And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Ten
“You’re starting to scare me with this fanfic thing.”
Jude yelped, startled, cracking her head off the inside of the fridge. Whimpering, she slowly tugged her head back out of the fridge, rubbing at the back of her head as she blinked at her best friend, blearily. “….what?”
“You are starting to scare me.” Sera crossed her arms over her chest. “With the fanfiction.”
“…why?” she blinked at her, carrying the milk she’d been digging to find over to the table, pouring it over her Fruit Loops. Sitting at the table, she started eating, considering the other woman, who was already dressed neatly and professionally for the day at the ‘office’. “I haven’t even been showing it to you, seriously. It’s not taking time from my editing or anything, so…”
“I know what your livejournal is, freak, of course I was able to read it, whether you showed me or not.” She rolled her eyes.
“…oh. Good point. Still.” She shrugged, catching the dribble of milk as it ran down her chin. “What’s wrong?”
“You are aware that you are getting really obsessed with this, right?” Sera sat at the table, across from her, folding her hands on the table top as she considered Jude seriously. “You are writing an almost scary amount very quickly, and it’s getting darker and darker and more and more twisted…”
“That’s just how the story’s going,” she shrugged, searching through the loops for a green one. “So?”
“It’s just…. It’s not like you, Jude. It’s starting to get scary.”
“Don’t be silly,” she rolled her eyes, crunching away. “Like you said. It’s fanfic. It’s just a story. People write way worse things all the time. I’m just writing a stupid story about someone that died in canon and I just don’t think she should have. No big deal.
“Big deal,” Sera muttered, quietly.
“What, you want me to stop posting it? I can stop posting it,” Jude shrugged.
“Not offering to stop writing?”
“No,” she said, simply, standing to set her bowl in the sink.
“…why not? If I asked, would you stop writing?” Sera considered her seriously, concerned. She wasn’t about to tell Jude about it, but the other woman was starting to show signs of strain. There were constantly dark circles under her eyes, and she looked worn out, haggard, like she wasn’t sleeping unless she outright passed out. Jude looked like she’d been dragged backwards through the woods, then dropped in a muddled pile in the middle of the kitchen. “If I said, ‘Jude, I’m worried about you, please stop writing this damned story’, would you?”
“No.” Jude dug in the fridge again, straightening with an apple juice box, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to stab the plastic straw into the little silver spot.
She sighed heavily, though she’d been expecting that answer. “Why not?!”
“Because this story needs to be written.” She shrugged, finally succeeding in getting the straw in. “The story of Jessica Moore needs to be put to paper.”
“But why?!” she demanded.
Jude blinked, as though she hadn’t been expecting that question. She looked sort of forlorn standing there, like an exhausted and rumpled little orphan Annie, shirt buttoned on the wrong button holes, hair in the messiest pair of braids Sera had ever seen, glasses sliding down her nose as she sipped on the straw of her juice, clearly thinking hard.
“Well?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged, and the childlike moment was passed, leaving just her friend, looking like a royal mess. “It just has to be written. Look, I’m gonna go to bed, now.”
“I could take your computer away!” Sera howled after her as the other padded barefoot past her.
“I got notebooks!” she called, waving with one hand.
----
You talk too much.
Maybe that’s your way
Of breaking up the silence
That fills you up
“….what the hell is this?”
“This is breakfast in bed served by a naked lady,” Jo grinned, only slightly flushed as she climbed onto the bed, setting a tray on the bed beside Jess, then sat beside it, hands in her lap. She was, in fact, as naked as the day itself, which Jess was more than willing to admit was a sight she was never going to get tired of. “So eat up.”
“Breakfast is McGriddles and hash browns?” Jess snorted, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, yawning.
“Yep. I went out. Found us a job, fresh shells for the shotguns, and breakfast. And somewhere, the courage to strip naked. But that was mostly done cause I found your wallet when I was digging in your backpack yesterday.”
“…you were in my backpack?” Jess blinked at her, breakfast sandwich halfway to her mouth.
“Yeah. Remember, I needed the first aid kit, and you said it was in your bag?”
“Oh, right,” Jess nodded, taking a bite of her food, chewing happily, pleased. “Mmm… I miss breakfast. We’re always on the road in the morning, why the hell don’t we hit more drive throughs?”
“Cause we’re poor.” Jo reminded her.
“Oh right,” she nodded, still chewing. “So what did you find in my bag?”
“Your wallet. With your license.”
“So?”
