Page 51 of Bizarre Bonds
I grope for another approach. “Maybe you could feel other ways too. I know lots of shadowkind who’d be happy to have someone else to hang out with. I could take you to them and we could all get to know each?—”
The strange being cuts me off with a mocking laugh and another bitter jab of frustration. “Oh, no. I’m only for me.”
She rams her fist into the wall of the pho restaurant, and bricks crumble around her knuckles. “Tell your friends that this city belongs to Viscera now. It wanted to stomp me, so I’m stomping it to the ground.”
As if to make good on that promise right now, she hurtles forward, slamming into a nearby parked sedan. For just an instant, it’s a rare flying car, careening through the air.
Then it crashes through the shoe shop window just a few feet from where I’m standing.
Even as I leap to the side with a yelp, the shadowkind woman—Viscera?—vanishes into the darkness.
“Wait!” I cry out, snatching after her, but the flares of her emotions fade away so fast that I’m not sure which way she’s gone.
I stand in the middle of the street, the crack quivering wider beneath my sneakers. A car alarm blares where the sedan sticks halfway through the shop window.
A wave of despair washes over me.
I learned a lot tonight. But I don’t see how any of it will solve our problems rather than making more.
18
Hail
Mortals mill around the latest scene of the rogue shadowkind’s reign of devastation, talking in nervous voices about the car protruding from the storefront. The pale faces and twitchy hands tell me they’re having trouble processing what sort of mortal being could possibly have caused this damage—or why.
Because it wasn’t mortals at all, even if Rollick insists that we trick them.
Humans keep themselves so ignorant about the world they call their own. The wild animals they don’t consider more than hunting prey and scenery have been aware of the shadow creatures that’ve lurked alongside them for ages.
To avoid causing suspicion now, we’re watching from the shadows rather than interacting with those humans in our physical forms.
Peri, Mirage, and Raze made a few stabs at selling the “terrorist gang” story. After I chilled their overly enthusiastic account with a remark about the horror of the situation that apparently sounded “too sarcastic,” we were shooed to the sidelines.
Jonah—the determiner of excessive sarcasm—and a few of the shadowbloods have been circulating through the crowd, spreading the story as they prefer, checking for additional information, and encouraging people to stay off the streets if they can.
We have to pretend we don’t even exist.
Because if these people got one hint of what we really are, they’d declare us just as much monsters as the being who tossed their cars around. They’d shower us with bullets and slit our throats if that didn’t do the trick.
Who exactly are the terrorists here?
Peri’s nearby presence radiates uneasy impatience through the persistent mark on my chest.
She’s still grousing about her encounter with the warped being. “I tried to tell Viscera it doesn’t have to be this way. That there are shadowkind who’ll welcome her into the community. But she wasn’t interested in making friends.”
I have the impression of Raze drawing closer to her, which sends a jab of ridiculous jealousy right through the glowing spot I can feel even in the shadows. A quiver runs over my skin at the memory of the emotions I caught from her days ago, that stirred my blood and had my cock straining at my pants until I summoned frigid air all around me.
I’m pretty sure the carnivorous lug was responsible for her heated reactions. But why should I care?
“You did your best,” he says to her. “There’s just something wrong with the beings who stumble through those rifts. We’ve seen it with the lesser creatures too. They come out messed up.”
“And mean!” Mirage pitches in.
I can’t help it—I let a scoffing sound slip.
Peri turns toward me. “You think we’re being absurd. What’s wrong with what any of us said?”
I know from the twinge of emotion that tickles my essence that she’s genuinely curious, not accusing. Somehow that brings my hackles up more than if she was pushing for an argument.
