Page 8 of Lost and Stolen Gods
DON’T BOATS NEED WATER?
Unfamiliar voices pulled me from sleep.
“She’s coming around,” someone said.
“Thank fuck for that. Thought she was dead for a minute,” another voice said. Female like the first, but not as soft or lilting.
“We established that she was breathing when they brought her in.” This voice was gruffer but still feminine.
What were people doing in my bedroom?
Memories of horrific, impossible things filled my head, and my eyes popped open to low lamplight and two women crowded around me.
They looked to be around the same age as me and were watching me with varying degrees of a frown.
“You took a nasty bump to your head,” the redhead with the soft lilt to her voice said.
The room we were in was shrouded in gloom, thelight cast by an old-fashioned lantern hanging off a rafter the only source of illumination. I was propped against a beam, and we were surrounded by crates.
“Who are you and where are we?”
“Oh, great.” The gruff voice came from the shadows beyond the two women. “Another clueless damsel.”
“Hey!” the redhead admonished. “Just because I didn’t know what was happening doesn’t make me clueless.”
I looked from the figure hidden in shadows to the redhead. “Will someonepleasetell me what’s going on?”
The redhead took my hand, wide eyes filled with shadows and compassion. “We’ve been taken because of our blood.”
Blood…
There’d been so much blood.
Nani…Hot tears burned my vision as the full impact of what had happened to Nani hit me in force, knocking the breath from my lungs so that each sob was a desperate gasp for breath.
“Shit. Hey. Okay,” the redhead crooned.
She hugged me and rocked me. Words were said that I couldn’t decipher past my own sobs and the buzz of bees in my head as the image of my grandmother’s final moments played over and over in my mind.
“That’s right. Just breathe. Calm down,” another voice, soft with kindness, said.
The horror slowly abated enough for me to get myemotions under control and register the gentle rocking motion of the cabin housing us. “Are we on a boat?”
“Bingo,” gruff voice said. “Give the doll a prize.”
Anger starburst in my chest. “What the fuck is your problem?”
The gruff-voiced woman sat forward so the lamplight illuminated her harsh, angular features. “I don’t have time for cry-babies.”
I worked to stop my lip trembling, to stop the tears from rising. “And I don’t have time for insensitive bitches. I just watched my grandmother get eaten by a fucking shadow monster and then had my ass kidnapped by some midget monster men, so give me a fucking moment to process, okay?”
She blinked sharply and sat back so that she was hidden in the gloom once more.
Silence reigned for several long seconds before Redhead broke it. “Shadow monster? Wait, there are shadow monsters now?”
I swallowed the knots of emotion in my throat and took a few grounding breaths because I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Nani had sacrificed herself to whatever that fucking thing had been to make sure I escaped.
She’d blasted me away…somehow.
