5. Creepy Mabel

Chapter 5

One heartbeat. Two.

No more hurting people for you.

I flicker fast, disappearing from the sticky ground and reappearing in front of the stupid man with his stupid hat who gave us something that makes the world spin—and not in a fun way. My leg burns and screams, bright blood turning thick and black. It glops down my thigh and calf to pool in my sandal, but I'll deal with that in a minute.

My fist hits his chest, crunching past the ribs and squishing past the muscle, and he gapes like a fish when his red heart comes back with me.

A gasp sounds to my left, and I flicker away before the cracking noises can follow. Bullets hit the brick wall, but the person who fired them can't catch me. I dart to one side, then to the other, flickering in and out of view as I move.

He's just another stupid man in a hat, this time with curly red hair and freckles on his panicked face, but he's going to be dead all the same.

Except the drug is still in me. And my leg still has a bullet hole ruining everything.

I stumble just before I reach him, my bloody sandal slipping on the dirty concrete. The world wobbles and twists, but I still see him aim the gun at my chest, a relieved grin spreading across his face.

"Gotcha, you?—"

A dark blur slams into him and propels him into the wall. The shot goes wide, and his scream is cut off sharply by crunchy chewing sounds.

I want to grin, but everything is spinning too much.

Two more shapes appear ahead, blurry and dark against the glow of the streetlamps beyond the alley. One is slender and tall, while the other is funny-shaped. Bendy and wobbly.

But everything is swirling so much that maybe the wobbles are just me.

"Is she okay?" The words are a growl swimming through the soup of my mind, but they come from where the crunching sounds had been. The dark blur can speak, I guess.

That's nice.

"Crunchy-crunchy better not touch me," I threaten, but I giggle too because I'm not sure it matters what I tell him. It's not like I can fight back. I can't even feel my feet, and my hands are thick like clay.

But then, I'm not too worried. The longer they stand there, the more I'm convinced these shadowy things are safe. More than safe, actually. Fun.

I giggle again, the world blurring and getting darker around me. I want to get rid of the blur so the shadowy figures and I can be friends. Then we all can have fun.

The bendy one crouches down. Something takes my arms, pulling me upright, but it's squishy in a funny way that doesn't feel like hands. "She's bleeding."

I make a whoopsie noise because I forgot that part. "Sticky, sticky… blood so…"

My mouth stops working and my head lolls because holding it up becomes too hard, and then friendly darkness takes the struggle away.