Page 33 of The Bleeding Woods

I move as quickly as I can through the borderless abyss.

With the rivers of remembrance vanished, I am left at the mercy of a vacant cavity, of the black endlessness that lurks behind every pupil.

I am left inside his mind. If we are connected, there must be a bridge capable of leading me back to my own dreamscape.

There must be a threshold, and after crossing it, I can turn the line drawn in the imagined sand to a wall of impenetrable steel. At the very least, I can try.

“Clara!” Jasper’s voice chases me, rasping just as it had when he’d struggled to form vocal cords.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m running from.

Part of me runs from him, the man and the monster who killed so many in cold blood.

He scorched a subterranean laboratory without batting an eyelash, laughed at every scream that poured from the scientists’ burn-speckled lips.

He buried them in ash, and used their blood to grow a forest, a garden born of gore.

He killed Joey. Worst of all, he clearly, unabashedly, and unwaveringly delighted in it all.

And . . . I am the same monster.

The two of us share the same terrible strain of chaos. I am just as capable of carnage. I have sought it out before and found just as much inebriating solace in agony and screams. I have stood, breathing puffs of frigid air through pointed teeth, and smiled at death.

I was one of those embryos. I was one of those embryos, and even the project leader responsible for them froze at the prospect of delivering an explanation. Hemlock had no idea what they were, what we are. All she could confirm was our ancient and forbidden origin.

All I know about myself is that I am ancient and forbidden.

“Clara!” Jasper calls again, his voice exceedingly more desperate this time.

I do not stop. I do not so much as glance backward. I surge onward, following instinct alone back to my own mind. The moment I reach it, I am thrown across the threshold and into a body.

Glancing up, I find myself straining against golden rays of sunshine.

They reach over an open field as though grabbing at the florets it flaunts.

White daisies, each arranged with purposeful perfectionism, beg to be plucked from the blanket of greenery below.

There is no realm beyond this. Lush, emerald mountains sit on the horizon, surrounding the landscape like the edges of a bowl.

“I told you you wouldn’t like it,” Jasper purrs.

I find him sitting atop a picnic blanket.

His form is human again, and he’s wearing the most unintimidating exterior imaginable.

Light blue jeans compliment a friendly, rustic plaid shirt, and his hair is combed as neatly as Grayson’s.

In fact, it seems his entire look has been inspired by Grayson, save for the inches of height he’s added.

Beside him, there is a woven basket holding apples, grapes, and chocolate bars.

I should have known.

Ever since I arrived, he’s held a mysterious sway over my mind. Now I am trapped with him inside it, witnessing just how easily he is able to coax my thoughts into silence and submission. Here, he can turn himself from a sinister threat to a bed of welcoming daisies.

With a nod of his head, he gestures for me to sit.

I take the spot designated for me on the blanket, but scoot toward its farthest corner and bring my knees to my chest in defiance.

He huffs out a chuckle, fingers wandering their way toward the daisy closest to him.

It shakes in his hand, succumbing to the sound waves on account of its delicate framework.

Before speaking again, he plucks a petal from it and proceeds to do so as further punctuation for his following sentences.

“Hemlock had no idea what she was creating. She was just creating, splicing cells together, then throwing them into tubes to fester and mutate. We were playthings for her to enact her feral curiosities upon.”

Despite every bone in my body telling me to stay strong, my throat tenses and gathers tearful heat.

“She raised me down there, taught me about a world I never thought I’d see.

I spent most of my time hoping I’d someday be ready for it.

I learned every language. Russkiy byl, navernoye, samym trudnym.

” With a smile far too soft, he waits for my confusion to surface before translating.

“Russian was probably the most difficult. I learned about culture and art, mathematics and science. I learned about Earth’s history.

I became as acquainted as possible with the world’s unique personality, aspiring to be worthy of it. Then I found the file . . .”

His breath hitches, stifled by unseen weight.

“. . . and I realized I was never getting out of there. I was a prototype. A primary specimen. A test. We all were. Project Undergrowth was an experiment, and every embryo in that laboratory was designed to be studied and dissected. I’d been studied and dissected . . .”

Snow falls from above, and the daisies are sprinkled with tufts of frost sharing the same hue.

The sun dissipates, and the sky spins rhythmically to leave it behind the horizon.

Stars speed across it, their celestial paths creating circular ripples of starlight.

The daisies discolor, their petals like water with blood dispersing through it.

His voice darkens, and the world darkens with it.

“All I ever wanted was to be human, Clara. I wanted it with all of my heart until I realized humanity is a cruel and unforgiving beast. They take, and take, and take, but never bother to give back. They flirt with the unknown for the novelty of it, then discard all that does not serve them. I wanted to be human until I discovered what that truly meant.”

My chest aches. In the distance, the same plume of smoke that had once singed my soul rises. I don’t imagine my parents’ faces mangled beneath a mass of vehicular metal for fear they might manifest beside me.

“We are not the same, Jasper.”

His presence approaches with a spectral quality. Before I can stop him, he tucks a finger beneath my chin and draws my gaze back to his. His eyes bleed red light, and his expression has hardened. All of that molten suaveness has frozen solid.

“We are more alike than we are different.” Suddenly, he is desperate again.

His eyes utter a million pleas, miserable beyond words.

His hand gestures to my chest, to the beating heart beneath it.

“Both of us have made a habit of existing without fate’s consent.

But now we are together. Neither of us have to be alone anymore.

