“I know how this must feel,” she said. “I have been in your position before. Trust me. Many of us have. He’s already dead. He can’t feel a thing. You need to do this.”
Looking down at his lifeless body made me dizzy and before I could prepare, I leaned forward and vomited at Kendall’s feet. She patted my head and I was so tempted to take the dagger and drive it through her neck. But what would that solve?
“Let it out, sweetie,” Kendall said. “It’s okay. Bastian wants you to do this. He said so himself didn’t you hear him? He told you to do what needed to be done.”
He had said so.
“I can’t,” I said. “Please don’t make me do this. I can’t.”
“You have to,” she said. “I can help you if you want me to.”
“I can’t…”
Kendall handed me the dagger and I held it limply in my hand. Bastian’s head was slumped over and his shirt and shorts were covered in blood. The man I’d laughed and danced with all day was there under that red coat of blood.
The dagger dangled from my fingers and was about to fall out of my hand when Kendall suddenly grabbed my hand in hers, squeezed my fist shut, and forced my hand with the dagger into his chest.
“No!” I screamed.
I held onto the dagger, clenching the handle, and threw up again at his side. She pulled the dagger out for me and handed it to Vivi.
“Somebody take this poor girl home,” she said. “She needs to rest.”
The last thing I heard before I passed out again was the clicking of all the pets’ cuffs unlocking. They’d been let loose.”
Chapter 14
Tension drove on like I’d asked him to. I’d done my best to forget Bastian. Thinking about him throughout this story was brutal. Just like the suffering poor Pasha endured on his knees that day, but like Kendall said, it was to better the community.
I wished I could tell Tension everything but I simply couldn’t. So I rode next to him in silence until he saw the sign that read “Welcome to E. Mayberry” illuminated in his headlights.
He slammed on the breaks.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I told you, I want to show you something.”
“Here?”
“Tension,” I said calmly as I put my hand on his thigh. “If you take me through those gates, I promise your whole world will change.”
He looked at me as if he were under some kind of trance, like I was some vampire succubus who owned his life. I didn’t. It was his decision and I wanted him to make it for himself, a choice I was once given too late. Of course he didn’t know about the Harvest Festival, but no new pet could know about that.
“You have to know,” I told him. “If you drive through this gate, there’s a chance you will never leave again.”
“You’ve been lying to me all night,” he said. “You only wanted to bring me here.”
“No, I told you the truth,” I said. “I just omitted information. You’ve listened intently to me and you know what this life is about. Turn the car around now if you don’t want to be with me. Or drive through the gate if you do.”
He looked over at me and then stepped slowly on the gas. He wanted me. He wanted to be mine.
The guard at the gate recognized me right away and waved me in.
“This place is beautiful,” Tension said.
“I told you,” I said.
“That guard, he didn’t seem surprised to see you,” he said.