“It’s January 24th, Jessica.” Jo said with a grin of amusement, wiggling slightly as she waited for the other woman to get what she was saying.
Jess choked on her McGriddle.
“Happy Birthday!” she crowed, laughing.
Coughing a few times, Jess finally cleared the bit of egg and bacon out of her throat, and swallowed, then blinked at the other woman, surprised. “Did you seriously decide to give me you naked for my birthday?”
“Did.” She confirmed, grinning.
“…that is definitely one of the best birthday presents I have ever been given in my life.” Jess blinked.
Laughing, Jo squirmed forward, leaning over the tray to kiss her, sweetly.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
“Hey, I figured you deserve a good birthday,” she grinned at the other woman, then sat back to half flop beside her friend, head resting on Jess’ thighs as she looked up at her, lying comfortably on the bed. Somehow she managed to make casual nudity look tomboyish despite the soft girly curves. Impressive skill, that. “So if you were born in eighty four, that makes you… twenty two, now?”
“Yeah… that’s math for you,” she smirked slightly, leaning back into the pillows, considering the other woman. “Twenty two. I’ve been legal for a whole year now. How naughty.”
Jo snorted. “I’m not legal yet, and I probably drink as much as you.”
“…you’re not legal yet?” Jess blinked at her for a moment, then groaned. “Oh, I feel naughty now. Perving on an underaged woman…”
“I didn’t say underaged!” she laughed, swatting playfully at Jess.
“How old are you, then?” Jess considered her, licking ketchup after her thumb after her spectacular fail at opening the little ketchup packet for her hashbrowns.
“I’ll be twenty one in June.” She smirked, and kissed Jess’ leg, playfully.
“Well, that’s not so bad, then,” she grinned, relieved.
“Toldja so.”
Jess snorted, and reached down to brush the other’s hair back. “Hungry?”
“Naw, I ate in the car on the way here.” Jo smiled back at her, softly, clearly pleased just to be there with the other. “So. It’s your birthday, which means its your party. What do you want to do for your twenty second? I understand that its traditional to get smashed on your twenty first, but that was last year. So what’s the plan for this year, pretty lady?”
She snorted, and offered, “Wanna go kill something?”
Jo laughed, and sat up, shifting the tray aside, and climbed slowly into Jess’ lap, straddling the other woman’s thighs. Hands curled on the older woman’s shoulders, she leaned forward, pressing into her, and gently kissed Jess, deeply.
Groaning softly, Jess tugged the other closer, quietly. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe it was effectively cheating on the boyfriend who thought she was dead, maybe it was going to go just as badly wrong as that poorly planned tryst with Meg had been, but damn she wanted it. Maybe it was because the other seemed just as nervous and just as excited as she was, maybe it was because Jo didn’t push and demand and make her feel like she was only doing it to get something out of it. Maybe it was just the alignment of the goddamn stars, she didn’t know.
All Jess knew was that this was perfect, and that she wanted Jo.
And that was good.
Cupping the other’s jaw, she kissed her deeply, all but losing herself in the soft touch of Jo’s lips. It was honest, it was pure, and it was beautiful.
Finally, Jo broke the kiss, panting as she pressed her forehead to Jess’. “….fuck.”
“Yeah,” she laughed, equally breathless. “Wow.”
“So… you mentioned killing?”
Jess actually groaned softly, thumping her head back into the pillows, eyes twinkling slightly as she considered the other blond, pondering that. “Yeah… I did mention killing something.”
“Well, as luck would have it… I got a job. Should be fun for killing, but shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Oh yeah?” she considered her, hands slowly running up and down the other’s smooth thighs. “You shaved.”
“Well, I was planning this since about three this morning,” Jo grinned, wiggling mischievously. “Ever heard of cryptozoology?”
“Isn’t that the study of creatures that are generally considered to just be legends?” Jess frowned slightly, pausing for a moment in her stroking of the other’s legs before beginning again. “Like the Mothman, and Bigfoot and stuff, right?”
“Exactly.” The other nodded.
“Okay, so I’ve heard of it,” she shrugged. “So?”
“I found us a Mishibizhiw.”
“Bless you,” Jess said automatically, having never heard such an incredibly bizarre sound coming out of the other woman’s mouth.
Jo roared in laughter. “No, a Mishibizhiw!”
“And what is that?”
“It translates to… roughly, that is, underwater lynx panther.”
“….okay, I’m taking this with a grain of salt because you’re a smart cookie, Jo-girl, but you’re really gonna need to give me some kind of better explanation than that.”
