Page 20 of Haunting Goats

Cruella begs Lyr not to leave, but Lyric has checked out at this point. I can see it in her eyes—completely void of anything.

“Please, Lyr! I made a mistake. You can’t just leave.” Dee pleads, distressed.

Lyr is checking under the bed to make sure she leaves nothing of importance behind. When she pops up from the floor, she guffaws with laughter.

“I could give two shits about what your intentions were, Dee. It doesn’t matter why you did what you did; what matters is how it affected me.”

She leaves her room without another word and heads for the door with her crossbody bag with its Gothic academia print. It suits her, and it makes me smile.

“What are you smiling about, Attic Ass?”

Cruella just can’t help herself. I back her into the wall.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” She seethes through gritted teeth.

God, I wish she would just quit while she’s ahead.

“This is the last time I want to see you. Stay away from my girl.”

She looks down at the floor and then hawks a loogie on the boot that’s about to be lodged up her ass if she doesn’t cease and desist. Unamused, I reach down and swipe the glob off my boot, cupping it in my hand. Cruella glares at me, and I arch a brow and shrug my shoulders.

“She’s not your girl,” she sneers, “she’s mine.”

Reaching for her face, I shove my fingers in Dee’s mouth, scraping the loogie off against her tongue and teeth. She retches and I hold my palm against her mouth.

“You don’t own her, Cruella. Don’t come near her again.”

After slamming the door behind me, Lyr says nothing. She doesn’t even look back. I assist her down the steps and back into the world.

We’ve been walking for hours. Lyr won’t speak, and I’m running out of ideas.

Finally, I say, “I don’t have a home.”

Lyr stops in her tracks and looks up at me with deep lines in her forehead. She scowls, and it looks painful.

“There’s nowhere for us to go. I never sleep, so I just kind of go where I want, when I want.”

“Just great!” she bellows and flails her arms in the air.

I understand her frustration more than I’d like, but I appreciate and acknowledge it, regardless. I pull her into me and hug her, cradling the back of her head while I stroke and pat her back. She melts into me, and our souls buzz a sweet, electric melody.

Why do I feel so attached to her?

“Where did you stay when you were alive?” I ask apprehensively.

She mumbles into my chest, “A motel… with my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend?

Instantaneously, I feel jealous, and my mind races with all the things that may or may not be true about this girl and her life before this—before me.

Then it occurs to me.

“Wait,” I say.

Lyr presses her index finger to my lips and hushes me.

“Yes,” she continues, “I already know what you’re going to ask. I couldn’t remember at first, but now when I look back on the last thing that happened to me before I ran into Dee, it all makes sense.”