Page 47 of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human

Thirty-Four

There’s no other way to do it. Nothing else that will work, nothing that can’t be stopped. Nothing that makes her a part of him again, that lets him save her and keep her all at once.

Crane devours her.

The most merciful spot is the jugular. Right under the delicate skin of the throat.

His daughter squawks pathetically for a single ear-splitting second—how could anyone have thought they don’t feel pain, how could anyone— before what’s happening rips beyond her capacity to experience it.

The skin tears and the veins pop between his teeth and the blood fills his mouth, pours down his chin, chokes him with the sudden heat and salt.

He swallows it. The chunk of flesh that comes off in his mouth, the tough stringy arteries, the cartilage that hasn’t hardened yet.

It clogs his throat and lodges in his esophagus.

He forces it down. His body revolts, attempts to regurgitate it, but he won’t let himself lose any of the meat, not one shred of it.

It’s hers. He made her and he won’t let them have her, she’s his she’s his she’s his.