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The universe likes repetition, she has often found.
Everything starts and ends in a parking lot.
And nine-year old boys respond well to benevolent authority.
So as the Beast grips her to his chest, heart beats striking together, Casey does not call for Kevin. Instead, she calls for her friend, Hedwig.
“Can he come out and talk to me for a moment?”
The Beast gnashes his teeth, torn between pushing her off and standing still. “Why?”
She blinks away the tears. “I just want to say goodbye. I promise I’ll let you go…after I say goodbye.”
The Beast wavers on a pendulum swing and it’s all the time she needs.
She can feel his muscles going slack under her grip, the bulging veins withdrawing like fingers from an instrument.
His blue, blood-shot eyes become clearer. There is a frightened innocence nesting there.
“Hedwig?”
“W-Why’d you call me?” the boy demanded, staring around wildly. “Are we fighting? I don’t wanna fight!”
Casey frames his face between her hands, blocking the bloodshed and violence from his peripheral vision. “No, no, we’re not fighting. Hedwig, listen to me. We’re going on a road trip, just the two of us, okay? Would you like that?”
“Road trip?” he echoes, scared but curious. “I never been on a…road trip.”
Casey has to make sure her voice doesn’t break. “I know…and that’s why I want you to come with me. It’s going to be fun. Just the two of us. But we have to go now.”
And to emphasize her point, she tightens her hold on him and motions him towards one of the cars in the parking lot.
Hedwig whines, lurching back and forth, undecided.
Casey smiles patiently at him and there’s no hint of deceit.
“I’ll never hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”
Hedwig nods, smiling back shyly. Casey will protect him from Miss Patricia. She will keep the Horde at bay.
They run across the parking lot. Casey is aware that they have seconds before the cops start shooting at them. She practically throws Hedwig in the back seat and tells him to lie low. Then she gets behind the wheel. She doesn’t have any qualms about petty crime. She stole the keys from Dr. Staple, but the woman will have hardly noticed in the mayhem.
A few bullets spear through the rear window.
Hedwig whimpers in the backseat. Casey ducks low and starts the engine.
She locks the car doors, just like the first time. Only now she is the one driving. She is the one in control.
Or so she tells herself.
She doesn’t slow down once, even when Hedwig starts keening.
She drives until they leave the city landscape behind. No one is following them yet, or maybe she’s managed to lose them. They’ve probably got their hands full with the other “super-heroes”.
But Casey knows they’re living on borrowed time. She makes a swerve down a country road.
She sees Hedwig clinging to the back of the front seat behind her and –
“Look at you go, girl,” the woman drawls as if she were chewing gum. “They said I was the one with the delusions, but here you are, acting like a real super-hero. You think you’re gonna save us?”
Casey gives her a side-long glance. “Is that…Jade?”
“Uh-huh,” Jade confirms with a wink. “Why don’t you pull-over so we can get to know each other?”
Casey shakes her head. “We’ll get to catch up later.”
Jade smiles a secretive smile. “He’s going to be so angry with you.”
Casey tries to steer the car away from the potholes. “The Beast?”
“No, silly. The Beast liiiikes you. Dennis, though. Dennis wants to smash your head against a wall.”
Casey suppresses a shudder.
Dennis is just a macho front, that’s all he is, she reminds herself. He means well, deep down. Despite his proclivities, despite his penchant for violence, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wants to protect Kevin.
And right now, she’s the wild card. She’s unpredictable. The Horde doesn’t know what she’ll do next. Some of them like her, some of them understand her. They think she is broken and special, like them. But there are other sides of Kevin that think she has not suffered enough, maybe.
A few moments later, it’s Miss Patricia who regards her carefully from the backseat.
“It will be getting dark soon, darling,” she tells her in her clipped voice. “Do you have a plan, or are you just driving out to the middle of nowhere because you are desperate?”
Casey sucks in a breath. Desperation isn’t far off. “I have a plan.”
It’s a terrible plan. She doesn’t know if she can go through with it. She might break down and spill her guts before they arrive, even before she crosses the threshold.
Because she’ll have to go inside. She’ll have to stay in that cabin, at least until they figure out what to do next.
Her uncle’s cabin. It’s the only place she could think of that is remote enough.
She hasn’t gone back there since the last time. She hasn’t had the chance to scrub away his fingerprints, his sweet-smoky smell, his grotesque shadow. All of him will be imprinted there.
He’s rotting in jail. He can’t reach you.
But she can reach him. She can reach deep inside her memories. And they’ll be floating like feathers in that cabin.
But there’s no other option. The cabin is secluded, no one knows about it. Her uncle did not like for them to be disturbed, so when they went “camping” together he made sure they left no trace.
Mr. Glass was right, in a horrible way. Abuse can cloak you. Abuse can hide you from the world.
She grips the steering wheel.
“After we’re done, I’m going to burn it all down.”
She didn’t mean to say that out loud.
But Miss Patricia nods behind her. She doesn’t ask questions. She merely says, “I’ll give you a hand, dear.”
The first thing she spots is a rotting carcass in front of the locked shed. It’s some kind of varmint, but it has been reduced to unrecognizable pulp.
Hedwig wants to touch it.
“Don’t,” Casey warns, taking his hand. “It’s full of worms and yucky stuff.”
“So we can’t eat it? I’m hungry.”
“I…there’s food inside.”
