Near the Bone by Christina Henry (ebook reader color screen txt) 📗

“No,” she said. “I want Mom.”

He put his hand over her mouth and there was something sticky on his fingers, something that smelled like metal. “Your mother has decided that I’m to take care of you now. We’re going away. You will listen to me and obey and if you do that you’ll be the happiest little girl in the world. If you don’t then . . .”

He trailed off. Samantha didn’t know what might happen to her if she didn’t listen to William, couldn’t begin to imagine it. She only knew that she didn’t want to go with him. She wanted to stay with Mom and Heather. She squirmed again, trying to escape his grip, and he sighed.

•   •   •

The tapping sounded at the window again, firm, insistent. She wasn’t there, on the stairs with William. She was in the cabin, and William wanted Mattie to open the window.

He wanted her to open the window like she had before and he was sure, he was certain that she would because Mattie always listened to him, Mattie always obeyed. She’d opened the window for him in the first place.

The bedroom window was the only one large enough for William to fit through, she realized. The two windows in the main room were small, too small for his shoulders, but the bedroom window was larger. He could climb through there. He could reach her again, punch her in the face, throw her to the floor, remind her that her duty was to make sons for him.

Tap tap tap

He was so sure, so certain.

Mattie’s feet moved toward the window.

The creature roared out in the night, so close that it could have been in the cabin with them.

Then the screaming started.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Griffin,” C.P. said from the other room.

Mattie heard him run across the wood floor, heard the front curtains swish open. She hurried into the main room and nearly tripped over Jen, who was lying in the middle of the floor, still as death.

“Get . . . away . . . from . . . window,” Mattie wheezed out.

The creature roared again, and the person outside was screaming, screaming long horrible cries of pain that seemed to push inside her ears and press against her eyeballs and stop up her throat.

“That’s Griffin out there,” C.P. said. “We have to go out and help him. We have to do something. He sounds like he’s dying.”

“We . . . can’t. Creature. William,” Mattie said, and rushed toward the door. She sat down in the chair that C.P. had placed there earlier, determined not to let him outside.

She wished she could speak properly, or that Jen was awake to help talk some sense into C.P. How could he consider going outside? If the creature didn’t get him then William would, and once the door was open, William would come inside.

“I don’t care what you say, I’m going out there! Griffin would have done the same for you. We’re only in this mess because of you anyway. He couldn’t stop talking about you, kept saying we had to help because you were being abused by your asshole husband. We only came back in this direction because he wanted to do something about it and now you’re going to sit there like a cowardly little bitch and let him die outside your door?”

Mattie stared at C.P., stricken by the sudden change in him, the snarl in his voice, the contempt she felt radiating from him. Griffin’s screams filled up the empty space between them.

Cowardly little bitch. Was that what she was? Was this true? Had the three strangers only been put in harm’s way because they wanted to help her?

A rifle sounded outside, a huge booming rifle that made a noise like Mattie had never heard before.

“Demon! Go back to hell!”

William. William was shooting the creature.

C.P. moved from the window to stand in front of Mattie, who pressed herself back in the chair that blocked the front door. The flashlight was in one of his hands and the rifle in the other. He trained the flashlight on her.

“Get out of the way or I’ll throw you out of the way,” C.P. said. “I’m going out there to get my friend.”

Griffin’s screams faded out then, overwhelmed by the angry roars of the creature, William’s screams, the report of the rifle.

If C.P. went out there, he would only get caught in the crossfire—shot by William, or snatched up by the creature like his friend. She couldn’t let him leave.

And if he leaves you’ll be all alone with an unconscious woman and who will protect you then? Isn’t that right?

Mattie wanted to shout at that voice, that smug little Samantha, the one who knew that Mattie was helpless, nothing unless she had a man to protect her.

I’m not helpless, she thought. She curled her fingers around the seat of the chair. He’d have to pry her off if he wanted her to move.

“Can’t . . . let . . . you,” Mattie said. “You’ll . . . get . . . hurt.”

“Do you really think that matters? Griffin’s my best friend and I can’t leave him out there. Move.”

Mattie shook her head, half-blind from the glare of the flashlight. He was nothing but a silhouette to her, a silhouette of an angry man looming.

He’s going to hurt me he’s going to hurt me he’s going to hit me and throw me on the floor and throw the chair after me like I’m nothing but garbage and maybe I am because I don’t want to go outside and help the screaming man but there’s nothing we can do there isn’t anything the creature is too big William is too dangerous the world is too big and dangerous altogether it’s safer just to stay right here with the door closed.

The creature stopped roaring. William stopped firing the rifle. There was a strangled cry, and everything was silent.

Mattie’s fingers squeezed against the wood of the chair. What was happening now? Had William killed the creature? Was he even now stalking back to the cabin, triumphant in his defeat of the demon?

She