Idly stroking the other’s stomach, and drawing circles on Jess’ skin, she explained, “In Ojibwa beliefs, there was a creature called the Mishibizhiw, or the underwater lynx panther.”
Holding up her hands, she said, “Can we just call it the cat thing, or something?”
“Underwater cat thing, then,” she grinned, amused, and kept explaining, still stroking Jess’ stomach. “Belief in this particular underwater cat thing is really spread across all of North America, Canada and the States, too, everywhere. A few people look at it as a really good thing, like its sort of a good luck symbol, but most people look it as something else - that is, you know, a giant underwater cat thing that eats people. Cryptozoologists pretty much think that when the natives told them about the giant thing in the water that was eating people, they figured it was a communication error thing because they didn’t speak English, and figured it was a crocodile, or an alligator or something. Not a, you know, giant underwater cat thing.”
Jess blinked. “…and you’ve found one.”
“Yep.” She grinned, wriggling. “In a little lake about fifteen miles from here. It’s been eating campers.”
“Nice.” She groaned.
Jo bounced slightly on the other’s lap, running her hands through her hair and shaking her loose curls out before tugging it back into a low ponytail. “So, ready to go swimming?”
“Heh, sure, but how in the world do you kill an underwater cat thing? I don’t have a harpoon gun or anything. I just have bullets, and based on Mythbusters, that’s so not going to help us.”
“You kill ‘em with spears made of pine. I just happen to know that the whole place is surrounded by pine trees, and we can make pointy sticks pretty easily.”
“All right, then. Let’s go kill us a mishybizzy.”
“Mishibizhiw!” Jo laughed.
“Whatever,” Jess laughed, kissing her again before sitting up properly. “Now, sadly, let’s get some clothes on.”
Fourteen hours later, they were still sitting in their rowboat, spears in hands, lazily shining flashlights on the surface of the water as they looked for the giant underwater cat thing in the now rapidly setting sunlight. While both of them were pleased that January in Arizona was fairly comfortably warm still, sixty eight degrees was still not warm enough for them to really be happy about sitting in a boat over a large body of cold water all day. Especially for a birthday.
Still, parts of the day hadn’t been bad, because by the end of the long day, they were drunk as hell, and Jo was lying between Jess’ legs, head pillowed on the other woman’s breasts as they talked, only occasionally flicking the flashlight now.
“Another sandwich?” Jo offered, holding up a plastic wrapped sandwich from the little cooler. It had been full of beer and sandwiches when the day had started, but all that was left now were a few of the whole wheat, ham and lettuce sandwiches. “I’m not really hungry anymore, but…”
“Nnngh. Not me.” Jess held up a hand.
“Okay.” She murmured, snuggling a little closer into the other, sighing softly. “Sorry your birthday plan kinda sucked.”
“I decided around three o’clock this afternoon that you never really wanted to hunt the mishybizzy. You just wanted to excuse to pin me in a small area and keep me all to yourself for a day,” she grinned, smirking slightly when Jo squawked. “C’mon, you know the truth, you just wanted to recreate that night on the water bed.”
“If I wanted to really recreate the night on the water bed, I’d douse you in holy water, and rent a motel room with a water bed,” Jo smirked. “That would have been more fun than this.”
“I suppose that’s true, but at least we got to talk today. Last time I was too busy, you know, sleeping.”
“You’re pretty when you sleep.” Jo wriggled her eyebrows. “Except when you drool. Then it’s just kind of funny to watch you.”
“I don’t drool!” Jess yelped, laughing.
“Everyone drools, darling, that happens,” the other smirked, shifting carefully in the boat, trying not to make it rock too much as she sat up, right between Jess’ thighs, smiling down at her. “Sometimes, you snore, too. It’s not like it’s a big deal to admit that you’re human. Which is why I have a question for you… I’ve seen the scar. Why do you still wear the bandages?”
She hesitated, glancing down at her wrist, which was in fact still tightly bandaged.
“I mean, I’ve seen it. Why hide it?” Jo asked, softly.
“Because I trust you.” She murmured. “I don’t trust anyone else. I don’t want people to just… see it. It’s something… I kinda want to say it’s personal, but that’s not exactly right. It’s almost… perverse. The kind of thing you hide because only your most closest of person ever should see. It’s like… porn.”
Jo blinked at her. “….porn.”
