The Monster in the Manor: Chapter 28

Rupert is taken to the hospital, his survival in question.

Last time...

“Let her go!” Rupert hollers as the automatic doors of the credit union open for him. The other people in the bank shout and scream as he steps inside, all seven-plus feet of him.

“Rupert!” I shout. “He has a gun!”

But it’s too late. Andy steps out from behind me, lifts the barrel, and shoots.

---

Rupert

Peony’s all right. That’s the only thought in my head as the bullet rips into my side, sending blistering hot pain radiating outward. She’s unharmed, but Andy…

He will die for what he’s done.

That despicable blond man is holding on to her by the arm, and I’m ready to tear off his hands just for touching her. He looks terrified, the gun shaking in his hand. Clearly he wasn’t too scared to shoot.

“Rupert!” Peony calls out, trying to take a step toward me, but Andy yanks her back. I let out a bellow of fury as the monster roars to the surface, enraged by the sight.

We’re going to kill him. Rip out his throat, slash him open like butter, tear his guts into ribbons. One bullet wound isn’t going to stop us. I have to get Peony away from him safely, no matter the cost.

Without a second thought, I lunge at Andy, claws outstretched, fangs bared. Peony screams as he raises the gun a second time, and BANG!

Another bullet tears through my arm, splattering blood. The sheer force of it sends me back a few steps. But some pain doesn’t matter to the monster, not when it comes to Peony.

Despite the blood now pouring out of me, my thighs bunch up as I spring a second time at my attacker. I slam into him, and Peony shrieks as she slips out of his grip. Andy goes down, and it’s child’s play to rip the gun out of his hand with my much bigger claws. He screams as his fingers all break, and I chuck the gun away across the floor. 

My two wounds are burning like lava, but I’m driven by pure instinct and fury. There is no more hiding the monster inside me. We are one, our jaws opening wide, our claws digging into Andy’s flesh and spilling his much redder blood on the floor.

“Rupert!” Peony screams again. I look up to make sure she’s all right. Her mouth is open, her face covered in spots of my bright blue blood. Somehow it’s not as gory, being blue. It makes it easier not to think that I might be dying.

“It’s an emergency,” Kellen is saying into his mobile. “A gun was fired. My friend is injured.”

Andy screeches and thrashes, and I shove him down to the ground harder. I dig my claws into his neck, drawing more blood. My jaws open to wrap around it, to tear out his larynx and hurl it at Peony’s feet as an offering.

“Don’t kill him,” I hear her begging, but she sounds far away, even though she’s right beside me. I’m drooling, growling, ready to obliterate my prey, to get revenge for everything he’s done to her. “Rupert, please. I can’t have you go to jail. I need you.”

She needs me?

The monster gnashes its teeth, ready to end Andy’s pathetic screaming. It would be so easy to silence him.

“Please,” Peony whimpers, falling to her knees beside us where my teeth hover inches away from Andy’s pulsing throat. “Please don’t leave me.”

I draw back even as I ache for the taste of Andy’s pathetic blood. But now my arms are giving out, and then I find Kellen kneeling on one side of me and Ignacio on the other, keeping the flailing Andy pinned down. His pulse thrums in his neck, perfect for my teeth to sink into.

A bank teller is on his way, too, and a crowd has gathered. Almost everyone else around us has their mobiles raised, recording it all. If I were caught on camera murdering Andy—I would never see freedom, or Peony, again.

I recoil, my jaws flexing as I fight for control. But it doesn’t matter, not anymore. The world is fading, the sound drowning out and the lights going dim. I reach for my little flower as I finally collapse to the floor beside Andy, and she wraps her hand around mine.

“I’m with you, Rupert,” Peony says in a faint whisper. At least she’s safe. That’s what matters as the pool of blue blood around me grows bigger, the world drifting away.

And then, it all goes black.

---

Beeping.

Frantic voices. More beeping. Horrible pain lances through me, followed by a strange, uneasy lightness. The agony slows, and I feel everything else slowing, too.

“Please, Rupert,” I hear Peony begging. “Please, stay with me. Please.”

I would never leave her, not if I had a choice. I feel her small hand squeeze mine, and then suddenly she’s gone, and I’m surrounded by unfamiliar faces in masks.

“It’s not working,” a woman’s voice says.

“Try more,” someone else answers. “He’s huge.”

