CHAPTER 190

At some point, she must have noticed, because her assaults were now less ambitious, and she finally tossed him in the sand.

"It's that damned succubus," she told him. "I was aware she was training you, but no mortal should have a grasp on this place like you do."

"Mmph," he replied. It wasn't a very kind thing to say to a queen, but he figured it was lost in translation anyway. He stood on wobbling legs and yanked at the metal on his face. It didn't come off, so he held up his right hand as if he was wearing a sock puppet and mimed talking with it.

"You fucked up bringing me here," he told her, his voice coming from his hand. "If I give up, I die. You can slow time, trap me here, but I'm aware that this isn't my body. My real body is with Cecilia, and even if you trap me here forever, you'll be trapped, too. So you can slap me around, set me on fire, whatever, but it's far better than the alternative. Your show of power is meaningless, Your Highness, because this isn't air we're breathing, there is no fucking spoon, and you have no real power here."

The queen's face turned a dark green and she took several deep breaths, her eyes radiating with power.

"You will regret this," she said, and the air on the beach went still.

"Wakka wakka, bitch," he said with his hand, then gave her the finger.

When she teleported this time, she picked him up by his skull and pressed her fingers into his eyes. The assault on his mind was immediate, and he felt her tear through his memories as if desperately seeking a page from out of a book. His memories appeared and disappeared in a flash, and she aggregated many memories of his mother, literally ripping them from his head and tossing them onto the beach where they expanded and formed.

They were all yelling now, and the screams felt like knives against his flesh. He fought to tune them out, but now they were descending on him with raised hands and shrill cries. The queen dropped him onto the ground and he tried to fight back against the copies of his mother that attacked him, but it was no use. They were taking turns screaming in his face, and he could see their words appearing in the air before slamming into him and sinking into his skin.

It felt like he was on fire, and suddenly he was stuck in that burning car with his mother once more, the one that had killed her and left him with a lifetime of scars, literal and emotional. She screamed in agony as he tried to fight his way free of his seatbelt, for he was hanging upside down as dripping gas from the car ignited. The other memories of her kept pushing him back in as he tried to escape, their fingernails scoring his skin. Panicking, he sank his hands into the roof of the upside-down car, willed it to bend like clay, and then tried to dig his way to freedom. The hands grabbed his feet and pulled him back inside the car to allow the flames to consume him.

A strong hand grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out, and it was the queen. She snarled and threw him into the sand nearby, and he tried to squirm away, but his mother found him again.

"Did you think I wouldn't use her against you?" the queen asked as she stomped toward him. He tried to scramble away, but his mothers were grabbing at his clothes and pulling him in every direction, their words now written on his skin.

Worthless. Disgusting. Nasty.

When he read the words, they swirled around, feeling very much like ants. In his fight to be free, he shoved his hands deep into the sand and felt something brush against his fingers.

When the queen grabbed onto him, he held onto the object out of reflex. As she dragged him free, he pulled a door wrapped in thick vines from beneath the sand. It had an ornate doorknob with a very big keyhole beneath it.

"Oh? What have we here?" The queen pushed the door away and it lifted up as if suspended by wires, then hovered above the sand. She looked at Mike, then looked at the door. Even with his mothers screeching at him from every direction, he had no trouble hearing the queen's voice.

"Mmph," he replied.

"I sense...hmm." She placed a hand against the door, then looked at him. "This was generated by your mind, wasn't it? It's an anxiety. You know what's behind this door, don't you?"

He shook his head vehemently, very much aware that she knew he was lying.

"Anxieties are a fickle thing. They tend to trap you in your own personal hell until you wake up." The dark green of her skin was fading, and she now wore a huge grin. She grabbed the door with her hand and started turning the knob. "I can't wait to see—"

She was cut off by the surge of water that blasted the door open and sent Mike, his mothers, and the queen tumbling across the beach. Now free of the queen, he kicked his feet and swam sideways along with the flowing current of bathroom water that had created a raging river that ran out into the ocean. Once free of the river, he sprinted toward the house, knowing it was his best chance at freedom.

There was a cry of rage from the beach when Mike reached the front yard, and he was almost to the door when he was tackled from behind. The two of them crashed against the shattered remnants of the porch, but Mike was able to grab a plank and smack it against the queen's temple. She snarled and took the wood away from him, and he sent his mind and heart into the home, hoping he was close enough to summon Naia. The part of her soul that was bound to him had all of her power here, and he knew she would be able to help.