Sheep and Wolves Read Online Free Page A

wasn’t real.
    Then I remember.
    I remember everything.
    “Jade,” I say.
    She steps out from behind a tree.
    “I’ll be your slave,” I say.
    “Servant,” she says.
    *
    Sure I’m saddling her chest, holding down her arms as she writhes and kicks, but don’t get the wrong idea. She’s the one in control.
    Green goop spurts from my eyes, nose, mouth in a constant stream onto Jade’s agonizing face. The liquid burrows into her orifices. It dives into her mouth with every sputtering scream.
    I think the word toxin. Then I don’t.
    After a while, she stops struggling. She trembles.
    When I can’t excrete anymore, I release her, lie on the floor, and attempt to cry. I’m too empty though. I’m numb.
    A moment later, I’m standing in a hallway with Jade at my side. As far as I can tell, the corridor stretches on forever in both directions. Suddenly I feel very small.
    “This is much better,” Jade says. “Thank you.” Her eyes shower me with a gentle radiance.
    “You’re welcome,” I say, almost meaning it.
    She takes my hand and we walk. Candles interspersed evenly on the walls light our way. The flames lean toward us as we pass.
    “Her name is Aalia,” Jade says.
    “I don’t want to do this,” I say, and mean it.
    “This isn’t about you, Tomas. She needs us.”
    The door beside me swings open and Jade shoves me inside. I go for the door, but they’re curtains now.
    “Stay away from me,” someone says, behind me. Aalia, I’m guessing.
    I turn around and find her sitting on a bed, hugging her legs.
    The old me wouldn’t have crept toward her with a dark energy buzzing on his skin. The old me believed that the human body was a sanctuary, and a mystical one at that. He hugged his wife and son even when they weren’t around.
    This was me.
    Now he’s gone.
    Aalia screams and runs out the bedroom window into the night.
    I chase after her.
    I chase her through a field of corn, which always points me in the right direction. I chase her through ancient ruins, and the symbols on the stones transform into arrows. She’s betrayed at every turn.
    There is no escape.
    I corner her in a room without any windows or doors.
    “Please don’t hurt me,” she says, crying.
    “I won’t,” I want to say, but I don’t believe that. I’ve done much worse.
    The cloud of dark power around me seizes her as I approach. It grips and strangles and squeezes her mind.
    I tower over her, not myself, but her husband. Her father. Whoever I am, I’m going to destroy her.
    I touch her.
    She screams and punches me in the gut. Hard.
    I fly backwards, crashing and tumbling through wall after wall. Artifacts and corn whirl around me. They nip at my skin. When this world stops spinning, I’m back in the hallway and I have one hell of a stomachache.
    I think of probiotics and chamomile tea. Then I don’t.
    “Sorry,” Jade says. “I didn’t know Aalia had that in her. No, that’s not true. I knew it was there, I just didn’t know she’d let it out yet. Anyway. Good job. She may leave him now in the waking.”
    I lift my shirt. My stomach expands and contorts into the shape of a hairbrush.
    “What is this?” I say.
    Jade kneels and pats my stomach. I yelp with pain. “It’s sort of a difficult thing to put into words,” she says. “At least for me. But what I can tell you is that the gap between you and Aalia, between your feelings and hers, is just an illusion. I create these illusions, so I know what I’m talking about.”
    I try vomiting, but I can’t. “Are you going to take it out?”
    “What’s inside you is real, Tomas. It’s yours to deal with. But I can help you.”
    A door opens.
    *
    I glance at my son through the rearview mirror. He chomps the head off a marshmallow chicken.
    “Marshmallows used to be a medicine, you know,” I say. “This was back when they added an extraction of the marsh mallow plant to the ingredients. Marsh mallow juice is great at healing wounds, boosting the immune system,