“I can’t find his veins.”

“What the hell is this thing?”

The pain settles down even more, and then everything goes dark again.

---

Peony

Rupert. My Rupert.

This can’t be it. This can’t be the end for him, not when I’ve only just found him.

Is this my punishment for even considering leaving? I hunch forward in my seat in the waiting room, tears bursting free from my eyes again. Kellen puts an arm around me, pulling me in against his side.

But it feels like nothing. There is no comfort in the world that can soothe me. Will I ever feel anything but sadness again if Rupert doesn’t make it through this?

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances,” I say to Ignacio with a sniffle. “I like your flowers, though.”

He holds up the bright arrangement that’s clearly been through hell. “Brought them for you, actually. To thank you for having me over for dinner.”

I laugh through my tears, and he passes the half-bare flowers over to me. “And what a dinner it turned out to be.”

My gaze drifts back to the door to the emergency room, where I keep trying to manifest a doctor who will tell me Rupert’s stable, that he’s going to survive. I’m close to demanding they let me see him because I need to tell him how much I love him before I lose him.

I can’t think like that. I will see him again. 

He will make it back to me, I know it.

---

The cops have already questioned me at length about Andy’s kidnapping after they took him away in a car. I’m fully exhausted, as are Kellen and Ignacio. 

At last, the doctor emerges. I leap to my feet and rush toward her. She holds up her hands, a tight smile on her face.

“He made it through surgery,” she tells me, and I’m so overjoyed I could simply weep again. “And he’s stable now, though it was a challenge to figure out his… anatomy.” She sighs. “But it will be a long road to recovery.”

I don’t care how long it takes him to be better, as long as he’s still here with me. I collapse into Kellen’s arms, and he has tears in his eyes, too.

The doctor doesn’t leave, though. “What is he?” she asks me. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

“He’s Rupert Edgewood.” I sniffle. “The love of my life.”

Her brows rise to her hairline. “Oh. Interesting. Well, I’ll warn you that the police are very fascinated with him, for better or for worse.”

I raise my fists subconsciously. “Nobody gets near him.”

She smiles at me. “I’m glad he has you on his side.”

---

Rupert

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” I hear Peony say in an agitated tone. I just want to ease her frustration, but I can’t seem to move. “Andy had me hostage. He shot at Rupert. Anyone else in that bank will say the same thing.”

“Most of them can’t talk about anything except the monster,” a man’s voice responds.

“Look at the gunshot wounds!” Her voice rises. “Andy shot him, plain and simple, for trying to protect me.”

“You say this man, Andy, is your ex-boyfriend? But the monster is your, erm… current boyfriend?”

“Yes!” The impatience is rolling off her.

Everything hurts when I open my eyes again, trying to intervene in whatever is upsetting my lovely flower. The world is blurry, and I squint trying to find her face.

“Rupert?!” She bends over me, and slowly, she comes into focus. “Oh, Rupert! You’re awake!” She glares over her shoulder at someone. “Can you leave, please? I’ve given you everything I can.”

“We have a lot more questions for him,” the irritating man answers.

“You can ask later, when he’s rested and well again. In the meantime, Andy better be behind bars.”

The man grunts. “We have him in custody.”

A small hand winds around mine. “Good. Keep him there.”

I can just make out a retreating back in a blue uniform when the door closes. Peony smiles down at me, and nearby, Kellen is standing watch.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” Peony says, stroking my cheek with her other hand. I lean into her touch, overwhelmed by relief that she’s unharmed. “I can’t believe you took a bullet for me. Two bullets.”

She glances down, and I follow her eyes to my injuries: my arm is bandaged, and so is my side. Thanks to the painkillers, though, I only sense a begrudging ache. My head feels fuzzy, though, which must be a side-effect of whatever medication they’ve pumped into my veins.

“I would take any and all bullets for you.” I want to kiss her so badly right now, but I can barely move.

“I can’t believe you left the manor.” Peony’s pleased expression falters. “You showed the entire world that you exist, Rupert.”

I cringe at the notion. It’s true, though. I saw the mobiles all recording me at the grocery store and the credit union. Knowledge of me is now out in the world, and based on what I heard when I awoke, the police aren’t going to let that go easily.

“I had to,” I croak out. “There was no other choice. I needed to keep you safe.” My lip curls as I growl. “You should have let me kill him.”

