Upside Down

(18) Burning Up, For You Baby

Chapter 18

Nice : Good :: Mean : Bad

"Kriss?"

She tossed and turned in bed and I could see her face twisted in agony. She was having nightmares, but of what? "I'm sorry!" She sobbed again. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Kriss!" I shouted and this time she bolted up, both our heads hitting the other. "Ouch, Kriss are you okay?"

She rubbed her head with one hand and wiped her tears off with the other. Her eyes were dull and far as she looked around the room but when her silver eyes met mine, recognition filled them and she launched herself at me. "Oof," all the air left me as she squeezed my neck like she was never going to let go. "Kriss," I wheezed. "What happened? Why are you screaming?"

She sobbed quietly into my neck, "I had a nightmare."

That much I knew. "Do you want to talk about what it was about?" She shook her head quietly in the crook of my neck. "Well, its okay, it's over. No one is going to hurt you, Kriss." I crooned into her ear. Her hands went over my neck and face as if to prove to her I was really there. "Promise,"

She sniffled a little more, then looked up at me with big grey eyes making me just melt. I was so whipped and the girl wasn't even my girlfriend. Not that I would want her to be! I mean, she's a cat, a cool crazy cat, and way too young for me. She's like fourteen?

Yet, all I could feel where her legs wrapped around me and her hot breath bathing my jaw, when she gave a me a small (but sad) smile, I could only smile back knowing that I couldn't do anything to take those painful memories away. She disentangled one arm from my neck to wipe away her tears then gave me a big hug. I looked up to the ceiling to tell God thank you and when I did I saw the calendar on my wall.

Hey, today there was a carnival in town. Like a winter festival or something. They start up the old amusement park four times a year for each season and each time it kicks ass and it had a bunch of small restaurant type things like Viva Las Vegas where they had a 'everything buffet' and damn did that sound good.

"Hey, Kriss," I nudged her shoulder but she was already sleep again so I laid her back down on the bed. We could do the amusement park later tonight.

"I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world! My boobs are pla-"

I groaned. Evie must have gotten a hold of my phone again because she always changed it to that ringtone to embarrass me. I picked it up with a grumbled, "Hello?"

"Emerson, you might want to come down here." I heard my father's voice on the other side. "It's urgent. Meet me at the west clearing and hurry."

"I'll be right there." I told him then hung up the phone. I set Kriss down on my bed and re-covered her in my sheets before I ran down stairs. This must be really important for my dad to say it was urgent.

[West Clearing]

"Dad?" I called out in the crowd of werewolves, some shifted, some not.

"Over here, son," I saw him wave me over to what looks like a big pile of fluff. Only when I got there did I see the truth. It was two large lions, and three domestic looking cats. All of them killed, almost shredded with claw marks the size of my forearm. All the red blood stained the used-to-be white snow. Their eyes were dead and it was creepy watching them stare at nothing.

"They were spies." My father told me, coming up behind me. "The monster got them before we even knew they were here."

"What do you think we should tell the cats?" I asked my father.

"What would you suggest?" He countered.

I thought for a while, starring at the dead eyes of the cats. "They were spies and trespassing, so we say we killed them. Bringing the monster up would not do any good, just a lot of panic."