Hedwig’s stomach rumbles. “What about marshmallows? Do you have marshmallows?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to check…” she trails off, staring at the front porch.
Casey straightens her shoulders. She knows there are supplies inside the cabin. Her uncle liked to keep it well-stocked in case he got in the mood to take her on a trip. “Spur of the moment,” he used to say.
The house looks homey on the outside. There are logs stacked in a pyramid right next to the cellar doors, sheltered by an oilcloth. The windows are a bit grimy, but the walls are clean. Fresh coating of varnish from the last time they went “camping”. All she has to do is walk up those steps. She doesn’t even need to break the padlock. Ever since her uncle went to jail, she’s kept the keys in her wallet. She can’t explain why. Almost like having insurance.
Casey always secretly hoped someone would find this place and ransack it. She hoped to find a smoking ruin. She hoped the woods would have invaded the house and made it uninhabitable. But these things take time.
It’s fortunate, isn’t it, that this cabin can be their home for a while?
She inhales the stench of the decomposing animal at their feet.
Suddenly, there’s a steadying hand on her shoulder. Sad blue eyes measuring her.
“It’s Barry,” he rasps, thumb brushing against her collarbone. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What is this place?”
Casey hates that she’s hanging by a thread. Hates that she wants to turn and fold herself into him and cry. He needs her to be a rock. She can’t fall apart.
“It’s…a safe place for all of us,” she says, the words false under her tongue.
“It doesn’t feel very safe. You’re shivering.”
Casey moves away from his grasp. “You’re the one who’s almost naked. Let’s get you inside.”
They both cough as the dust settles on the quilt-covered table and chairs. The floor looks water-logged, but not too swollen. There’s only a thin layer of filth. The fireplace is depressingly empty. She has to start a fire going. But first, she has to go into the other room – the bedroom – and search for some clothes for him. She dreads the prospect.
She doesn’t know which personality he inhabits now as he stalks around the room, picking up a ragged towel here and an empty cigarette pack there, dropping them in disinterest.
Casey notes that his back isn’t corded with tension and his nimble body has returned to its average size. The Beast is resting. It won’t be coming out any time soon.
She goes into the kitchen-cum-storage area to check if the tin cans are still there. She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees them ordered carefully on the shelves. There are also three canisters of water left, though she doesn’t know how clean they are.
She’ll have to take a look at the makeshift bathroom in the shed, but she doesn’t want to come across the dead animal again.
There’s no avoiding the bedroom now.
She takes a step forward.
And then another step.
And another.
One more.
There’s always one more.
She freezes in the doorway when she sees the edge of the bed.
A dry sob claws out of her throat.
She feels him behind her.
He speaks in a sweet Southern drawl. “What’s wrong, honey? Who’s made you cry?” And he – or she – leans forward, almost brushing against her. His – or her – blue eyes survey her features like a hungry hound.
Casey shakes her head. She forces herself to walk to the heavy wardrobe set back into the wall. It used to belong to her grandmother. It was filled with her perfumed dresses, her uncle told her. Part of her wedding dowry.
Casey puts a hand over her mouth, but the bile is almost overpowering. She recognizes those moth-eaten sweaters, those large khaki pants.
“Could you – um – could you just –” she stutters, pointing at the clothes.
His face is serious, almost granite, as he stalks across the room. He’s got the grace of a captive animal. He stops in front of her. And he closes the wardrobe door shut.
Casey opens her mouth, but before she can speak he has slammed her against the door, hand around her throat.
Casey feels the impact against her skull. She instantly recognizes Dennis as his jaw locks and his thumb presses against her aorta. He’s not squeezing yet, but he can do it easily.
He narrows his eyes. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Casey squirms against his hold, but he traps her with his body.
“Where are we? What the hell did you do to us?”
“I – I got you out.”
“Out?” he echoes. “Maybe we were doing fine in that hospital. We weren’t killing, at least.”
Her hand comes up to his and grips his wrist gently. “They were going to kill you, all of you, Dennis…they were shooting at us. We had to get out of there.”
“And we’re safe in this shit hole?” he drawls, inching closer.
Casey chokes back a laugh. It is a shit hole. And it feels good to hear someone say it.
Dennis is utterly confused by the sudden ghost of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
He frowns. “Jesus, and they say we’re unhinged.”
Casey can’t help but snort, although it comes out a little choked. “I never wanted to come back here but…I didn’t know where else to take you.”
Dennis does not remove his hand from her throat, but he looks around now, taking in the room, the stripped bed, the thick bear rug with cigarette holes in it, the absence of windows.
“You live here?”
She winces, has to briefly shut her eyes. “Not exactly. This is where…my uncle…we…sometimes he…he wanted privacy.”
She doesn’t want to say more. She won’t say more. She hates that there are words for it, for any of it.
Dennis’ shoulders rise and fall as he puts two and two together. He eyes the bed behind them. He curls his lips in disgust. Suddenly he’s pressing her harder into the wood. His voice is a growl. “He hurt you here?”
Casey breathes through her mouth. She feels the question is remote, almost rhetorical. Besides, “hurt” doesn’t exactly cover it. Her shoulders shake a little, but she keeps the memory buried, the mound still fresh and raked over.
Dennis nods, as if answering for her. His anger is palpable. His features are made ugly with rage and he slams his fist against the wardrobe, right next to her head.
“Shit!” The Beast storms inside of him, clawing at his self-restraint, but no – it won’t come out. Not this time.
