Page 6 of My Monster's Keeper
I’m lifted so easily, like I weigh nothing. I’ve been in so many fights growing up in the system, being a poor kid at a shitty district school, being a woman in a male-dominated career pathway, but I have never felt powerless the way I do right now.
He sniffs me over and then rears back and sneezes so violently that I flinch.
His eyes are deep green like pines, and his lashes are black with green tips. That’s all I notice before his gaze meets mine. Green with a star-shaped pupil. Not human eyes. Not at all. They feel old and ancient.
I swallow the fear that rises, vividly recalling the ease of his machete dicing through limbs. The screams are as real in this moment as they were when it happened, but I push it all away. I reach out, placing my hand on his wrist. Grounding myself in this moment. If I die, I’m not going to be afraid.
He grunts and drops me so suddenly that I land in a messy crouch. I hesitate and then bounce back up, peering around the car park and then into the car.
“Is that who you’re bringing me to see?” I ask in a low voice.
“Yep. I just fucking do as I’m told now. That’s my job. Hartley the fucking errand boy.”
His door is peeled open, and he’s pulled out and flung through the air. The blond guy smirks as he catches and pins him to a pylon.
“Hey!” I shout in protest.
“Hartley, we’ve missed these catch ups.” The voice is crisp with an accent I can’t place. It’s beautiful.
“Really? I have been pleasantly relieved not to see you,” Hartley snaps. “Get your hands off me, Frost.”
The blond man growls, and the tone is pure menace. White blond would be a better description, maybe even white, the more I study him.
“My name is not Frost.”
“Uh-huh. People call you Frost. You answer to it. You put it on signed documents. That’s called your name, dumbass.”
“I should freeze your flesh and then pulverize the bones while you wail your pain, meat.” The way he says meat makes me think that he might actually eat humans, and I don’t want to even go down that line of thought.
Hartley, bless the poor suicidal old soul, rolls his eyes. “Piss and vinegar, son, piss and vinegar.”
“What does this piss and vinegar mean?” The blond snarls with deep suspicion.
I have this crazy impulse to start giggling and have to bite my cheek to hold the sound inside.
“Argh, I’m not your English teacher, Frost. Where’s Stix?”
“Here, poppet.”
That voice, I hear that voice in my dreams. I hold my breath and try not to shudder when those fingers caress my shoulders.
“I missed you.” He’s not talking to Hartley, not even a little.
“Me?” It’s the dumbest thing to squeak out of my mouth in the entire history of my life, but there it is. I catch sight of the black thing on the roof, upside down, watching me with slitted, alien eyes that are black and yellow.
“Yes, you.”
I’m turned in the hold and find myself staring up at the gaunt face again. He grins, showing me that opening into hell. But, this time, I’m not so shocked. I find his eyes and am surprised to find green eyes, the colour of mowed lawn, bright and sparkling. His pupils are slitted like a cats, but there is a deep well of intelligence there.
These creatures, these others, are intelligent and far stronger, faster, and superior than us.
I almost ask ‘what are you?’ but bite my tongue because I don’t want to piss them off. Instead, I force my brain to work faster and put together the pertinent information and form a single question that is more important than what are you.
“Why do you want me?”
The bemused expression grows on my captor, and he looks over my head to the antler guy.
“Wilder, you hear that? She’s smart, too.”
