Page 51 of A Heart So Haunted
I couldn’t move fast enough. If it wasn’t the creature that was hurting the child, who was?
I reached the attic door as soon as Haddy’s words turned to a low groan. The latch to the attic room was open, giving an inch of light.
I shoved the door. It swung wide.
“Sit still, brat,” a gritty voice said.
A man stood over Haddy, who crouched in the far corner beneath a window, his knees to his chest. Shelves lined the walls, drooped from double-stacked tattered leather books and trinkets. A globe lay on its side, forgotten, in the farthest corner of the room. A desk sat centered on the wall to my right, crowded by three chairs.
The skin of Haddy’s bare back tinged pink and red in streaks, but no blood trickled from the marks. He looked older than he had when he’d run through the maze; his face less rounded, his neck a bit thinner, his hair combed into submission.
The man above Haddy had long, white hair swept into a low ponytail. I knew without a doubt that this was Haddy’s father. Still, he looked familiar—similar to the man from the maze, the creature. Whereas the creature had looked to be in his midthirties, this man was a bit older. Deeper caverns to his cheeks and creases around hiseyes, but he held himself the same. Even his sleeves were rolled up, as if in annoyance, like the other man’s had been.
My trance broke when a riding crop swung high. Heading straight for Haddy’s bare back.
A strangled noise emitted from my throat. “Stop it!” I exclaimed, but no one turned.
I lurched forward. I needed to tackle him or—but a clawed hand yanked at the back of my shirt.
“Enough,” the beast bit.
I shoved against his grisly arm. “But he’s—let me go—”
“You can’t stop it,” the monster hissed. He bent at an odd angle as to not hit his horns on the ceiling as he struggled to hold me.
The firstcrackmade me recoil. I stopped fighting. I covered my ears and turned away like a coward when the cries started. I ground my teeth, forbidding the sounds from burrowing into my chest and rooting there.
Had I sounded similar, begging my mother to listen? Asking Dad to stay?
I shook my head. I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Another whack.
I stared at the wall, at a knot in the wood. An arm, then a shoulder, shifting in front of me, blocking the doorway. Still, it didn’t muffle everything, didn’t remove what was happening in the other room.
A hand circled my wrist, light as a feather. I started to move away, but the monster’s grip flinched, drawing my attention up. His features twisted, lips peeled back in a noiseless snarl. His shoulders bunched closer to his pointed ears, almost as if this—pained him. He stared at a point over my shoulder in the opposite direction.
I read his lips when he said, “It will end.”
A delicate part of my heart cracked right then.
I watched him, entranced, as a veil slipped over his face. The points of his cheeks tightened, his yellow, slitted eyes hardened and turned vacant. Like he existed but chose not to acknowledge it.
I’d seen that look before. Well, not so much as seen it, but felt it.
“Mommy, can you stay? Please?”But it hadn’t been Haddy asking, it had been me.
“Let go, Landry. Stop touching me.” Momma jerked her sleeve away and motioned to the kitchen. “You got food. I’ll be back after a while.”
I wanted to ask. The words crouched, right there on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t do it.
We sat there, the monster and I, my body just as taut as the dig of his clawed feet into the wooden floor. Not soon enough, the rhythm of leather on soft skin fell away. It wasn’t until I felt the vibration of footsteps over the floors that I looked back to the room.
“Maybe that will show you,” the father said, low.
Wet, pliable, the sound of a hammering heart next to my ear.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.The monster’s heart, nearly careening out of his chest.