It looks like there’s a struggle between the selves as they wrangle for the light.
Casey swallows, watching intently. She should be more afraid, but she finds his anger – their anger – reassuring somehow.
“Casey got hurt here…he did that to her here…he brought her here for that…to hurt her…” a soft voice mourns. It could be Ian, or maybe Orwell? She can’t be sure.
But then a sharper tone, Patricia’s. “You’re hurting her now, you brutes! Let her go!”
They all take a step back, head lowered, castigated.
Casey leans against the wardrobe, massaging her throat.
“I apologize for their behavior…” Patricia trails off, wringing her hands. “We are …distraught to hear that this place is tainted with such horrible memories.”
“It’s not your fault,” she says quietly, looking sideways.
Patricia shakes her head. “Believe me, I…” She suddenly scowls. “Oh, be quiet! I’ll tell her!” She schools her features once more. “The Horde wants you to know that, had it been in our power, we would have ripped him limb from limb.”
Casey blinks. She has a vivid image in her head of her uncle crawling on the floor, bawling his eyes out, begging the Beast for mercy.
Patricia smiles sympathetically. “Whatever you are imagining, we would do worse. You know we can.”
She should not crave it, but it’s so easy to be comforted by the notion. Casey knows there’s a deep yearning in the pit of her stomach, a yearning for violence and revenge. It’s ugly and mean and unquenchable and it’s what makes the Beast understand her more than anything.
But she’s ashamed of it. She shakes her head, recoiling from the thought.
“Clothes,” Casey says at length. “You need to get warm.”
She opens the wardrobe, not looking inside.
“Goodness,” Patricia mutters, hiding a blush. “I’m frightfully indecent, aren’t I?”
Casey stares at his – her – half-naked form. The body before her is gendered, but elastic, as if it could mold into anything. It’s the cat-like agility that always leaves her breathless. The way Patricia picks up a sweater with just the tip of her fingers, rotating her elbow just so. It’s such a convincing performance because it’s not a performance.
And that’s when Casey notices the gash in her backside. The Horde is bleeding.
One of those bullets or perhaps a piece of glass must have grazed them…
She crouches down to her waist and inspects the wound.
Patricia holds the sweater to her chest self-consciously.
“What is it, darling?”
“We need to clean this up,” she says, fingers ghosting above the band of her trousers and Patricia visibly shudders.
The Horde always reacts so markedly to her touch. Casey doesn’t know how she feels about it. She has been invested with some degree of power over this flesh and she doesn’t know what to do with it.
She rises and moves past Patricia, trying to hide her turmoil. “There’s a First Aid Kit around here somewhere.”
There’s just enough disinfectant to clean the shallow wound and wrap it up in gauze. Casey leans closer as she ties the bandage around his waist. She lets her fingers rest at the base of his spine. There is a small constellation of freckles above his hip bone, shaped like a pinwheel. She traces it with her thumb. His breath stutters a little. He sits with his back to her, tense but not recalcitrant, waiting for her to be done.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” she asks.
“Yes,” he replies honestly. They all reply.
Afterwards she keeps her distance as she tries to get the cabin in order.
She checks for weapons. There are two knives in the silverware cupboard. There’s also a cardboard box with a hammer, a screwdriver, a wrench and some bolts. She knows hiding it from the Horde would be useless but she doesn’t think they’ll harm her.
She searches for the guns next. She finds two firearms in the shed with empty cartridges. There’s also a hatchet for chopping wood.
The shower tank is filled with dead flies floating on a dark film of grime.
Casey crouches down on her knees and buries a scream.
She returns to the cabin to find Hedwig has taken up one of the dusty quilts and stuffed it at the back of his sweater to make it look like a cape.
“Look, I’m a super-hero now too, Casey.”
She smiles at him. “What’s your super-hero name?”
His shoulders deflate. “My…name?”
“Every hero has a special name,” she says, brushing past him. She picks up the hammer from the cardboard box.
Hedwig eyes the tool intently. “Um…I can be Hammer Man! Yeah, Hammer Man!”
He follows Casey as she walks out of the cabin and towards the car.
“What are you –”
He watches, both aghast and delighted, as Casey slams the hammer against the in-built GPS system. She keeps pounding until the screen cracks and pieces start to crumble in her fist.
“Woo! Hammer Man and Hammer Girl!”
He starts running around the car, cape billowing in his wake.
She should get rid of the car, but what if they need to make a quick get-away? The best she can do is camouflage it with fallen branches and thistle and shrubs. Hedwig hollers when he's found a particularly thick branch. She tells him to keep quiet.
They can’t stay here for long.
There’s too many of them. It’s going to get crowded, she thinks as she sweeps the dirt and grit with a broom and dustpan. She doesn’t want to waste the water on cleaning the floors, not until she can fill up more canisters. Going to the river in itself will be a risk.
Hedwig has stopped running around. He slumps down in an armchair, clutching at his foot, tears in his eyes.
Casey drops the broom.
“What happened?”
“Um, I got hurt,” he sniffs, “but I’m okay, it doesn’t hurt too bad.”
Casey rushes to him and crouches down. She’s relieved to find it’s only a splinter. Of course, he’s been walking around barefoot. She needs to find him some boots.
“Can you stand still for me?” she asks as she takes his foot in her lap.
He wipes his nose. “Uh-huh.”
