How to Love a Monster

by Lyssa Dering

  Oh, how can I prolong this arrangement with Seraphim? I love having him here with me. He is hot and cold, sweet and bitter all at once. He is every taste I need, amenable to my desires, fearless in lust. He has a fondness for freedom and probably adventure; with him, I could explore Wish City with fresh eyes, brave the daylight, make my soldiers happier and more loyal by visiting them when they prefer. What if all of them could be like Neisha? Caring for me, wondering about me. Loyal in service and soul.

  It is a pretty dream. And Seraphim took the truth about my origins so well. Could I tell him about my hunger? If I didn’t divulge that I wanted his brain especially, could he accept me?

  I remember his reaction to the brain in the groceries. For all I know, Wish is leaving more messages for Seraphim right now, a trail of breadcrumbs from bedroom to kitchen that will spell out everything. If only my app could alert me to the changes in Seraphim’s heart.

  I should go up there. I could say I missed Seraphim too much to stay away, even for the time it takes to shove pizza in between my juice boxes. I could do damage control. My lies would be Band-Aids on whatever he’s found.

  But just the thought makes me tired. My second wind is slipping away, and so is Seraphim. He will learn the truth no matter how many lies I stack against it. Because I can’t stop Wish from acting as a god in his own dimension. Not with drugs, apparently, and not with death, because his death could be mine.

  I care about Seraphim. I want to keep him happy. And if it were just a little easier to bring about, I would prefer to have him here in my house and bed for the rest of eternity. But I cannot bear to risk my own existence. Nothing—not pleasure, not power, not love—is worth that.

  Sera

  I blink, and I’m in the master bedroom. Maybe I should be a little more freaked out by the fact that I just teleported from one “room” to the next, but I think I might be losing my ability to be more than mildly surprised by what I see in Wish City (and not fast enough, to be honest). What bothers me more is the fact that it’s cold up here. I haven’t felt cold since before I wandered into that Love house, and yeah, I’m naked, but this feels off. What happened to my perfectly temperature-controlled environment?

  I steal the comforter off the bed and wear its fur-lined bulk as a robe.

  The house is eerily quiet. I shuffle past the shadows and neon strips, half-convinced something will jump out and grab me. I mean, it could. But I doubt Fiend, at least, can scare me unless I’m closer to the bed.

  In the kitchen, I search for something to wrap the leftover pizza in. No dice. Here’s something I’m not shocked about. I can’t even find the grocery bags from earlier, but Mercer must have taken them with him or disposed of them. I do find a plate in a drawer, though. Better to put the slices in the fridge uncovered than not to put them in there at all.

  Hoping the pizza won’t be too bulky even without the box, I stack the five pieces on the plate. Then I turn toward the fridge.

  The magnetic letters on the refrigerator door are gone.

  Biting my lip, which is still a little sore from Fiend’s attention, I set the plate back on the counter. In the letters’ place is a three-inch-wide magnetic photograph. It’s too dark to make out what’s in the photo, so I peel it off and open the fridge, using the interior light to examine the magnet more closely. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t this: a government building? A courthouse, maybe?

  My heart racing, I clutch the magnet. I don’t know where I’ll keep it with my lack of pockets, or how I’ll hide it from Fiend, but I can’t leave it somewhere, or it might disappear on me. I hold it between my arm and body and reach for the plate.

  When I turn around, looking properly into the fridge for the first time since I came up here, my breath catches in my throat, and my every muscle tightens in shocked terror.

  Instead of juice boxes lining the shelves, there are now brains. Slimy, bloody, gelatinous human brains!

  The plate wobbles in my hand, but I manage to get it to the counter without dropping it. I can’t find the magnet anywhere. I shake out the blanket, look all over the floor, but it’s nowhere. It’s gone.

  Slamming the refrigerator door shut, I let out a muted cry of anguish. What does this mean? Maybe when I open the fridge again, the juice boxes will be back. My mind is playing tricks, or Wish is.

  Leaning on the plastic handle, I clamp my eyes shut and mutter prayers. “Please, please, please don’t let there be brains in here. Please, Universe. Please, Wish.”

