Page 16 of Tangled Threads Of Fate

I screamed again, hoping Nate would hear me. The thing moved around, hissing, and I scrambled to my feet, dodging behind the breakfast bar.

It had a wide-open maw, baring teeth so razor sharp, they looked like knives. Its black flesh was dripping from its skeleton as it moved forward again, and my heart thundered so hard I was worried I’d have a heart attack.

“Get the fuck away from me!” I screamed.

It lunged, its long, skeletal claws reaching for me, and I held my breath. It smelled of damp earth and trash, but that wasn’t why I’d stopped breathing. Terror had clogged my throat. I was about to die at the hands of a monster, my babies right along with me.

Before those claws could so much as scratch me, an ax swung down and removed its hand. At least, I thought it was an ax. It shone so bright, it was like a spear of light through my retinas.

When I peeled my eyes open against the piercing brightness, Nate stood in front of me. Well, kind of Nate. He was also luminescent, and I had to squint against the light bursting from his skin.

The monster spun on him with a pained screech, flying at him like it had no bones. It wrapped itself around him, smothering his light with the oily, dripping darkness of its body. The glow where Nate had been flickered under the terrifying blackness. It was like an abyss had sucked Nate down deep.

“Nate!”

The shadow gave an inhuman shriek, and pinpricks of light burst through the membrane of its flesh. With a roar that made all the hairs on my body stand on end, Nate’s glowing ax burst through what I assumed was the middle of the beast, making shadowy ooze splat against the walls, like gore in a Tarantino film.

Then the creature disappeared, just like that. Even the oozing flesh that had hit the wall was like invisible ink, fading away like it had never been there in the first place. Staring at my clean white wall, it all could have been a bad dream.

Except Nate was still glowing and he seemed… bigger. I couldn’t explain how, but he’d grown at least a foot, as if a normal-sized Nate couldn’t contain the enormity of his aura. I could feel his presence like a suffocating weight on my chest.

Fuck.“Maybe there really is a brain tumor,” I whispered. None of this shit was making sense.

“You don’t have a brain tumor, Wren,” he grumped, wiping his glowing blade against the rough fabric of his pants. “I think you might be seeing the supernatural.”

My eye twitched, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up from my chest where the hard block of fear still sat heavily. “The supernatural,” I repeated.

“Yes. That creature was a Verserpent. A creature of the night.” He frowned. “At least, I think it was.” As I watched, he cracked his neck, and it was like the opposite of a glowstick; his light shrunk in on itself, like a roaring fire smoldering down to a glowing ember. Now that I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee the light that shone from his chest, banked for now, but not gone.

“Verserpent,” I repeated dumbly as my brain tried to cling to… anything.

He nodded, dropping his ax so it leaned against the back of the couch. “Yes.” He walked over to the window, looking out into the small backyard. “There were two. I dispatched one on the stairs before I heard you scream.” He gave me what would be considered a lopsided smile. “It was lucky we didn’t fix that squeaking step after all.”

I slumped down onto the couch. “How? Why?”Why did it break into my apartment and try to eat me? How did it get up…“Mrs. B!”

Panic flashed across Nate’s face, and he was out of the room before I could even get up from the couch. I ran to the stairs, forcing myself to grab the handrail and go slowly down so I didn’t trip.

“Mrs. Byrne!” I yelled, panic edging my tone. “Mrs. Byrne, answer me!”

I reached the bottom of the stairs, and Nate was there, blocking the door to her apartment, the look on his face laying bare my worst fear.

“No. No, Nate. Let me past,” I screeched, shoving at his chest.

“Wren, you don’t want to?—”

“Let mepast!” I screamed at his chest, and he slowly stepped back, letting me through.

At first, I convinced myself she was just sleeping. She was lying in her recliner, the late-night shows playing on her TV. The remote was still in her hand. But as I got closer, there was an unnatural stillness about her. An unnatural angle to her body that screamed death, not sleep.

Her face was contorted in horror. Her other hand was clutching her chest. She’d died in fear, and that broke something inside me.

“No, no, no,” I breathed, clutching at her hand. I sank to my knees beside her recliner, shaking. She couldn’t be dead. She was the last person left in the world that I had. She couldn’t die and leave me alone.

I sobbed into the couch, clinging to her hand. At some point, I felt the warm chest of Nate wrap around me, giving me someone to lean against as I cried.

“I’ve called 911. They’ll be here any minute.” He gripped my chin and lifted my face so I was forced to meet his eyes. “You have to hold it together, Wren. You can’t say anything about monsters or shadows, because they’ll throw you in a psychiatric ward. We came down here and found Mrs. B. That’s all that happened, okay?” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it, the Irish lilt comforting, like it was wrapping around my bruised heart. The same soft Irish lilt that Mrs. B used to have. “You’vebeen such a brave girl. Just be strong a little longer. For Mrs. B. For the babes.” He rested his forehead against mine.

When the police arrived, shortly followed by the EMTs, I let Nate do most of the talking. When the paramedic wanted to check me out, asking me a few questions, I answered them robotically. I was having triplets. No, I didn’t feel any pain. Yes, they could take my blood pressure.

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