ME & THE MONSTER

last & lost

The head that poked out of the door was blonde and female.

I stared at the tall girl in the dressing gown that stood peering at me on the threshold.

"Oh, hi, Eden," I said, trying not to sound as flustered as I felt. This girl intimidated me for some reason. "Er... I was looking for, um, Kal. Is he – in?"

An odd expression was crawling over her elegant face. I couldn't make sense of it. I wondered what she was doing here at Kal's so late and evidently in her pyjamas, and a stab of jealousy pierced me. Oh crap, were they – had they --

"Hello, Rae," Eden said. "Yes, but he's asleep, you see."

"Asleep?" I repeated. I knew Kal usually stayed up late, even on weeknights.

"Yeah, he's had a rough sort of day," she said.

She stood quite still before me, one long hand resting on the door frame, the other clutching the belt of her dressing gown. Her fingernails were badly chewed. She was staring at me, and the strangeness of her expression intensified.

She was unnerving the hell out of me.

"Right," I mumbled. "I'd better get going, then. I'll swing by some other day."

"No," Eden said, suddenly. "I've been waiting."

I turned around again to face her, confused.

"Waiting?"

She nodded, two eager little bobs of the head. She said, urgently: "Yes. Waiting for you, all this time. I knew you'd come back."

This was getting weirder and weirder. Was she drunk or something?

"I beg your pardon?" I said.

It was then that Eden lunged forward, knocking me over backwards. My head thudded hard against the wall of the hallway, the one opposite Kal's door, and I remained sprawled on the cold floor for several seconds, dazed, struggling to process what had happened.

I rubbed my head, groaning.

"Eden," I gasped. "Are you crazy?"

What the hell was going on?

I tried to sit up, but Eden was on me a moment later, pinning me down with the whole of her body. She was at least a head taller and many pounds heavier than me, and writhed as I did, I was no match against her.

"Get off me!" I shrieked, kicking and shoving, but Eden tightened her grip on me in a grimly satisfied manner. I felt my earlier uneasiness flaring into real panic. "Get off! What have I ever done to you?"

"You're a demon, Rae." Her face was so close to mine I could see the acne scars on her chin. "A filthy, nasty demon. Even if he didn't tell me, the lying bastard. But it didn't matter, in the end, I found out soon enough. And I'm an angel. It's my job to hate you."

I flung my head back and screamed as loudly as my lungs permitted, hoping that Kal heard me. That anybody heard.

"He won't wake up," said Eden. "You know he won't go to sleep without those stupid earplugs of his."

Shit, she was right. I wouldn't cry in front of her. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. I cursed myself for not seeing this coming before – of course it would have happened, sooner or later. This was the very thing Kal had been fearing, the reason why he and I had gone our separate ways.

"But we – we know each other, you and I," I squawked. My blood was drumming a mad beat in my temples. I knew what she wanted to do to me. This was it. This was the end, but I kept on thrashing. I wouldn't go down without a fight. "We're friends. Sort of. Right? We both love Kal."