  Eyes still closed, I open the door. With my blanket in a pile on the floor, the cool air makes goose bumps sprout all over me.

  “Please,” I whisper one last time. Then I open my eyes.

  And the fridge is still full of brains!

  I don’t bother closing the door before I run. Back through the living room, into the hallway, into the master suite. I dive under the bed feet first and fall with my eyes open. There’s nothing to see but pitch-black darkness, at least until the room comes into view, illuminated via the bedside lamp.

  As I land on the bed, Fiend sits up, wide-eyed, and I shove him back, straddling him, my grip harsh on his shoulders.

  “My precious, what’s—”

  “You better tell me right fucking now: what’s up with the brains?!”

  Fiend

  Seeing Seraphim fall from the ceiling before I could even sense he was coming was quite enough of a fright. Having him shove me down and ask me this question? I don’t know how he expects me to get calm enough to give him an answer.

  He shakes my shoulders, sending my head bouncing against my pillow. “Answer me!” His eyes blaze.

  I’m more than strong enough to get the physical upper hand here, but his fury makes me shrink. “W-What brains? I disposed of the one from earlier.”

  “The fridge is full of them!” Seraphim sits back on his heels, holding his head, his fingers scrunching in his brown hair. “Tons of them. I don’t know what Wish is trying to tell me, but if I see one more bloody organ, I’m going to be sick.”

  I burn—my cheeks, my ears. I was right! Wish has been sending Seraphim messages! If I could kill that self-righteous trickster god, if I could wring his neck…

  Seraphim leans down again, getting in my face.

  I yelp.

  “I am tired of this shit.” Seraphim’s voice is low and menacing, every syllable vibrating into my eardrums as he squeezes my shoulders. “You’re going to tell me whatever you’ve been hiding. Wish told me to ‘beware’ you, and he’s showed me brains in the groceries and the—” Seraphim freezes, his gaze going distant.

  Oh no. He’s figured it out! He’s decoded Wish’s message. Watching the wheels turn in his head is like watching a beast rear back for attack, but it’s all in slow motion. All I can do is wait. I ball my hands into fists.

  Instead of tearing me to shreds, Seraphim pulls away, scrambling off me like I feared he’d do when I told him I was Wish’s monster. His eyes are impossibly big and round.

  My sternum crumbles.

  “That’s what you really eat? Brains?” Seraphim laughs one of his bitter laughs. “Are you a zombie?”

  My sadness is spilling like blood from a knife wound, but somehow I find the strength to sit up and sneer at him. “Does my flesh look rotted to you?”

  Seraphim sweeps his gaze over my body. Does he really need to look to remember how I felt against him?

  “No,” he says.

  I lie down on my side, back to the wall, and stare pointedly away from Seraphim. I expect him to try and run now, but he doesn’t.

  “You want my brain, don’t you?” The thickness of Seraphim’s voice betrays that he’s crying. “That’s why you talk about tasting me all the time. And why I need to beware you. Right?”

  Damage control. I should do damage control. No, I don’t want your brain. It’s just that Wish would like me to be lonely and suffering for the rest of eternity. But how long would such a lie hold? I can’t stop Wish from leaving
his messages. “I am trying not to want it, precious.”

  Seraphim lets out a sob. “It’s damaged goods anyway.” The pain in his voice is sharp and sour.

  I look at him and fight the urge to reach out to him, to pet his pretty head and kiss him sweetly. Doesn’t he realize that even if his brain is tainted, I want it? I will brave the aftertaste for him. It doesn’t matter what the doctors did to him; he is still special to me.

  “How did you die?” I ask.

  “S-Surgery.” Seraphim shows me his eyes, now leaking tears and twisted with anguish. “I’m broken. Look.” For a moment, he just stares, sniffling. But then he cries out, holding his head. Blood seeps out of one of his nostrils.

  The urge to reach out to him becomes even stronger. This explains the smear of blood I found beneath his nose earlier. These must be side effects. When I was with Thisbe, she bled from her ears.

  “My darling.” I inch closer to Seraphim, clenching my fingers in the blankets. “Let me hold you. I am not hungry. I won’t hurt you.”

