Human Spines

Hating Lochlan-II

Dumaine

        I grab my accordion and place my hat over my head before following Emmeline toward the street. She finished stitching and declared it time to trek to the train station. I watch her walk, her jeans dragging on the floor, her hair splayed over her back. But she stops to roll up the pant legs and her sleeves before twisting together all of her hair and braiding it off to the side. That's odd. She hasn't done something like that before. She's also moving slower than usual, falling several steps behind Lochlan.

        "Emmeline, is there a time limit to... whatever we're doing?" I ask, coming up beside her. When I move my eyebrows, the stitches hurt. I'll figure out how to get rid of them by the end of the day.

        "She... uhhh... yes," she stammers, "but I don't need to tell you what it is. You, on the other hand, still need to tell me who you are."

        This isn't Emmeline anymore. She doesn't fumble for answers, and she wouldn't deny me information. I sigh and walk up next to Lochlan. I've a quickly developed a hatred for him, but my annoyance with the Demon in Emmeline is worse. We walk along the side of the road for at least ten minutes before I decide Emmeline would like Lochlan to know she's possessed. Whoever this dude is.

        "You know that's not Emmeline behind us, right?" I whisper.

        He immediately halts, spins in a full circle, and continues walking without any hesitation. "I need you to stay silent until she leaves. Please," he whispers back.

        "You could see the same wounds Emmeline could. How come you couldn't see the Demon before it possessed her?" I ask, ignoring his request for silence. I'm not going to follow instructions from a man who shows up out of nowhere. Why couldn't he help Emmeline earlier? When she first had trouble with the Demons?

        "It's the one Demon I can't see. Now please, be quiet," he speaks so softly I can barely hear him.

        "Amazing how the one you can't see is the one that chooses now to possess her. And what about the other one? Orpaforebus or whatever. Why didn't you see that one coming? Or did you?"

        "I know you just met me and don't know why you should trust me, but I can't answer your questions right now. I will later when it's safer, just please stop talking until she's gone." He looks at me and I see the urgency gripping his face. There are almost tears in his eyes.

        I silently walk beside him for an hour, glancing back at not-Emmeline every five minutes to make sure she's still there. The Demon inside her moves silently. I let myself think about anything but the pale woman. What my dad probably thinks I'm doing, why I hate Lochlan, how much unfinished homework I'll have if I find myself back at school. How to tell Emmeline who I am. It's not like I'm secretly a prince, but I'm not a normal kid you'd find on the street. Emmeline probably doesn't even know I'm homeless. How do I explain myself to her without telling her my name?

        "Are we pretending to be sloths or was the Demon possessing me incredibly slow?" Emmeline's cheerful head pops up in between us. She's smiling, one hand on my shoulder and the other on Lochlan's. "Hey! Your forehead is stitched up! It must have been a nice Demon, I love it when they're nice. Oh, but your faces say that it was not a nice one, but not a horrible one either. It snuck up on me like the one at the ice cream place. It didn't happen to tell you its name, did it? This is the way to the station, right? Have you ever been to New York? I don't think I ever have. Can we walk faster?" Her mouth spews.

        "It was Illyvimsius and you're correct, we're on our way to the station. I actually have been to New York—"

        "I haven't." I cut Lochlan off.

        "—and yes, we can walk faster," he finishes.

        "Then let's go!" She smiles and takes off. Her hair whips out of its braid, streaming behind her as she sprints at an impossible speed. Lochlan and I stop for a moment and simply stare. She could beat Olympic medalists.

        I prepare myself to catch up with her but Lochlan grabs my arm. Heat shoots from my limb inward, torrid anger flinging itself to the front of my mind. All I want to do is turn around and rip Lochlan's spine out. But I don't because grabbing my arm shouldn't make me this upset. It isn't natural.

        "She doesn't expect us to run with her. She'll stop and wait," He explains. How does he know?

        "What if a Demon comes?" I counter.

        "She'll use her speed to run away from it and back to us."

        I want to reach inside his mouth with a scalpel and slice his tongue into fourths. Then jab a pen into the roof of it. Then rip his spine out. Not sure why, though.

        I walk two steps ahead of him until we reach Emmeline, standing completely still, staring across the road at a building, no one else in sight.

        "You okay?" I ask, coming up beside her.

        "It's not Christmas time is it? It's still March right?" she asks.

        "Yeah, it's the..."

        "Twenty-eighth," Lochlan finishes.

        She raises her hand to point at the top of the building. "Then why is Goistaculk on top of the McDonalds?"

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