“Yeah.” She shifted to sit up, taking the other woman’s hands in her own. “Think about it this way. Imagine you have this porn star. Her job is to have sex. That’s what she does, she has sex, every day, for a hell of a lot of money, and it goes on the internet, and everyone in the world can take a look at it if they want to, and yeah, they can watch her being fucked in the ass by Mister Twelve Inch Cock. But that… that is like a regular scar, something that people can see anywhere, and go, ‘Oh look, that person got burned or cut sometime in the past’. No big deal.” Jess took a deep breath. “But when that porn star goes home at the end of the day, and kisses her children’s forehead, and crawls into bed with her high school sweetheart that she married when she was seventeen and in love, and they make gentle love there in that bed, alone, neither of them thinking about her job, but just about how much they love and enjoy each other, that’s intimate. And that’s what this scar feels like. It’s important and intimate and too significant to just share with the world.”
“…wow.” She murmured, quietly, curling her fingers in the other’s hands. “Wow.”
“…is it stupid?” she flushed, and groaned softly. “Yeah, that was a completely stupid way to put that, wasn’t it?”
“No, that was - that was brilliant.” Jo said, firmly. “I understand.”
“Really?” she looked up, hopefully. “That bizarre explanation actually made sense?”
Jo kissed her, softly, deeply, moving her lips gently against the other’s lips. “I think it’s perfect, Jess. Wear the bandages as long as you want, I think they are completely perfect.”
She snorted, and looped one of her arms around Jo’s back, tugging her back down to the bottom of the boat again, settling the other firmly on her chest as she kissed her, firmly, demanding. The other woman groaned, curling into her properly as they lay in the slightly rocking little rowboat, happy and making their own warmth as Jess lazily left her arm with the flashlight hanging over the edge of the boat, light bobbing steadily on the surface of the water.
Until the flashlight was snatched out of her hand, pulling hard against the strap around her wrist.
Gasping, she broke the rather intimate kiss that she and her lover had gotten involved in, and jerked her hand back, struggling as she tried to get it out of the strap, then howled in shock when a massive, wet, black panther head burst out of the water, trying to snap his jaws around her wrist.
“Holy fuck!” Jo gasped, jerking Jess closer to her, the whole boat rocking dangerously.
The massive cat sank under the water, its massive tail slapping against the water, sending waves rippling across the surface of the water. The boat almost capsized, and Jo sat quickly, to lower the centre of gravity. Finally, the water evened back out to almost glass again, and the boat settled back in the water. Panting, Jo set her hand against her chest, and groaned, “Fuck, my heart was trying to pound out of my chest there…”
“No kidding,” Jess groaned, then yelped in surprise when the boat bucked again, and was literally thrown into the air.
Both women screamed as they slammed hard into the cold water, their boat being crumpled up like tin foil in the giant underwater cat thing’s jaws as their equipment rained down around them. Jess threw her arms over her head, crying out as she almost got hit in the head by their cooler, and struggled to get back away from the cat thing. The water was ice cold, freezing, much colder than the air had been, and she backed away, quickly.
Jo struggled to grab one of the pine spears, and jabbed at the massive black body where it rose out of the water. She struck its stomach, and the underwater cat thing howled at extremely high volume.
“Fuck!” Jess gasped, wincing.
The Mishibizhiw raked its claws at its attacker, and Jo cried out, reeling back. Red spilled into the water, and Jess cried out in horror.
The underwater cat thing rose up, jaw seeming to unhinge as it howled ravenously.
“No!” Jess’ fingers curled around the other pine spear, and thrust hard as it tried to swoop down to snap those massive jaws down on Jo’s small body, shoving the spear right into the back of the thing’s throat. Its teeth tried to close on her arm, massive sharp incisors scratching at her arms, cutting her up as she shoved harder and deeper, shoving the point straight through the back of the Mishibizhiw’s head.
It twitched and shook, then slowly, sunk under the water, leaving her panting hard, trembling.
“Holy shit.” Jo gasped, hands clutching at her stomach.
“Yeah.” She shivered hard.
“We need to get onto the shore,” she said, gently, taking Jess’ arm, and tugging her towards the shore, shivering as they swam carefully, though Jo’s hands kept drifting back to her stomach, wincing.
They stumbled up the stone shore, drenched and frozen. They were both bleeding, profusely, only because of the water, which made all of the blood run faster and colder.
“What’s the damage?” Jess demanded, knowing that her cuts weren’t as bad as the other woman’s, and darted over to Jo, kneeling to check her stomach. Her shirt itself was torn up and slightly shredded, a bloody mess. Shifting it up carefully, Jess winced. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I don’t have insurance,” Jo murmured, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t care,” she muttered, and stood, taking the other woman’s hands, and tugging her towards the car.
