Page 28 of The Bleeding Woods

Disgusting.

The nuisance had to be taken care of. He wanted Clara to be caged again.

He wanted her beside the nauseating mass of muscle that is Grayson.

Most egregiously, he wanted to take her away from me.

Where did all that heroic roguery get him?

Hung several feet in the air, still spewing residual blood bubbles from his severed trachea.

Like the rest of his kind, he’s more tolerable now that he’s dead.

In my humble but absolutely correct opinion, humans look best when they’re husks.

Through my process akin to alchemy, I close my eyes and connect with Joey’s cells.

Eager to self-digest, they’ve already committed themselves to autolysis.

The toxic enzymes created by the final beat of their host’s heart are breaking down each tiny galaxy, star by star, membrane by membrane.

I step in, urging the process away from decay and toward metamorphosis.

Soon, every nucleus is a seed watered by lysosomes.

Soon, Joey stops rotting and starts rising.

His muscles become a canvas of bark, his skin a mosaic of moss.

From his eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth held in a shout, stems shoot, proud to produce blossoms of perfect vermilion.

Rose-poppy hybrids open like an encore, singing somber ballads to the sky.

I pluck them until Joey is nothing but recycled organic matter, and I have a wedding bouquet made from his sacrificial death.

We all become blood roses eventually.

When I consume these, however, I regain the ability to take human form.

Human essence is so fickle, not to mention difficult to replicate.

Without the much-needed strength and tremendously helpful reminder, I’d be permanently resigned to my true form.

Unlike Clara’s pills, this transaction does not weaken me.

It is the product of a successful hunt. If Clara is oxygen, it is the nectar that gives my lungs the power to breathe her in.

I slip it past my teeth and let the petals turn to warm red ooze in my throat.

The barbs of black wood that line its interior bring the essence down my esophagus, and as I absorb, I become more and more ready for her.

Her. Her. Her.

My deviant angel of darkness, where is she?

I can smell her melancholia. I sail through the air, one with the spores hanging on to each particle. I am practically a breeze, a wisp of the red that gives me life. Then I am neatly human, stacked to six feet of handsome allure one vertebra at a time.

She isn’t with the others. She’s run off without them. My darling little thing, my perfect girl, she’s run off to find me.

No . . . she’s unhappy. She isn’t rushing to reunite; she’s escaping Grayson and her sister.

What have they done to her this time? Soon, our revenge will be trifold, but for now, I must know what’s wrong.

I move phantom fingertips into her skull, wrapping them around her delicate gray matter.

The pulses firing off within her mind arrange into slow, steady patterns.

First, I make her woozy. Then I’m right there to catch her as she falls into a faint.

Our relationship must be built on trust, and if she is to trust me, I must be in possession of something secret and precious.

We shall dream as one, but first, I will admire her.

She’s so beautiful, sleeping soundly in my arms. I also cannot help but compare her restful visage to the one I’d seen twisted in horror last we spoke.

Had I made a mistake? Had I assumed too little importance of the boy? Will she ever lean in to me with such adorable assurance again? Why does her heart slow when Grayson takes her hand, yet race when she thinks of me?

Grayson . . . His back is too straight. His face is the picture of noble pride.

It makes me want to make him unrecognizable.

When the situation suits it, I’ll paint a masterpiece with the flesh, muscles, and cartilage on his canvas of bone.

He’ll look like a sunset, all oranges, cerises, and pale pinks.

There might even be a few splashes of blue, thanks to those oceanic eyes of his.

Jade will be fun to play with as well. The sorrow she causes Clara is enough to inspire murder machinations by the thousands.

I will make her ribs a basket of blooms. Clara and I shall nibble petals from it, each starting at one end of the spine, inching to a romantic union at the thoracic.

I will string her up, splayed like a compass rose, then pull her north, south, east, and west. She’ll be scattered, a garden of gore in every direction.

Clara’s lips part invitingly, anchoring me back in the present.

If I were a monster of little self-control, I’d kiss her.

Our kisses, however, are too sacred to be stolen.

I’ll get more acquainted with her in her dreams, our dreams. We’ll traverse visions of her past, and she’ll tell all.

She’ll tell me what’s made her so upset.

In time, she’ll tell me what I need to know to become a fitting partner.

She will let me in again. She will trust me. She will love me.

I send myself to sleep.

The coldest of winds whips around me. I leave my corporeal form in the forest, the pulses in my mind adjusting rhythmically to the pulses in hers.

Hand-in-telepathic-hand, we dream. We see synchronically.

We travel on electric transportation to a time embedded in the past, transcending all linear constraints.

I am on a highway in a land I’ve never known.

It is snowing.

Two headlights glare at me through the frozen flakes, burning with flickering, fluorescent-yellow light.