  Seraphim looks at me like maybe he’s considering it. But then he shakes his head, swiping under his nose. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew it, and I let you in anyway. I’m so stupid.”

  “No, you’re lovely. Your brain is perfect.” My own eyes well with tears. “Even damaged, it calls to me. Please…” I do reach out this time. My fingers barely brush his wet cheek before he vanishes.

  I won’t follow him. I won’t have him reject my affection again. Instead, I curl up in the spot he vacated and wail pitifully.

  I am the one who has been stupid. How could I have thought that ending my suffering would be as simple as taking Seraphim’s brain? I know now that it is not his brain I need, no matter how delicious it would taste. It is his heart, his trust, his closeness. Because these things have been out of my grasp for seconds, and already my heart is splintering. What could his fatty cerebrum possibly be now but an ineffectual bandage, providing pleasure that can last for mere days, if not hours? Then I would be devastated once more.

  More specials will come to Wish City. I don’t need Seraphim in this way.

  A little while later, my phone goes off, beeping its alarm. Seraphim has tried to unlock the door and escape. With sorrow drowning me, I change the settings on the front door’s locks to “Open for Anyone.” As long as City Hall stays secure, why not let Seraphim run? Perhaps once he calms down, he will come back to me.

  As the words “Front Door Accessed” flash on the screen, I don’t hold any real hope that Seraphim will return. He has not even learned the worst things about me—that I have killed Thisbe and imprisoned Wish—and already, he is horrified.

  I turn off the lamp and bury my nose in the sheets. They smell of salty sweat and musk—the scents of our sex. My mind cannot comprehend that minutes ago, Seraphim and I were suspended in the black hole of unending pleasure together, moaning and throbbing and climaxing. Seraphim trusted me to steal his air, to taste him from head to foot, to be near while he was vulnerable in sleep. Now, I am nothing but regret to him.

  Punching the mattress, I fill my little sanctuary with my shouts and sobs. I don’t know if Wish can hear me, but I yell at him anyway. “I hate you for making me this way! I hate you! I hate you!”

  Sera

  Running on raw adrenaline with tears that won’t stop falling, I try and gather some supplies before Fiend follows me up here and stops me from fleeing. Maybe leaving sooner rather than later is a bad call, but I draw the line at being bogeyman food. And the fact that Fiend has apparently only been into me this whole time because of my brain? I’m not ashamed to say that hurts. Even if I should have expected it. I mean, hardly anybody ever gives a shit about me if it doesn’t have to do with my oh-so-special brain or my sex-drunk body.

  The clothes and shoes I borrowed from Fiend are still with him under the bed. So I go to the closet with the copies of Wish’s favorite outfit. I’m lucky it isn’t locked, and that once I’ve got the button-down and jeans on, they’re only a little loose and not falling off my hips. A shadowed shoe rack I didn’t notice last time houses several pairs of Wish’s favorite sneakers, and I slip on a pair, lacing them up tight. They rub a little at the heels, but they’ll do.

  Next, I look for a bag. But even having been on that tour of the house, I don’t know where one might be. Mercer must have disposed of the grocery sacks, and—

  The trash bag! I run as fast as I can to the kitchen, where I find the bag in the trash can still in pristine condition, and I pull it out and head back to the closet. I stuff four copies of Wish’s outfit in there. As I pass back by the bed, panic swells in my stomach, but Fiend doesn’t reach out and grab me. Maybe he’s not going to stop me after all.

  Once more in the kitchen, I pack the strawberry fruit and grain bars, a box of cereal, a tin of peanuts, and a sleeve of bagels. I know I’m being childish not opening the fridge. For all I know, the brains could be gone by now. There might be food in there I could bring. But I can’t bear to look. I’m a mess as it is—sniffling, heart racing, barely in control of my breathing. I know my limits, and I can’t take much more.

  With fresh tears spilling down my face, I hesitate at the door. I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I shouldn’t be so damn sad. But it’s as if somebody’s taken sandpaper to my whole body; everything hurts. If time is love’s currency, Fiend should mean nothing to me. It’s been a couple of days, a few handfuls of hours. But didn’t Thisbe and Wish and everyone always imply that I fall too hard too fast? I was smitten with Wish before he so much as spoke to me. I saw those curls, that easy smile, and I was done for. And Fiend took me so much further and showed me so much more, even in such a short time.

