t survive if I do.
“Explain!”
Smugness gone.
“Rex, Sweetie, don’t please. She’ll kill me.”
His mouth is already open to tell, and I can see it isn’t of his free will. One eye is darker than the other, a muddy mixture of blood and chocolate. Rex can break through. No matter what he thinks of me, he’d never betray me to her. He still has his free will, I’ve seen him fight.
“Tell me!” Edith rips the necklace off her neck, thrusts it forward, holding it high so that the gem glints in place of her left eye.
There it is. The object. Swinging freely from a gold chain, green light dancing off its faceted surface, sparkles on the walls.
I lunge.
My hands reach forward to snatch out her eye, my brain losing perspective of the distance between the rock and her face, merging her into a flat image. The left eye spins and shines, helpless to stop me from ripping it out of her socket. The right widens, her pupil shrinking to a dot, red veins growing over her whites.
I’ll plunge my nails into her lids and dig the power out of her, hold it in my bloody fist, and laugh.
Maybe I’ll take the right eye too.
(Careful.)
You’re right. I won’t. But maybe I will. It’d be fitting, wouldn’t it?
(No.)
You’re right. Even better would be to strap her in the chair first, then do it.
Silence from the annoying subconscious.
I’m right, that’d be the way to do it. She yanks the chain back, but it’s too late. I slam into the bars and my fingers close on the prize.
A terrible sound behind me, a growl and a shriek both. A black blur at the edge of my vision.
It takes me awhile to catch up, to understand the warm wetness staining my blouse dark red as ribbons gently coil over my hands, glide over my fingers and pry them off the glinting gem.
“Swee…” I gurgle. Wet dribbles down my collar, hot and thick.
He couldn’t have.
The gem is gone, the ribbons pull me back in. His jaws haven’t let me go and his teeth dig into the flesh of my neck. I lay bleeding, gazing into dual eyes. One glows red and loveless. The other brown, familiar, and leaking dark tears.
Thank you for reading!
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Arrie and the Wolf
Part 1 | Part 2
Arise from the Rubble
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© Eileen Glass
Published By Glass Fiction