She rubs her thumb against the inside of his foot and he almost jumps.
“It tickles.”
Casey remembers her father used to tickle her too a long, long time ago.
She kneads and pinches his skin, trying to get the splinter out. He struggles to keep still. There’s something childish about it at first, but the more she works her hands over his foot, the more …unsettling it feels.
When she raises her head and meets his eyes, it’s not Hedwig staring back.
The adult man cocks his head to the side. There’s a smirk playing at his lips.
“Now put it in your mouth.”
Casey shudders. She drops his foot to the floor and turns away.
She finds him a pair of Wellingtons and throws them in his direction, anger still percolating under her skin.
Patricia wrinkles her nose.
“I’m not wearing those ugly things.”
Casey gets whiplash from the switch, but she turns back to the can of beans she’s trying to open.
“Do whatever you want.”
Patricia wavers. She pulls out the quilt from her sweater and lays it down gently on the armchair. “We’ve upset you.”
“You tend to do that,” Casey muttered. “It’s not your fault.”
“Of course it is.”
“No…” Casey rubs at her eyes. “It’s just that you’re all so different, so…vast. And there’s only one of me.”
Patricia gingerly sits down and slips a foot inside one of the boots. “Are you sure?”
“Hm?”
“That there’s just one of you?”
Casey stills. She stares out the sooty window. Night is filling the air like cartridges of ink. She pops the can open.
There’s always been just one of her, she wants to say. But is that true? Hasn’t she tried to protect herself from the world? Hasn’t she been split too, maybe not in the same radical way as Kevin, but –
She doesn’t want to contemplate further.
“Do you want to help me start a fire?” she asks, hoping for a no.
But Patricia smiles a glittering smile.
“Certainly. I love a good fire.”
She feeds the logs to the fire. She has to chip the wood in places where it got too damp. She’ll need to chop more firewood tomorrow. For now, this will be enough.
She’s pulled the bear rug from the bedroom and spread it before the fire.
It’s Orwell who crouches by the flames, speaking into them. He is reciting something, summoning the cadenced words from some secret well of memory. From time to time, he’ll raise his fingers to his eyes to adjust a pair of glasses that isn’t there.
“Liquids require receptacles,” he says matter-of-factly. “This is the great problem of packaging, which every experienced chemist knows: and it was well known to God Almighty, who solved it brilliantly, as he is wont to, with cellular membranes-eggshells, the multiple peel of oranges, and our own skin, because after all, we too are liquids. Now, at that time, there did not exist polyethylene, which would have suited me perfectly since it is flexible, light, and splendidly impermeable: but it is also a bit too incorruptible, and not by chance God Almighty himself, although he is a master of polymerization, abstained from patenting it: He does not like incorruptible things…”
Casey listens to him with rapt attention. Half of what he said does not make sense to her, but the words spill beautifully in the air. She can smell oranges and the blood under her skin.
“Is that from a book you’re writing?” she asks, sitting in front of the fireplace next to him.
Orwell rubs the ridge of his nose. “Sadly no. I’m merely quoting the great Primo Levi, the Italian chemist. I find his work inspiring. He survived Auschwitz, you know.”
Casey hands him a can of beans. “That must have required a lot of strength. Do you see yourself in him?”
Orwell smiles. “No, I’m not that egotistical. But I see myself in the receptacle. Me and the others…that’s what we are. We simply contain the essence, we are membranes… orange peels...we don’t really get to live.”
Casey draws her knees to her chest. Warmth nips at her toes.
“I don’t know…I think all of you have lived more than me, more than any person I know.”
Orwell regards her for a moment. “Why did you save us? Why not let the authorities catch us?”
“I told you, they would’ve shot you –”
“Why not shoot us? It might’ve been better for the Horde…for you.”
She shakes her head. “No. I would be very unhappy if anything happened to you.”
“Why? We’ve only brought suffering in your life.”
Casey stares into the flames. “You’ve brought other things too.”
He doesn’t pry any further, but he finds it hard to believe her. Her resilience is exemplary, but there’s something beyond that, something more mysterious; a kindness, even a tenderness that he and the others do not deserve. He eats his beans with relish, after which he returns to his quotations, muttering fragments of poetry and natural science until Casey’s eyelids droop.
She dreams of eggshells splitting open and colorful larvae crawling out of the fire, slithering across her cheek, over her lips, into her mouth, laying eggs –
She startles awake with a gasp.
And he is there, looming over her, watching.
She is sprawled on the bear rug in front of the fire and Dennis – because it is him, she can tell in an instant – stares down at her, broad arms caging her on both sides.
She’s no match for his strength, but she doesn’t want to get away from him at the moment because if she does, she’ll never find out what he wants.
Of all of them, Dennis is probably the most afraid. He’s cruel and practical, intimidating and resolute, but he’s also a house of cards. The more he builds his fortress, the easier it crumbles. He’s the true keg powder of the Horde, not the Beast.
He must envy the Beast. Must hate it, really. Dennis has all the rage but none of that power.
He stares down at her intently, as if searching for a chink or a blemish. She knows his need for order and cleanliness and she’s certainly not pristine. She lies very still. His calloused finger rubs at a smudge on her cheek …He rubs until her skin warms, until it almost hurts.
Casey feels as if with each stroke he’s digging a hole. He’ll reach bone soon.