  In that tiny bedroom, I could feel Fiend’s pain like it was my own. I don’t want to hurt him; I don’t really want to leave. But I’m not stupid. I’m not the teenage girl who falls for the vampire even though he wants her blood. Though if Wish really did make Fiend the way he is, with the eating habits he has, isn’t he the one to blame?

  Still, I go for the topmost deadbolt. I grip it, attempting to turn it, but it won’t budge. I try the others and get the same result.

  Fiend doesn’t have to lift a finger to stop me, does he?

  Dropping the trash bag to the hardwood floor, I pummel the door. “Fuck you both!” All I’ve ever wanted is freedom, and I’m not going to get it, am I? No matter which dimension I’m in.

  What’s the point, then? What’s the point of any of this? Why didn’t Wish just let me die? They say most often when you die, you have to be reincarnated straight back into the hell you left. But if your soul has lived enough lives, you get to go home, back to the vast, heavenly energy that made you.

  I’m so tired. Surely my soul is ancient. Surely I would have been done.

  I kick at the door in Wish’s stupid, worn-out shoes. “Let me go!” I don’t know who I’m yelling at—Wish, Fiend, it doesn’t matter. I doubt Fiend can even hear me if he’s still under the bed. But what else am I going to do? Admit defeat? Sulk on the couch? Go crawling back to Fiend and ask for a cuddle?

  With my hand on the first deadbolt again, I clamp my eyes shut. “Please, Wish. If you want me away from Fiend so bad, let me open this damn door. If you ever cared about me at all. Please.” I don’t expect it to budge, but I wrap my fingers around the deadbolt anyway.

  It turns.

  My heart lifts.

  In a fury of kinetic energy, I undo lock after lock and then yank open the door. The fresh night air kisses my skin. It isn’t cold outside, or rainy; in fact, it’s perfect.

  Not trusting the door in the least, I hold it open with one hand while I reach inside to retrieve my trash bag. Then I step out into freedom.

  The door shuts behind me, apparently of its own accord. I twist the knob to find it locked again.

  No turning back now. My heart beats in my throat, but I square my shoulders and straighten my spine. Even though I’m not used to running alone, and even though I’m n
ot familiar with the layout of the city, this is my element. I know how to scrape by in the dark.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to the black sky, dotted with stars.

  It’s not applicable in Wish City, but I still find strength in what Thisbe used to tell me when I got anxious about being caught: “Remember: we’re the monsters. They’re scared of us.” I only wish she were here with me now. And I hope she arrives in Wish City soon because they can’t be doing anything good to her at the facility in Chicago. She’s been there too long…

  Sighing, I head off in the opposite direction to that of the pizza parlor Fiend took me to. If he does decide to come after me, I don’t want to be anywhere he’ll look first.

  9

  Fiend

  It is a long time I stay hidden: hours, and then days. But I simply can’t make myself move. Even when the first hints of hunger bite at my belly, I can’t find the motivation to rise and earmark my next prey.

  Seraphim is the only prey I want, after all. Perhaps I will let myself starve.

  When I fail to visit the Love plants twice, several managers send me messages. Then Neisha calls. Calls! As if there aren’t far less obtrusive ways to get in contact with me.

  Her name flashes stark and white on my fading screen. I need to put my phone into its little docking station, but that requires leaving my sanctuary.

  I pick up. “What is it?” My voice is gravelly with disuse. Or perhaps the pieces of my broken heart have floated up into my vocal cords and gotten in the way.

  “Boss!” Neisha sounds altogether too relieved. “Are you alright? Where are you?”

  I draw a finger down the pale green paint of my bedroom wall. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m at home.”

  “But you haven’t visited the plants. Everyone’s worried.”

  I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know perfectly well I don’t have to visit them as much as I do!” My voice cracks; I haven’t even had blue juice since Seraphim disappeared. I clear my throat. “I do it to stay busy because a leader without enemies doesn’t have to do much at all, now does he?” I pause to hiss. “The managers are not ‘worried.’ They simply want to know if they are in trouble.”