“Your parents might start suspecting that Imelda isn’t being honest with them. She asked me to make sure no harm comes to you.”
“You’re here to protect me?” Amber stood up suddenly. “So I could walk out of here and you couldn’t stop me?”
Milo opened the paperback again, without fuss, and resumed reading. “Try it and see.”
Whatever rebellious fire had flared inside her sputtered and died at his tone, and Amber sat back down. “Do you know where my phone is?”
“Destroyed.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry?”
He kept reading. “It’s the easiest way to track you.”
“But that was my phone.”
“Best not to make calls. Or send emails. Those are the kind of things that would lead your parents straight to you.”
“And how do you expect me to … to … to do anything? I need my phone, for God’s sake. I need …” She faltered. She needed her phone to go online, to talk to her friends. She needed that now more than ever.
Milo didn’t seem to care. He had gone back to reading his book. A western, judging by the cover. Amber had never read a western. She couldn’t imagine they were any good. There were surely only so many stories you could tell about cowboys and shooting and horses before it all got boring, even for those who liked such things. How many times could you describe a saddle, or a saloon, or a desert plain?
Still, it was something. He liked books and she liked books. There was common ground there.
“Ever read In The Dark Places?” she asked.
Milo didn’t look up. “No.”
“It’s a really good series. It’s been adapted into a TV show. They’re on Season Three right now. You should read them. They’re all about these star-crossed lovers, Balthazar and Tempest. She’s a Dark Faerie and he’s an Eternal. That’s, uh, that’s what they’re called. He’s got an evil brother and her parents are nuts and she’s just been possessed by the ghost of her ex-boyfriend. It’s set in Montana. They sometimes have horses on the show.”
“Horses are nice,” Milo said, in a voice that indicated he wasn’t paying her the slightest bit of attention.
Amber glowered and stopped trying to make conversation.
They sat in silence for another ten minutes, and then Milo’s phone buzzed. He checked it, and stood.
“She’s back,” he said, tucking the western into his back pocket and picking up the shotgun. He left the apartment, and Amber immediately leaped up, scanning her surroundings for an escape route.
After a few moments, she sat back down.
She heard the faint ping of the elevator arriving, and then low voices as Imelda and Milo exchanged whatever they had that passed for pleasantries. Thirty seconds later, Imelda came in.
Amber sat back into the couch, her arms folded.
“I’m sorry,” was the first thing Imelda said.
“You hit me.”
“You were screaming.”
“Not when you hit me.”
“If it makes a difference, I’m pretty sure you were going to faint, anyway.”
“So why didn’t you let me faint?”
Imelda hesitated. “I should have let you faint. I’m sorry.” Her apology apparently over with, Imelda walked into the kitchen. “Have you had anything to eat?”
Amber didn’t answer. She was starving, and thirsty, but to respond was to forgive, and she wasn’t prepared to do that yet.
Imelda made herself a cappuccino without trying to engage her again in chit-chat. When she was done, she came over, sat where Milo had been sitting. She took a sip, placed the delicate cup on the delicate saucer on the delicate coffee table, and sat back. “You need to eat something,” she said. “I can hear your stomach rumbling from here.”
“That’s not hunger. That’s anger.”
“Your belly rumbles when you’re angry? I didn’t know that about you.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Well,” said Imelda, “that’s not strictly true.”
“You’ve barely ever spoken to me.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t know you. Your parents kept us all very well informed – and they know you a lot better than you think.”
Amber looked at her in silence for a moment. “What did you do to me earlier? My skin and … What was that?”
“You know what that was.”
Amber shook her head. “No. I’m not like you. I’m not a monster like you. What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything. You were born that way.”
“I wasn’t born with red skin, Imelda. I wasn’t born with frikkin’ horns.”
“No, but it was inside you.”
Amber glared. “Show me, then. Go on. Change. Transform. Go demony. I want to see it again.”
“Amber, I don’t think—”
“Go on,” said Amber. “I wasn’t really expecting it the first time. Now I’m ready. Let’s see you in all your glory.”
Imelda sighed. “Fine,” she said, and stood, and her skin reddened and her features sharpened and her horns grew, and Amber shrank back instinctively.
There was something about the very shape of Imelda now, the way the horns curved, the way her face – once a pretty face, now a beautiful face – caught the sunlight, there was something about all of it that sent a shiver down Amber’s back. This was the shape that nightmares took, deep in the darkest parts of her subconscious.
“You can do this, too,” Imelda said. Her teeth were pointed. She was taller. Her shoulders were broader. Her clothes were tighter. Her top had come untucked. “You just decide you want to shift, and you shift.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Shift, change, transform. You can come up with your own name for it, if you want.”
“I don’t want. I don’t want to shift. I don’t want to be a monster.” Amber realised she was shaking.
“It’s really not that bad,” said Imelda. “You get powerful. You get stronger and faster and you feel something inside you just … alter. It’s like you’re becoming the person you were always meant to be.”
“Not person. Monster.”
The smile on Imelda’s face faded. “Monster,” she said. “Yes.” She reverted to her normal state, and tucked in her top. She looked almost embarrassed as she sat back down. “Well, there you go, anyway. That’s how it’s done. If you’re ready to listen, I’ll tell you how it started.”
“You’re not going to let me leave, are you? So go ahead.”
Imelda took another sip from her cup. “I’ve known your parents since I was your age.”
“I know,” said Amber.
“No, you don’t. I met your parents when I was sixteen years old. They were already courting.”
“Courting?”
“That’s the old word for dating. Which is probably an old word