He must notice her discomfort because he stops…and lets his finger glide down to her shoulder. He pulls down her shirt an inch.
Casey cringes when he reveals the spattering of scars. He stares at the pink, jagged skin. He traces the continent with his finger. The scars that saved her, made her worth saving. She gags thinking about it, but she knows that there is a certain unbidden truth in it.
“Sometimes I want to pare down your skin, make it smooth,” he says stonily and she almost flinches at the sound of his voice. “Wipe away these marks, make you brand new.”
Casey swallows. “It wouldn’t be me, though.”
He keeps tracing the scars. “You adapt. You always do.”
“I’m not as …malleable as you,” she replies, as his fingers explore further, dipping low into her shirt.
“Of course you are. The Beast chose you.”
Casey’s eyebrows furrow. “Are you – are you jealous that you weren’t chosen?”
“Why would I be jealous?”
His hand cups her breast over the bra and Casey chokes on her own breath. Dennis is greedy, Dennis doesn’t like barriers. He slips his fingers beneath the fabric, stroking the creamy warmth underneath, kneading the flesh as if he were trying to break it, swabbing her nipple with his thumb in the same punishing rhythm he used to rub the smudge from her cheek.
Cassie arches her back almost against her will, head falling sideways.
“If you are his, then you are mine too,” he rasps into her ear. “Ours.”
“Ohhh…” Cassie trails off, ineloquent. Words are suddenly hard to come by.
His other hand draws an elaborate pattern to her waist, as if multiplying the scars. He tugs at the zipper of her jeans, already stroking the apex of her thighs and Cassie clenches around his hand, suppressing a moan as he–
The sun filters dirtily through the windows.
It smells of mold and ash and beans. Casey winces as she opens her eyes. She groans and lifts herself on her elbows.
She’s lying down in front of the cold fireplace. Hedwig is curled against her back, spooning her. She knows it’s Hedwig because he’s sucking on his thumb and smiling like he’s having a good dream.
There’s something hard and insistent, prodding her in the back.
Casey blushes. Hedwig might be nine, but his body isn’t.
She runs a hand over her face. It was just a dream, wasn’t it? She had dreamt of Dennis doing that – It didn’t really happen. Her zipper is intact. Her clothes are only ruffled from sleep. Her whole body aches from lying on the hard floor, but the other option is the bed and she won’t do that to herself.
Hedwig opens his eyes lazily as she shifts away from him.
He smiles at her innocently. “Morning, Casey.”
In his gaze she cannot read sin or lust. But there is something mischievous, something unsettling about his ageless humor.
Casey walks like a zombie through the morning mist. She inhales the fresh air, grateful for another day. She crouches down and shifts the leaves in her hands, looking for prints. Human or otherwise.
No one has found them yet, but…it’s only a matter of time.
What will she do? Where will she take him – them? Where would they be safe?
The world will never allow Kevin and his Horde to live unchecked, and she’s not sure she disagrees. But maybe if she bargained with them, showed them that she could keep the Beast at bay… showed them that she’s messed up too and that one person’s tragedy can maybe shore up another’s...maybe then...
She’s just one girl, though. One girl standing up against an army of trained snipers and gunmen and policemen and psychiatrists.
She looks down at her hands. If she had the Beast’s power, how would she use it?
“Are you looking for turtles?”
Casey whips around.
“Hedwig, I told you to stay inside! And keep your voice down!” she stage-whispers.
The boy kicks a stone with his boot. “I got bored. Did you find any turtles?”
“There aren’t any turtles here,” she says, letting the leaves fall from her hands.
“Aw, but I found one inside.”
“What – what do you mean? Where?”
He grins and turns around, running towards the cabin. Casey has no choice but to follow him.
She finds him in the bedroom, jumping up and down the bed. The mattress squeaks painfully with each somersault.
“Please get down,” she says, staring at the bed as if it was a time bomb.
“But it’s sooo much fun! You should come on up with me!”
“Get down. Get down now!”
Her tone is different, urgent and unyielding.
Hedwig pauses. His face crumbles a little. “I just wanted to make you happy.”
“You can make me very happy if you get down.”
The boy obliges. He gives the bed one more thump and then jumps off, landing in front of her dizzily. He burrows his fist into his pocket and takes something out, something shiny that dangles between his fingers.
“I found it there.” He points to the nightstand. “Behind it.”
Casey’s mouth falls open. She stares at the necklace in disbelief. The gilded talisman in the shape of a turtle swings to and fro hypnotically.
Casey’s heart breaks a little. “How…?”
She thought she’d lost it. The necklace her father had given her for her fifth birthday. She hadn’t seen it in years. Years.
You’re my little turtle, he used to say.
“It was there,” Hedwig repeats, pointing to the nightstand. His mouth trembles. “Are you upset with me?”
“No…I…I can’t believe it was there all this time.”
And she doesn’t really think about the next step. She’s so overcome with emotion that she lunges for him and pulls him into a hug.
Hedwig is frozen at first, startled by the contact.
But as Casey starts crying into his shoulder, clinging to him like a raft in the ocean, he eases into it and feels almost proud. He’s taking care of her. She is his girlfriend, after all.
He rubs slow circles against her back and nuzzles her neck, whispering, “I found your turtle,” over and over again into her skin.
Casey cry-laughs and holds him tighter.
Eventually, she breaks away from the embrace and it’s Patricia who smiles down at her fondly. Patricia who wipes away her tears. Patricia who takes the necklace from her.
