The Boy with Words for Skin

Chapter 31: Explanations

Face's words settled over my mind like a spider web. I tried to pick them off me, but they clung in terrible ways.

"You actually gave me the idea, Words. You know, what your skin says about being treated like a monster so you might as well act like one? Genius."

"So, the monster isn't real?" Light asked.

Face groaned. He shook his head and looked at his brother. "Why are we even wasting our time? Let's just get this over with. Hold Keys, Tang."

Tang hesitated, but he stabbed the shovel into the ground and then moved behind Keys and grabbed his arms to hold him in place. Face held up Keys' tied hands and put the knife against the knuckle of a finger.

"Wait!" I needed to stall them. I needed time to think of a way out of there. "If the monster isn't real then how did you make those sounds? The growls and roars? The footsteps! We always hear your voice inside of our heads, but the noises the monster made weren't in our heads."

Face turned to look down at us. "I guess you're not as dumb as everyone else, Words. Don't worry. That's not a compliment." He lowered the knife. "I just had to practice. I guess you could say it's kind of like when a ventriloquist throws his voice. I can even make it so only certain people hear me."

"That's why everyone didn't hear the footsteps at first," I said.

"It's a good thing we're killing you now!" Face waved his knife at me. "You catch on too fast."

I needed to get out of that grave. Sure, the others could've pushed me up and out but they'd see me coming. There was no way I could get out fast enough to take them by surprise with them standing there. I needed more time to think. "But why just a few of us at first?" I said.

Face laughed. "Mair was the obvious choice because he's such a wuss and I knew it'd really scare him. Plus, I knew The Marionette would make fun of him for being scared. Kit? I expected her to do something about it and I was curious to see what she'd do. It was surprising when she didn't do anything—disappointing, really. But Boy? With him, I was just trying to get to you."

I pushed down the rage. I needed to keep it under control until the right moment.

I eyed the shovel. If I could only reach that, maybe I could knock them down. Maybe that'd give me enough time to get out of the grave and attack.

"So, the plan was to get us down here to kill us all along?" I asked.

"No. I just wanted to scare you guys, at first," Face said.

It'd have to be propped up if I was going to grab the shovel. Standing on someone's back would probably be good enough, but how would I tell them I needed to do that? "So, what changed your plans?"

"Porcelain. She told us about the Halloween party, how Kit had invited us to it. I told Porcelain we weren't going, but she sneaked up anyway. I was pissed." He waved the knife as he talked. "I roared for her to come back down, she did, but then you—big hero man—came down, too."

He threw the knife into the air. It spun upward and then down. He caught it by the handle and waved it some more. "Only Kit was supposed to hear the growl from a few weeks ago, and the roars on Halloween were meant only for Porcelain. So, whoops! Everyone heard those. Guess I'm not as good at the whole voice throwing thing as I thought. It was kind of embarrassing, actually. But then there was that stuff on your skin about becoming a monster, and I thought, 'Wow. That's really good advice. They treat us like a monster, so why not be their monster?' "

"We never treated you like monsters!" Z said.

"Yeah. We treated you like you were jerks," D-rip said.