Page 152 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
Awful.
“Well, Alistair!” someone calls to me as I am maddened with hurt.
I hiss again.
“You’ve gotten yourself in quite the pickle, huh?”
I know the voice, the man who speaks it.
Knowhim.
But his word…name…has slipped.
“You don’t remember me, huh?” the man asks. “That’s…well, it’s kind of sad, but oh-so-satisfying. I’m Rune Bloodworth.”
Jackson sprangout of bed and bolted into the living room, moving with a nimble-footed gait, sweeping his enrapt eyes over the room. His hands found a weapon almost immediately, fisting around a poker from the fireplace.
“Jackson!” I called.
He whirled, swiveling those calculating eyes to me, and growled, “Pippi, what in actual?—”
Marvin scuttered as he picked himself off the floor.
Jackson caught the movement and spun around, his weapon whipping back to strike.
“Don’t!”I yelled.
Jackson froze with the poker suspended halfway over Marvin’s head. “It’s the cat,” he muttered dumbly. “Thecat? Thefuck,Pippi? You brought thecatin here?”
“I—”
“You’re un-fucking-believable.”
“We were”—Marvin turned his eyes to me—“having quite a nice cha—oooofff!”
Jackson chucked the poker aside and hauled Marvin up by the scruff of his neck.
“Jackson!” I scrabbled to my feet. My knees knocked together, nearly sending me crashing back down. I gritted my teeth and forced them to hold.
Marvin yowled and hissed, his claws swiping at the air. “Unhand me, you buffoon!”
“Stop!” I swaggered over to him, touching his shoulder. “Please?—”
Jackson snarled and snapped his arm back, whacking me across the chest and harpooning me into the wall.
My back cracked on impact.
I grunted as pain shot along my shoulders.
Jackson paused. Slid his eyes to me. Scoffed. And opened the door, chucking the screeching Marvin out.
“I can’t believe you, Pippi.” He slammed the door, drowning out Marvin’s heated calls. “Do you really hate me that much? That you’d force an allergy attack? I’ll be sneezing my head off all day.” He sniffed. And swiped at his nose. And rubbed at his eyes.
Hiscleareyes. They weren’t red or teary, his nose didn’t sound stuffy or look runny, and he certainly wasn’t launching into a sneezing fit.
He lies.
He was performing all the acts he thought an allergy sufferer would. But he wasn’t actually suffering.