“Let me clean this up for you. And then you can wear it again.”
Casey watches as she dabs a dish towel in water and meticulously starts cleaning each chink in the necklace.
When she has finished, she instructs Casey to turn around.
Patricia parts her hair to the side and slips the necklace around her throat.
Her fingers caress the back of her neck as she clasps it in place.
“Thank you,” Casey murmurs.
Patricia kisses her hair lightly in response. Casey feels a frisson of something tender and dangerous.
Whenever Dennis holds the light, he goes into the shed to wash himself. They’re running out of water because he uses so much of it, scrubbing at every inch of himself, scouring his flesh until it pulses an angry red, his nails bitten down to the point of bleeding.
Casey tries not to look at him whenever he struts out of the shed, naked as the day he was born.
He stands in the middle of the meadow, staring down the sun, almost like he wants to battle it.
She has not forgotten that strange dream which felt so real – him touching her in that forbidden way. She always thought that someone else’s touch would feel invasive and cruel after her uncle. Boys in school tried to warm up to her by placing a strategic hand on the back of her chair and even that felt like an assault. But Dennis’ touch, though shifty and territorial and impatient, was nothing like her uncle’s. Felt like no one’s touch. She remembers leaning into it, wishing to follow its trajectory.
She’s relieved that it was a dream and relieved that he did not stir any demons inside her.
(or did he?)
Tomorrow she has to make a trip to the river and it chills her to the bone. She might be spotted. She might unwittingly leave a trail. Her father and uncle taught her how to cover her tracks, but what if it’s not enough?
Worse, Kevin and his Horde might flee while she’s away. She can’t bring him with her. All the while, she’ll be thinking of him, being in danger.
She dreads the morning. She dreads change. They have been living in close quarters for five days now, scrimping and saving wherever they could – that is, she has. Dennis and Hedwig are not very careful with food and water.
But it has been a reprieve.
That’s the trouble with reprieves, though. They must come to an end. By definition, they are only momentary breaks in the avalanche of events.
She sits with her feet tucked under her in an armchair in front of the fireplace, watching as Barry whittles down a piece of wood. He is trying to carve a figurine. His hands move deftly, blade against thumb, sculpting what looks like a ballerina’s leg out of nothingness. His artist’s eye makes her jealous. He sees beauty in everything, it’s so easy.
He looks up at her then and smiles.
“This is supposed to be a present for you, so you better not sulk.”
Casey is nonplussed. “Oh…you don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“I never took ballet, by the way,” she mentions as she watches him work.
“You didn’t, but your alter did.”
Casey stills. “My …my alter ego? I told you I don’t have one.”
Barry raises an eyebrow. “You have…something inside you. Can’t you feel it?”
Casey scratches at her throat. She feels the need to stretch her legs, maybe get some fresh air even if it’s the dead of the night.
She grabs her jacket and dashes outside, claiming nature’s call.
She stands in the cold, blowing steam from her mouth, listening to the canopy of leaves rustling above her head.
The sky is flecked with stars like foam. There are bright clusters here and there and in between, pockets of darkness like gaps in a laughing mouth.
Her own mouth forms a grimace. She feels something inside her too, but not an alter ego. Something else, something slithering up her esophagus, a sticky larva hatching from an eggshell…transparent membranes…receptacles… bald oranges, peeled of skin…
She bends down and dry-heaves.
Nothing comes out.
Casey spits and then wipes her mouth.
She should get back inside. It’s cold and it’s too quiet.
And there’s something raging inside her like a …not a beast, there can only be one beast.
She stumbles back in and dumps the jacket on the floor. There’s two fingers left of moonshine in a bottle in one of the cupboards. They’ve been using it to stoke the fire, but she might have a thirst for it now.
As she walks towards the kitchen, she catches his shadow in the hallway.
Casey takes a step forward.
And another one.
And another.
One more.
There’s always one more.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, shoulders shaking lightly. He’s crying soundlessly, tear tracks running down his cheeks.
Casey hates that bed. She wants to feed it to the fire.
But she takes another step forward, the farthest she’s ever been.
Because she has a feeling deep in her gut that Kevin has finally taken back the light.
And if Kevin is here, she needs to be there for him.
She has to fight every instinct in her body, but she manages to sit down on the bed next to him.
She rests her palm on his back, trying to steady the spasms that wrack his body.
Kevin tilts towards her and she catches him. She nestles his head against her shoulder, caressing the rough patch of growing hair.
He tries to disentangle himself, but she doesn’t want to let go yet.
“I’ve hurt – so – many – people – haven’t I?” he rasps mournfully. “I’m – just like her.”
“Like who?”
“My mother.”
Casey grabs his head and frames it between her hands the way she did in that parking lot. She brings it close.
“Listen to me, Kevin. You’re nothing like your mother. You haven’t hurt me. You haven’t hurt me.”
Kevin’s eyes latch onto hers and his expression is beseeching, filled with yearning and self-hatred.
“You should’ve let them shoot me. It’s the only way out for me. The only way I can stop this.”
“No. I don’t accept that. We aren’t like them, Kevin. We aren’t the people who hurt us. We can do better. We are doing better.”
She looks down between them at the hateful bed.
“Me sitting with you here is living proof. Sitting where my uncle used to –” She stops, inhales. “I am sitting here because he doesn’t have control over me anymore. And neither does your mother.”