Neither of us have to be alone ever again. ”

“Jasper—”

“What good will your humanity do you? You want to go out there and live among them? You want to live in a world that will take you apart and use you once they discover what you truly are? People like your parents, like Hemlock, who will lie to you just to keep you behaved? People like Jade, who think you aren’t worthy of the air in your lungs?

” He growls. “You came here for a reason, Clara. Why deny it?”

“Jasper, I . . . I can’t. This isn’t . . .” I glance around the dreamscape, willing it to shift into a mirage of the forest, a replica of my perception of it. I wonder if, to him, it looks as grim, dark, and desolate. “This can’t be a home to me.”

“What happens when your pills run out?”

My skin writhes, a wave of goose bumps ravaging it. “How do you know about those?”

“I’m in your mind, love. I see everything.”

Disturbed by the invasion, the outward admittance of how blatantly he is disrespecting my privacy, I tear away from him. “I don’t know. I’m figuring it out.”

He snorts. “Right. And when you do figure it out, what will you have? A world that demands you bend yourself to the breaking point to fit a palatable mold? If I wanted to, I could put on a human face and try my hand at that ordinary life you seem so attached to. Sure, I’d need to acquire blood roses more covertly, but I could.

Thing is, I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to be anything like them.

All I want is to be free, and I’m offering you the opportunity to enjoy freedom with me. ”

“This isn’t freedom.”

“Not yet. That is why I don’t plan to stay here either.

We shall grow our domain farther, love. We’ll take it all the way to the edges of the earth.

No one will deny us. No one will stop us.

We will have each other and absolutely everything else.

We’ll give the world back to the anarchy from which it was birthed, and together, we’ll cleanse the human disease. ”

“I . . . I don’t want that, Jasper.”

“Yes, you do. You can feel it in your blood. I can only push the particle barrier around Blackstone so far, but with your help—”

“Particle barrier?”

“With your help, we can stand against the EHKI. Once they’re handled, the world will be ours for the taking.”

“Jasper. All you’ve done . . . is manipulate me since I got here.

I can feel your influence in the back of my mind, trying to convince me that I want what you want.

I can feel you replacing my thoughts with your words, your desires, your commands.

I don’t know how you’re doing it, but I want it to stop.

I’m not your love, I’m not your puppet, and I’m most definitely not your one-way ticket past whatever this particle barrier is. I just want you to stop.”

I pause, trembling, considering what it is I do truly want.

The sky goes gunmetal and bright green. Cigarette smoke and amber-musk perfume. Ice cream at midnight, whispering about boys and sneaking horror flicks onto the television. My sister. I want my sister.

The sky turns to a watercolor swirl of blues, greens, and all things bright and beautiful. The breeze smells like lavender and clean linen. I feel his heat against my ice, our little hurricane. Suddenly, soul-shatteringly, I am safe. Grayson. I want Grayson.

Darkness surges around us, every star above blinking out before blazing red.

Suddenly, the sky is filled with supernovas, sending explosions of hellish starlight over the horizon.

His mouth spreads until it is far too wide, nearly splitting his skull in two.

His teeth begin to morph. His eyes begin to sink.

His limbs elongate, stretching his body until it is upward of ten feet tall and thin as a rail.

Then he drops, his joints hinging in unsightly directions until he is nearly flat.

On all fours, he scuttles across the distance between us, quick as a lightning bolt.

“I won’t be alone anymore, Clara Lovecroft,” he threatens, every shred of kindness stripped away.

Rage is all that remains, burning as brightly as the illusion dancing in the sky.

“Just remember that I gave you a chance to choose. In the back of that oh-so-powerful mind of yours, remember what happened here. Remember that you could have protected them if you weren’t so selfish.

Oh, and give Jade my regards. She’ll be first.”

“What?” I demand, phantom wind picking up around me and causing my hair to whip in every direction. Clouds tumble over the skyline, and when the rays of red light are blocked out by them, Jasper disappears in a wisp of smoke and shadow.

“It should have been you!” Jade’s voice thunders through me.

It is omnipresent as it swallows the landscape.

Her tone is hateful, but dreadfully familiar.

The dreamscape shifts, following the waves of my shattered memory.

The next time my eyelids lift, I am at the cemetery, staring down at two names carved into one headstone. A snowflake falls onto my lashes.

“It should have been you . . .” Jade whispers.

She wears a pair of black jeans and a beaten black shirt, her hands trembling as she lays Mother and Father’s wedding bands into the loose dirt.

She only lifts her gaze to scowl at me, then stands on legs wobbling beneath the weight of her grief.

The way in which she starts walking away says what a thousand words could never.

Nothing about those long, disappointed strides implies she plans to come back.

“Jade, wait—” When I attempt to grab her hand, she turns and shoves me into the floral arrangements sent by our extended family.

They scatter across the frail yellow grass, streams of unnaturally vibrant color on a sepia backdrop.

The back of my head slams against Dad’s name hard enough to put thin cracks in the granite.

“It should have been you.”

As she walks away, I roll onto my back and stare into the overcast sky.

I am lost in a deluge of emotions long enough to lower my guard as Jasper returns.

He hovers overhead, his form demonic and domineering again.

Rows of black, razor-blade teeth—each as long as a forearm—are framed within the edges of his supernaturally wide smile.

His eyes are sunken, hollowed holes in a charred skull.

“You will help me, Clara.” His command, deep and filled with a thousand unrecognizable screams, snaps around my mind like a pair of handcuffs. He is no longer asking. “You’ll see . . . I’ll make you see. We belong together.”

My mind is pliant, filled with so much red, an ocean of control drowning my will with vigor. Before I can respond, my lips already forming words of compliance, our surroundings crumble like glass against a gunshot.