“Okay…” she murmured. “But you’re paying for it…”
----
Hold it, I can feel you most when I’m alone
I can feel your ghost when I’m alone
“I hate hospitals,” Jo murmured, eyes closed.
“Yeah, well, you don’t really have a choice, do you, babe?” Jess grinned, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, reaching up to brush her lover’s hair back, gently. “The mishybizzy managed to slice you up like a shish-kabob, so you get stuck in the hospital.”
The other snorted, and reached down to quietly run her fingers quietly up and down the other’s bandaged arms. “Thanks. But seriously, how are we paying for this?”
“…don’t get mad at me?”
“…sure, but why in the world would I get mad at you?” Jo blinked.
Jess dug in her backpack, which was sitting at the end of the bed, beside Jo’s feet, and pulled out a small stack of plastic cards. Searching through it for a moment, she handed three of them to Jo - a license, a social insurance card, and an insurance card, all for a blond woman in her early twenties named Marilyn Williams.
Jo blinked at them, and shifted to sit up, considering the cards. “Huh.”
“Yeah… one of the cars I got a few months ago had these in the glove compartment. I’ve been kinda… using other people’s identities… you know, for things like insurance and making sure that the cops don’t know who I really am. I mean, technically, I’m dead.”
“Good point.” She considered that, frowning slightly as she handed the cards back.
“Naw, hold onto those, you might need those,” Jess smiled faintly, pushing them back into the other woman’s hands. “So even though I had insurance before, I couldn’t possibly use my own insurance anymore, because I’m pretty sure they cancelled it when I died. That’s kind of what they do.”
Jo snorted.
“What, it’s true,” she grinned, rubbing the other’s arm slightly. “So… how is the stomach doing?”
“Nnngh, healing.” She sighed, running her hand through her hair. “The Mishibizhiw got me pretty bad, Jess. Damn. This turned out to be the shittiest birthday party we’ve ever had.”
“It’s the only birthday party we’ve ever had.”
“Well, that’s going to be changing. I mean, for one, I’m turning twenty one in June, so we definitely need to have one for me, and then we need to have another one next year for you, then mine next year, then yours the year after, and mine the year after….”
Jess laughed softly, and shifted the cage like bed rails up, so that she could lie down beside the other, back pressed against the metal cage. “Are you suggesting that you and me are going to be together for years and years and years?”
“Mmm, that was the idea, yeah,” Jo murmured, leaning into the other, kissing her jaw. “That okay with you?”
“I’m not complaining, but I wouldn’t mind knowing in which capacity we’re going to be together in.”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” she drawled.
“Oh yeah?” Jess arched her brow.
“You want to hug me, you want to kiss me, you want to fuck me,” Jo sang, badly, mostly just trying to be a goofball as she wiggled on the bed, laughing when Jess started to laugh. “You’re stuck with me, baby girl, because you clearly are arse over tits for me, and I kinda get tinglies whenever I look at you, so….” She kissed her again, softly. “You and me, babe. Together, for the long haul.”
“Yes mistress,” she joked softly, curling into her, pressing their foreheads together.
“Mmm… dork,” she murmured softly, reaching up to gently push Jess’ curls off her forehead. “They are never going to let us stay here together, like this.”
“So? Stupid nurses can go fuck themselves, I’m not going.”
Jo snickered, gently playing with the very bottom of Jess’ t-shirt, stroking her stomach quietly. “I want to get out of here, Jess. I want to get somewhere private and quiet and safer. It’s awfully hard to ward a hospital room.”
“It really is,” she sighed, kissing the tip of the other’s nose.
She laughed, wriggling slightly as she squirmed against her, smiling up at the taller woman, softly. “Nurses approaching, ten o’clock.”
“Which direction is ten o’clock?” she hissed, trying to see as subtly as she could.
“Pretend you’re the clock hand at the twelve o’clock position, and picture the directions from that sense,” Jo giggled. “So behind you, babe.”
She squirmed in the bed, looking behind her, then yelped when she realized the nurse was standing right behind her, clipboard in hand, and almost jumped. “Holy crap! They should put bells on you nurses, or something, so we know you’re coming!”
The young nurse smirked slightly. “I’ll make the suggestion. I do believe you’re in the wrong ward, young lady.”
Jess groaned, glancing at Jo, pouting slightly. “But I like this one better.”