Kevin’s hand cups her cheek and his eyes look at her with something that resembles devotion.
She doesn’t know if it’s just him or the entire Horde but she feels beloved and cherished in that moment and she soaks it up selfishly, leaning into his touch.
When his fingers draw her forward and his mouth ghosts over hers tentatively she feels dizzy, so dizzy with want and – and she shouldn’t. She should push him away because they are both vulnerable and not in a state to give themselves away. Though they are the same, they are still half-strangers, still unknowable quantities. But desire courses through her, shutting off reason and knowledge. She simply wants to eat, to drink, to feast on life. They are each other’s meal and they have gone hungry for too long.
She has to believe that there will be time to know more, later.
So she reaches boldly towards his lips and feeds herself.
Kevin groans when he tastes her tongue.
His hands are tangled in her hair, that long luscious hair that he wants to wrap around his fist, and he hopes that’s not the violence speaking, he hopes it’s just desire, an unquenchable desire for her. He can’t think straight, he lets his fingers drum down her spine, pulling up her shirt, teasing the bare skin of her midriff, wanting to touch and taste all of her, and Casey moans against his mouth like she doesn't need anything else. They both feel reckless fire in their veins.
They fall back on the bed and she should recoil at the way her weight sinks there between the mattress springs, she should recoil at the memory of another encounter, but she finds she doesn’t care so much. Everything else is hazy, cast into oblivion. All that she wants is for him to keep kissing her.
And he does.
It’s only when she can’t get a gulp of air anymore, when he kisses her raw until her mouth is torn open, when he drags his tongue against her throat and bites down hard that she realizes Dennis has taken control.
She stills for a moment, unsure of the switch.
But he whispers in her ear, “don’t worry, we’re all here. He wants us all to be here.”
And then Kevin is kissing her softly again, saying her name as if for the first time, because for him it is new.
“Casey…”
And she witnesses the shifting waters in his eyes, the liquids spilling over, uncontained. Dennis and Kevin merging, separating, coming together again.
His weight presses her against the mattress and she twines her arms around him and every other dark memory is erased.
“What about Hedwig?” she asks as he lifts her shirt over her head.
“He’ll be asleep for the entire night…dreaming of Hammer Man and Hammer Girl,” he says with something like mischief in his voice as he lowers his mouth to her breast.
He almost tears the jeans off her legs, struggling to undress her. But his hunger – their hunger – is not tainted with malice or hatred or despair. They are happy to take and give.
Casey feels them all around her as the Horde kisses their way down her body, lapping at her scars devoutly with their tongue. It’s intoxicating how Dennis shifts into Patricia, who spreads her thighs lovingly and kisses her just below the knee. It’s Jade who follows, slipping her tongue inside her bellybutton, grinning at her like a minx, and she is soon replaced by Ian with his mannered fingers, stroking her clit, plunging one finger inside her, making her want to be deluged in just that feeling alone.
She whispers their names, a loving litany, a prayer that never ends because they are so many. She can feel their hands around her, all of them cherishing her in their own way, raising her towards the ceiling like an offering and then slowly pulling her down like a kite, unraveling her.
Their lips kiss her chastely, roughly, sweet and girlish, dark and possessive, like the mulberry wine her father used to pour in her cup. Her teeth were always stained black after drinking.
Their teeth are also stained as they drink from her, as their tongues plunge deep inside her and they wrench a shameless scream from her.
Casey stares up at the ceiling. The blood rushes in her ears.
She used to be pinned just like this. She used to stare at the wooden slats wishing she was dead.
And now she looks up because she feels too alive and every nerve is split open and maybe there is something inside her too, something good.
Maybe that’s what being split feels like.
(she grips them all to her, gathers them inside her. it doesn’t hurt, because they go slowly, stopping to kiss her or whisper soft encouragements in her ear. when she’s ready they thrust deep, shaking off the weights from her wings. she moans in tandem, telling them just please don’t stop, never stop. they are maddened by her voice, her supplication. they flip her over, raising her above them, marveling at her golden skin. as she rides them, it doesn’t matter who they are at the moment, he is all of them and they are one and she just wants to become one of them.
she leans her forehead against them and she realizes a beat later it’s Kevin who’s taken the light but who is not struggling to keep it from the others. the alters listen to him and let him have this moment, because for once, there is no competition. there is no divide.
“Kevin.”
“Casey.”
they gasp into each other’s mouths, but cannot even kiss because they are being washed ashore, the wave powerful and all-consuming. he grips her to him and she sinks her nails into his shoulder blades as they come together and spill over, no receptacles or membranes able to contain them)
(a little later it's Dennis - greedy, needful Dennis - who cannot get enough of her that takes her from behind and wraps her hair around his fist and whispers horrible, loving things in her ear as she comes around his cock. "too bad you don't have a gun on me. it would've been like old times," he drawls. she laughs at him, at the horror of it, as he kisses down her sweat-stained spine)
(when she takes the cock in her mouth, it's Patricia beaming down at her, caressing the hair away from her face, telling her she doesn't have to swallow, she doesn't even have to do this, but Casey does and she relishes the sight of the woman craning her neck in ecstasy)
Dawn has not yet tumbled into the cabin and they lie half-asleep, tangled in each other’s arms.
The Horde traces her body lovingly. Casey snuggles in his chest, listening to the steady heartbeats.
