Love, Lies & Red Eyes | ONC 2023 (Complete)

Chapter Nine | Arturo

Lidia's pleading eyes flash before my own whenever I close my eyes, even for a second. Every time I blink, she invades, as though she's watching over my journey to the edge of the forest, under the cover of darkness.

Her anxious face and her timid fingers and her terrified kiss as she bid me goodbye haunt my every breath. But I have to end this. I need to figure out how to keep everyone safe. How to escape Lucho and his reign of terror.

How to live long enough to tell Lidia everything there is to know about cadejos.

I'm not sure I'm capable of any of that last one, but I'm going to try. I have to. For her.

I breathe heavily, capturing the fresh ocean scent on my nostrils and racing into the forest where I shift into my true form.

Lidia is the only thing I think of, racing toward the one place in the world I thought I'd never return.

Home.

I force the thought out of my mind, remembering the olebra striking Lidia in a vicious attack, the whole time, her eyes terrified and pleading with me. Like she wanted me to do something.

Her clinging to me, her fervent kiss, and the sorrowful pity in her eyes as I left her, plus the fact that she left me go at all, leads me to believe she knows this is the only way through this. My risking everything is the only way.

She's right. And there's something comforting in her knowledge. Like I'm not making things up. I'm not just a crazed creature thirsty for a taste of home. It really is the only way.

But it's also far more dangerous than Lidia knows.

I have to focus now, keeping an ear out for any rogue olebras or cadejos.

It isn't long before I catch sight of a big, black mass of fur bounding toward me. We're close enough to the portal to our world that there's only one real possibility.

I steady myself, planting my paws into the ground, pressing my back into a tree, and waiting.

Breathing.

Counting the heartbeats and watching the advance of the massive creature.

Preparing for a fight I know is coming.

I should never have come back.

The creature approaches, mass of fur forming into the shape of a cadejo moving at full speed.

Run.

I recognize the voice but can't quite place it.

Run, it says again.

And then, the mass of fur blazes right past me toward the river. Just as quickly as it came, it is gone.

I said RUN.

It hits me like a bullet to my chest. So sharp and painful I have to look down to ensure I haven't been pierced.

Mother?

Silence, except the padding of her feet as she races away.

If my mother is running, it's worse than I thought.

I hesitate.

My breaths continue, elevated heart beating a symphony in my chest.

Lidia's face flashes through my mind again, holding her little hands out to me, waiting for sustenance only I can provide. I close my eyes to clear her from them, but it doesn't happen. She's still there, clearer than she was before.

Come back to me, she whispers. Promise you'll come back.

I need to see where this goes.