Page 28 of My Monster’s Keeper

Becky

O n day thirteen, Diablos called and told us that it was the last day of our vacation tomorrow. I’d growled at him but ultimately accepted his decision. If I was honest, I wanted to get home.

A knock on the door delivers my last present to the guys. Four huge cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, slices, pastries, cookies, and candy. It’s a smorgasbord of desserts.

We eat until I feel like vomiting. I’m sitting between Wilder’s legs. Since he’d gone on his nature walk, he’d come back more settled and more in tune with the world. He’s apparently discovered that he needs to touch me, often in small ways that stir my blood and drag my attention to him.

Frost, too, is easy with his touches now. Sliding against me with a wicked smile that makes me burn. Winking at me because a Korean pop star who looked like him did it. He’s even picking up some of the speech patterns. But my prince is guarded. He’s holding back.

I get up and go to the bathroom, pausing to look back at them. This haven was never meant to last forever, but I kind of wish it would.

Grant would love them.

That thought sends grief crashing through me. I haven’t really had a chance to stop and really grieve for him. I miss him constantly, and whenever I think of that night, it all comes back; I shove it all deep inside me. Locking it down.

I splash my face with cold water and let my memories of Grant rise to the surface.

He was more cautious than I was, less reckless, but once he decided on an action, he threw himself into it one hundred percent.

It was my idea to join the force, but Grant would have been the one perfect for a life as a cop.

What would he think of me being here with these guys? I think he would be happy for me.

I hope he would be happy that I'm not alone. We spent enough time alone as kids .

My roomies glance at me when I return. It’s a habit that I’ve gotten used to when I enter a room. When anyone enters a room, they all check. They are far more attuned to their environment than anyone I’ve ever met.

Stix lifts his arm, and I slide in against his side, turning my face into his chest and inhaling the dark scent that is uniquely him.

“We need to go back to work the day after tomorrow,” I murmur.

“Yes,” Stix murmurs and strokes his fingers down my arm.

I huff and wiggle out of his arms, sliding down so I can lie with my head in his lap.

It’s ironic that in all the places I’ve lived and with all the people I’ve met, the exception being Grant, that these four beings are the most humane I’ve ever encountered.

I have not felt safe around, well, anyone the way I do with them.

Even under the threat of being eaten, I can sleep soundly with them in my bed.

I shift my weight and then shift it again. But it does nothing to ease the tension that’s slowly filling my skin. I get up and pace towards the hotel door. I barely acknowledge my escort that keeps pace with me. I just follow that feeling until I’m downstairs, and two blocks away.

I don’t have shoes on, and it’s raining. The realisation comes and tries to jar me out of whatever this is, but I can’t. I keep moving until I stop in the middle of the road. I’m breathing hard when I turn my head slowly to stare at the little house on the right side of the road.

It’s an unassuming piece of shit house. The paint’s flaking, and the wood is rotted in parts, but, other than that, it looks like every other house on the street.

It’s the house where I met Grant. I understand now the buzzing under my skin.

“This is where I met my brother. The social worker dropped him off in the middle of one of my beatings. I remember hearing his voice and feeling so sorry for him. But angry, too, like how dare you come here so late because I knew the asshole hitting me would just start from the beginning.” I shrug my shoulders as Frost reaches down, his fingers brushing mine.

I turn my hand, clinging to him. “As soon as the car was backing down the driveway, I was yanked out of the cupboard, and the asshole, hell, I couldn’t even remember his name until you’d said it the other day, hit me with his belt.

I remember my scream and braced myself for another. ”

I snort a laugh and look up at the sky.

“But there was Grant, tiny, shorter than me, pencil thin, hanging off our foster father, his teeth sunk deep into the asshole’s shoulder.

He was screaming, Frost. Howling. I watched with wide eyes until I realised I needed to do something.

So I grabbed the belt and started to swing.

I’ll never forget the sound it made when it landed on his thighs.

Or the squeal. But we knew we’d fucked up.

We tried to take the others with us, but they were too scared. So we ran.”

Frost moves behind me. He wraps his arms around me and sniffs my neck.

“We got picked up again, but we were sent to a different place. No nightmare foster home was ever as bad when I had Grant there with me. We survived all of them…only for some prick in a uniform to put a bullet between his eyes.”

“What are you doing, Becky?”

“I’m doing what should have been done all those years ago,” I murmur and shrug out of his arms.

The key is where the asshole always left it, hanging behind a picture of God on his porch. Like religion will hide his sins. I slip it into the lock, feeling it protest before it finally gives way to the inevitable.

The door opens easily enough, with a creaking whine that reminds me of all those days ago. The TV is on, but I knew I’d find him here and not in bed.

Blue light fills the room and flickers as infomercials start. I walk in, finding an old man without a shirt in white boxers with blue stripes sitting in a rotting old recliner. The smell is awful, alcohol and sweaty man. Urine is an undertone that makes me want to hurl.

I stare at him. He’s so much smaller than I remember. Compact. I doubt he’s even as tall as I am. The muscles he used to have turned to fat and loose skin. The intimidating memory of him in my mind is gone, like it never existed.

I wonder where his wife is and then decide I don’t care. She saw it all, she just turned dead eyes away. Well, she can just do it again.

“What’s his name?” Frost asks.

“Do you know, I actually have no idea. We were supposed to call him Davidson, but I knew that wasn’t his name. He just liked it because he had a Harley Davidson and thought the bike gave him some kind of reputation, but I think everyone saw through him.”

Frost clicks his fingers, and a blue flame appears. He passes it to me. “We gave you the opportunity to get your revenge before.”

I hesitate and then take the flame. It’s cool to the touch and shivers around over my skin.

“Just tell it what you want, and it will happen. But you don’t have to do this, Becky. We can do it for you, or we can leave. ”

I close my eyes. “Please don’t mistake me for a good girl, Frost. I’m just human. This man is going to walk into his next life without facing the consequences of his actions. If he had provided us a safe home like he promised, Grant would not be dead,” I rasp out.

“Eh? Who’s there?”

I walk into the light and stare at the old man. “Do you remember me?”

He peers up at me and smacks his mouth. He’s got no teeth. Should I have mercy now he’s old and frail? I almost tell the flame to die. I almost let it go, but then I see the belt. My eyes widen and find my gaze drawn behind him. The closet. I walk around him.

“Hey, what are you doing? You can’t do that. Stop! Stop, I say!”

I pull open the closet and find a tiny girl, possibly seven years old. She’s in a ratty t-shirt with shorts, and her face is tear-streaked, but she’s got dead little eyes.

I snatch her up, ignoring her feeble protests.

“You can’t take her!” he shouts.

He grabs me, but I shake him off and elbow him in the face. He reels back, falling over his chair.

“Frost?” I ask in a broken voice.

“Yes, my love.”

“I want him to suffer.”

Puppy, Stix, Wilder, and Frost peer at me from the shadows.

“Then let him burn,” I add as an afterthought.

“As you wish,” Frost murmurs.

I turn and walk out of the house with the little girl in my arms.

I can do good in this world. I can save the little girls like me and rescue little boys like Grant.

I can make people accountable for their actions. People and others. Those huge, giant monsters selling people. I can make that stop. I don’t have to play by human laws anymore.

That realisation is freeing.

Somewhere inside me, a little part of me that wasn’t one hundred percent on board with all of this settles, accepting what’s being offered. The monsters wear any skin they want. They can look ferocious with tentacles and razor-sharp teeth or like men in white boxers with blue stripes.

But I finally understand my purpose.

It’s my job to hunt them down.

And punish them.