He shook his head, amused. “I am aware of the fact that you’d much rather be curled up with your girlfriend, but she has several major stomach traumas to recover from, so she shouldn’t really be moving around on the bed trying to make sure that you’re both comfortable.”
“I’m not in pain,” Jo said quickly.
“I know you’re not, but that’s because this,” he tapped the bag hanging from her iv stand, “Is pumped full of pain killers. So you are going to be flying high for quite some time. Which is why it’s even more important that you two don’t spend the night snuggling, because you might get yourself torn open without even realizing it. You, young lady,” he pointed at Jo, “Have to lie still on your back. And you,” he pointed to Jess, “Have to go back to your own bed.”
She pouted. “….do I really?”
“Mmhmm. Out.” He lowered the metal cage side, and waited until Jess reluctantly slid out of the bed. “If you wanna visit your girlfriend, you have to sit on a chair like everyone else, okay?”
Jess sighed, running her hand through her hair again. “Okay.”
“On the other hand, I’m still glad to see you out of bed and about.” He patted her shoulder. “You weren’t really moving around much after you were poisoned.”
“…poisoned.” Jess blinked at him.
“Whatever got you had venom in its claws,” he nodded, considering them both, smiling. “You’ve been slashed up pretty good by something with a hell of a lot of poison in its system. So we’ve got a good pile of anti-venoms running through your system, trying to figure out if we can get you out of your coma.”
Jess blinked at him, then blinked down at Jo. “I’m not in a coma.”
“Yes, sweetheart, you are. But at least your mind is working!” he beamed at her, patting her shoulder. “That’s a start.”
She blinked at him, then back at Jo. “…I’m confused.”
Jo was struggling to sit up, brows furrowed as she set her hands firmly on the mattress to keep herself upright. “Jess isn’t in a coma. She can’t be, she’s right here in front of me, I can friggin’ touch her!”
The nurse actually ruffled Jo’s hair, which made Jo back up sharply, startled and alarmed from the touch, shocked. “You say that, young lady, but remember who, exactly, got most ripped up by the giant underwater panther. Therefore, you have even more poison in you than our little Jess does, so don’t be silly. Of course you can see her.”
Jess gaped at the young man, alarmed. “What is going on?!”
“You call yourself hunters, and neither of you know anything about hunting. Look. You fought a native creature. You even killed it, and it infected you with its venom. Men used to dream of having this happen, would seek out the Mishibizhiw to kill it, for the sole purpose of being infected with the venom and fall into one of these comas. It was a sign of strength and power to be able to defy the Mishibizhiw and come out on the other side of the coma, strong and wiser for the experience.”
“And you are…?” she looked around, alarmed. Now that she thought about it, the ward did seem to be completely open, with just the three of them there.
“Have you never heard of a spirit guide?” he drawled. “I’m here to make sure you don’t stay trapped in here forever.”
“That could happen?!” Jo squeaked.
“That could happen,” he nodded.
“So what’s the deal? We kill you and we wake up?” Jess scooped up a random fork off a tray, pointing it at him, firmly.
“I’m a spirit guide, Jess, you can’t kill me.” He sighed softly, shaking his head. “You have to find the key to waking up yourself. You must end the lies, and look beyond the shell to the creature within.”
Jo frowned, pondering that. “Well, there could be any kind of false walls, maybe a maze…”
“Or we could kill the liar,” Jess stepped forward, and drove her fork into the nurse’s chest.
“Jess!” the other woman gasped.
The nurse threw back his head, and for a moment, was not a young man, but a massive black cat, dripping on the floor as though he had just climbed out of the lake, then he seemed to ‘evaporate’, and disappeared in a flare of black light.
Abruptly, they were standing back in the same ward, but there was noise and movement, nurses walking around, other patients talking and chattering and complaining and breathing. Everything was brighter, louder, smelled sharper. Even the air tasted like something now, instead of like the perfectly clean sterilized taste of flower petals. It was as starkly different from the ward they had been in just moments before.
Jo blinked. “…holy shit.”
Jess slowly lowered the fork, flushed. “Well then. Knew that guy was lying. He just had liar written all over his face.”
“Apparently he also had a footnote that said ‘stab me, I’m secretly a giant underwater cat thing’ written there too!” Jo yelped, then lowered her voice when a few people turned to look at her. “You know what I mean.”
Jess snorted. “Mishybizzy needs to catch up on modern times. Hunters these days are smarter than the pussies of the olden days.”
Part Eleven