The Monster Keeps Me Safe by Kitty Thomas

Author:Kitty Thomas [Thomas, Kitty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Burlesque Press
Published: 2021-05-18T18:30:00+00:00

When I woke, I was back in my room down the hall. Shannon must have carried me back once I’d fallen asleep. The clock on the nightstand read ten o’clock, and sun was streaming in through the windows. How had I slept so late? I must have been out eleven hours at least. I rolled over, stretching, startled to find Shannon leaning against the door frame watching me.

“You’ll want your own room for sleep. You’ll need a space that is yours to process your experiences.”

Even though he’d been decent to me up to this point, somehow everything he said managed to sound terrifying with about thirty layers of meaning tucked inside them, half of which I was sure I would never fully unravel until it was far too late.

There was an abrupt buzzing sound, and he retrieved a shiny red phone from his pocket. It wasn’t a burner like the one I normally saw him talk on. It seemed quite nice and expensive, definitely not the kind of phone you ditched in a nondescript undisclosed location every two weeks.

“Mom, hi.”

I could hear an animated female voice on the other end of the call.

“I know. I’ve been working,” Shannon said. “I know. I know. I’m free tonight.”

The woman on the other end squealed. An obvious sign of approval. But then something that sounded like nagging started.

“I found someone,” Shannon said, interrupting her tirade.

Utter pin drop silence on the other end for nearly a full minute. Then there were more animated questions I couldn’t decipher from across the room.

“We’ll see,” Shannon said, noncommittally. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He put his phone back in his pocket and regarded me with something like amusement. “How would you like to meet my parents? You’ll be playing the role of my girlfriend.”

“What am I really?” Words like girlfriend seemed way outside the scope of anything that had or would go on between us. Still, I wanted to know how he defined this.

“You’re mine,” he said, as if that clarified everything.

“Your what?”

“Just mine.”

Since Shannon was perfectly comfortable killing a person, he must be equally untroubled by owning one.

“And when you get tired of playing house?” These questions and concerns had been in the background since we’d first arrived. But now that things had escalated between us to a mockery of coupledom, I was even more concerned about how these things ended with a contract killer. Surely it couldn’t be a nice ending. And this couldn’t last forever.

“I haven’t gotten tired of the cat.”

This statement was absolutely insane to me but seemed reasonable to him. How could he compare me to a fucking house pet? Oh, right, because I was just another type of pet to him.

“How long have you had the cat?” I asked.

“Seven or eight years.”

He’d managed to care for a cat for that long? Sure, they didn’t require a lot of maintenance, but he had to make sure she was fed and got her shots. And she seemed healthy and well taken care of—spoiled even. He

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.