“No.” Peony grips my hand firmly. “I want you to come home with me at the end of this, Rupert. If they put you behind bars, who knows what they’d do to you? But right now, you’re still a free man.”

“Even though I’m a monster?” I cough as I laugh, then groan as pain rips through my side.

Kellen drags over a chair over to sit down near us. “They can’t whisk you away to a science lab in broad daylight when you haven't committed a crime.”

I grumble, hoping that they’re both right. But that horrible man’s blood would have tasted so good after what he did to Peony.

“You’ll have to give a statement soon,” she warns me. “I’ve given mine, but they don’t care what I have to say.”

If I could right now, I would roar with fury. Instead, I grip Peony tighter and lift her hand to kiss her fingers.

“Don’t worry about me. I can deal with a constable or two.”

Peony laughs, and the sound is all the music I need to fade back into sleep.

---

When I awaken once more, I feel less fuzzy than before, but my pain is much more acute. I groan the second I’m able to move my mouth, and I hear Peony say, “I think the meds are wearing off.”

“He goes through them so fast,” someone else says, and then I feel a rush of warmth. Slowly, the pain ebbs, and I’m able to open my eyes. “He’s also healing… very quickly.”

When I blink the fog out of my eyes, there’s a nurse peering down at me.

“Man, what are you?” he asks. “I had to get special permission to give you more pain medicine. Because of your weight and all.”

“Are you calling me fat?” I choke out, and Peony covers her mouth as she chuckles. Kellen seems to be gone this time.

The nurse sighs. “The cops told me to contact them as soon as you came to. Sorry, big guy.” He picks up a clipboard and waves to us before ducking out.

“Don’t worry,” Peony says, puffing her cheeks out and clamping her lips together. “They won’t do shit to you while I’m around.”

I know better than to laugh after the last time, but I smile at her protectiveness. I know I’m lucky to have a woman like Peony, though I should be the one looking after her, not the other way around.

Not a moment later, the door opens and two officers step inside. They both have grim looks on their faces, like they’re already prepared to fight me on whatever I have to say.

“State your name?” the man says, and we go through the rudimentary facts: my full name, my citizenship status, where I was born and when I came to the States.

“I promise,” I tell them, gesturing at myself, “this happened on your soil, not mine.”

Both officers pause at this, and then finally, the woman’s stern face breaks.

“What are you?”

I let out an annoyed huff. “Well, I was a man, once. But you won’t believe any story I tell about how it came to be, so let’s skip that part?”

“We pulled up your old photo,” the other officer says, squinting at me. “You don’t look like what’s in the database.”

“Like I said.” I gesture at myself. “I used to be human. Now, I’m this.”

“Genetic experiment?” the woman asks. “A government program?”

“Just an asshole of an old guy and a sprinkle of fairy dust,” I answer, growing irritated with the interrogation. “What do I need to say to get rid of you?”

The man lets out an affronted hmph, while the woman pulls a notepad from her pocket.

“Why don’t you start with you telling us how you ended up at the credit union getting shot? Twice?”

When I’ve finally finished my story, the grumpy cop looks even grumpier while the woman takes notes. I’ve done nothing more than basic self-defense. Asking to see the video footage at the grocery store was uncouth, but the manager showed it to me voluntarily, and I didn’t hold him at gunpoint.

“Am I free to go now?” I ask, weary. “Or, rather, free to stay in this hospital bed because I got shot—twice?”

“For now,” the aggressive cop says, “but you know this is only the beginning of the questions, right?”

I know. I knew it as soon as I was seen at the grocery store that my time of being anonymous, my time in hiding, had come to an end.

The two cops file out, and then Peony is back again, her hand immediately linking with mine. She scowls after their retreating backs.

“The nerve,” she says when they’re gone. “Treating you like the criminal when Andy was the one with the gun.” Relief passes through her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Rupert. When you showed up at the bank…” Peony sniffles, bending her head forward to rest it on my knuckles. “They say you’re healing really well, though. You’ll only be in the hospital for a few more days.”

I stare at her. “Wait, I have to stay here?”

“You can’t be moved yet,” she says patiently. “It’s just a few more days, or fewer, if you keep healing like you are.”

My head falls back to the pillow. All I want is to be home, to be back in my own bed with Peony at my side. But I guess I’ll tolerate this, for now, because at least I am alive.