Page 90 of My Monster’s Keeper

“Anything you want, poppet.”

Becky hires a car, and we stuff our things in the truck and climb in.

I can’t recall us travelling this way before. I keep my hand on the dash, trying to stop myself as I hiss.

“I don’t like this.”

She looks at me in bemusement.

“Don’t smile like that at me,” I grump.

“You're scared of being in the front seat of a moving car. I’ve found your weakness.”

“Don’t tease me! This contraption is a sure ticket to an early grave. The birds of this world will feast on my bones. Here lies the Nightmare King of Shadows, dead in a steel box on wheels.”

She snorts another laugh.

I look in the back because, surely, I’m not the only one who is freaking out.

“Faster. Faster. Faster,” Puppy chants, his eyes shiny.

Oh, this is sick.

Frost looks at me with a wicked grin and raises his eyebrow in challenge.

I growl and look at Wilder.

“Is he asleep?” I snarl in outrage.

“Sure looks that way,” Frost says with gleaming eyes.

I turn back, trying to stop the weird dippy diving my stomach is doing. If this contraption is to be our end, I will try my absolute best to keep my poppet alive.

It takes a lifetime to get to where we need to go, and my nerves are shot. When we get out, I pull her away from it and cup her cheeks.

“Never, ever again.”

She smiles, and it breaks my resolve. I’m not going to tell her that all she needs to do is ask, and I will get back in the car.

“What is this place?”

I look around and find that we’re in a car park with rows and rows of evil steel boxes ready to lure the unsuspecting to their inevitable death. But past that is a circle that is rotating with a huge wheel.

“What is this place?”

“Carnival.”

She leads us in, and I’m instantly caught up by the sight of stalls with teddy’s, toys, games, and people shouting. The lights flicker a million colours and overwhelm my senses. The sounds of music and people laughing is a deafening roar, and sweet and salty smells of human food fill the air, making my stomach rumble in pleasure.

She gestures to a stall with a backboard with red and white circles on tiny ducks that march past. Becky talks me through it, and I pick up a toy gun. She comes up beside me, her scent hitting me hard enough that I almost toss the game in altogether, and puts my finger over a trigger. In a parody of the first time I met. Our eyes lock, and I know she’s remembering it, too.

“Aim at the target and pull the trigger,” she murmurs.

I aim and pull. It hits the first duck and knocks it down. I look at the gun and then at the game and smile.

Oh, I see.

Wilder has moved to a game with a big hammer. He steps up, takes his turn, and hits it. Something flies up, hits the top, and the entire thing bursts into loud music.