“Are you sure Hedwig was asleep for all that?”
Kevin laughs. “I’m pretty sure.”
She raises her head. This is the first time she’s ever heard that sound from him, that pure, unadulterated laugh.
She traces his smiling lips with her fingers. A year ago she was running from him, desperate to get away from his murderous intent and now…
He seems to be thinking the same thing as he swoops down for a kiss, but then –
He stills.
They both hear it.
The rumbling of engines in the distance.
Shit.
In their drunken, blissful state they forgot, they didn’t pay attention, they got sloppy.
They ought to have been better prepared.
It’s comical how they both lunge for each other’s clothes. Almost endearing how they help each other dress.
But dread coils their stomachs.
“Listen, I don’t want you to let the Beast out unless we really need it. Last resort, okay?”
And it’s Dennis who is uncharacteristically gentle and who kisses her forehead.
“We will be ready,” is all he says, running his fingers through her hair, combing it into submission.
Casey can’t bring herself to smile. She knows the Horde will sacrifice themselves for her if they have to.
She rushes into the kitchen and grabs the knives. Dennis has got the hammer and the hatchet.
And then they both hear the familiar voice calling them outside.
“Casey! Kevin! We know you’re both in there! We don’t want to harm you. We just want you to come out and talk to us. Please.”
“It’s Dr. Staple,” Casey mutters.
“She’s with the police. We can’t trust her.”
Casey worries her lip. “We can’t stay inside. What if they start shooting?”
Dennis clicks his jaw. “You stay here. I’m going out there to deal with them.”
“No! Absolutely not. You’ll get yourself killed.”
“We don’t want to hurt you!” Dr. Staple cries. “In fact, it would go against everything we believe in. We need you both! Casey, you are vital in helping Kevin recover from his trauma, and Kevin, you can help other patients dealing with dissociative identity disorder! We do not want to detain you or imprison you. This doesn’t have to be the end of your journey if you listen to me. Come out!”
Casey takes hold of his hand. “We’re going out there together, or we’re not going at all, okay?”
Dennis nods reluctantly and the entire Horde concurs.
After everything they’ve been through, Casey is one of them.
Dr. Staple can tell from a mile away that they have been intimate. The disheveled state of their clothes, the flushed complexion…their risible, prosaic self-consciousness…
But sex is a new element she had not foreseen. She has to reassess the situation. Has he imprinted on her? Is the exchange of fluids a new kind of ritual?
She can’t help but regard Casey with respect. She did not just manage to tame the Beast, she also made it purr.
She schools her features into benevolence and kindness. She is trying to be humane, as humane as she can possibly be.
“That’s it, Casey, drop the knives and nobody has to get hurt.”
The masked men wielding automatic rifles behind her are waiting for any wrong move to shoot.
Normally, she would have used the tranquilizer dart on Kevin first, but Casey Cooke is the weakness delivered on a silver platter.
Dr. Staple smiles.
“If you do not cooperate, Kevin, your paramour will suffer immensely in your stead.”
And she signals for every gun to be directed at Casey.
The Horde almost falls to their knees.
Casey reads pure horror in their blue eyes, reads also despair, because they are trying to summon the Beast, but there’s not enough time and everything is happening all at once and even if the Beast manages to come out, he will only stand between her and the bullets for a little while. The Horde will fall and Casey will get killed.
There is no way out. They must work with the doctor. They must kneel and submit.
Yet Casey cannot accept this, cannot accept defeat. Her uncle used to threaten her, used to make her kneel before him, used to make her feel like there was no way out. She never wants to feel that way again.
They have come here to take her happiness away. They have come here to take her Horde away.
And she won’t allow it.
She clutches the turtle necklace between her fingers.
The howl comes from deep inside her, the something that was always there, that could not come to light until she was fractured and healed, until the Horde put her back together.
Now it lashes out like tendrils, like she is sinking her hooks into them.
The ground starts to shake and the trees shudder. The men and their weapons and their cars are suddenly rolled back by a powerful gale which flattens them and knocks them off course.
Dr. Staple’s body is thrown against a tree. Some of the men’s necks snap in midair.
Casey screams and rages and howls. Her hands curl into claws as she unleashes her power.
The Beast has come out, only it’s hers.
Kevin is on his knees, staring at her in wonder.
He’s not afraid. The gale has not touched him. The Horde bows down to this new, magnificent mistress. Secretly, they always knew she was there, they were waiting for her.
Casey feels dizzy with power as her hands slowly drop and the scenery before her gradually returns to normalcy. Bodies are bent and twisted out of shape, trees have been uprooted, cars have careened down the hill.
Dr. Staple’s mouth sags in horror as she fights to stay conscious. Her left arm is broken, but she points to Casey with her good one.
“You…you…”
All this time she was chasing the wrong monster.
Kevin does not wait for anyone else to wake up and witness this. He lets himself be subsumed and the Horde unfolds its own Beast, but not to shed more blood, only to grab Casey and get her out of there.
His beloved only gasps and wraps her arms around him as he picks her up and dashes with her into the darkness of the woods.
As the Beast, he is indefatigable. He runs like a wild animal, carrying his bride, his fellow-monster to safety.
Casey clings to him, relishing in the aftermath of her powers, letting him have a taste of it too.
“You’re one of us now,” he whispers against her hair and it’s a kind of baptism.
Casey smiles into his chest. She’s home.