Page 113 of Nocte

Whether I am a monster or not.

I hold onto him, and I can breathe again. I hold onto him, and I feel again. I hold onto him, and I forget…

All of the dark, ugly things that threaten to swallow me.

I hold onto him, and I can forget.

Not everything, of course. Altaris is still here, watching and waiting. I hate him, and he is still here. I hate him. Want to kill him. Want to rip.

He took me away from my Caspian, almost. He almost took me away.

“Why?” The voice isn’t mine, but the question is. It’s in my head, glaring and wailing. But I don’t ask it. Caspian does. My face is pressed to his chest, his arms around me, mouth low near my ear so I can hear him speak.

Even though I can also hear him think.

I will protect you from him,he says.Kill him for you. Protect you from him. But you want to know why.

So I will ask him.

And he did.

“We had an agreement,” Altaris explains, his voice muffled, coming from across the room. A room strewn with blood and groaning, writhing creatures in their death throes.

A room of death.

“I think you understand that, or you would be at my throat right now, boy. I had a theory to test and I have. How marvelous a test it was.”

“A test?” I whisper.

Caspian grips me tighter. After days of lost staring, he stands rigid and tall. I’m the one who is shaking on my feet. I’m the one who can barely stand up. I press my face to his chest as if I mean to burrow inside of him and steal his strength.

I can’t stand up on my own.

So he holds me tight and keeps me standing.

“A test,” Altaris echoes. “One we agreed to enact. To bring him back. Remember? You offered me an exchange, and I accepted. You wanted him back sooner rather than later, and so he is. You are a very interesting, singular creature. Very interesting indeed.”

He moves. I can hear him floating across the room with excited, graceful steps. He stoops for something, hissing under his breath. Then he sighs.

Din. Din. Din. It’s that noise again. A constant ringing that has never ceased. Not since the men fed that device, whatever it is, my blood.

Din. Din. Din.

“Inconclusive,” Altaris murmurs, his voice trembling with shock. “Oh my. What a surprise this is. A marvelous, wonderful surprise. You, my dear, are inconclusive.”

“What does that mean?” Caspian is the one who demands it. No longer can I speak. I just hold onto him. Hold him. I close my eyes and hold onto him.

“It means that she is even stranger than I expected,” Altaris explains. “Oh my, this is strange. You both are so strange. I’m sure you know why, little Caspian. I am sure now that you know why. This creature plucked you from your old collective and made you hers. Made your mind a part of its own. Oh, how devious. How marvelous. How very interesting.”

No more. I don’t want to hear him anymore.

I want him silent. I want him gone.

But we can’t kill him. Because Caspian alone wants to hear more.

“Explain,” he says.

Altaris chuckles. “You, my dear boy, are the explanation. She sobs over you for days, but when her life is in danger, when she truly needs you. You come. For her you will always come. You are one in her collective, that corrupted little mind. I hope you don’t come to regret the choice you have made.”