Page 24 of The Monsters We Are
Hattie’s eyes briefly darted from her book to the pizza and then back again. “What’s it taste like?”
“You’d never tried it either? Oh, you haven’t lived.” Anabel bit off another piece. “I really need more of this in my life. Seriously, Hattie, try some.”
“Maybe later, the characters are having a huge argument right now,” said Hattie. Like she’d miss the whole thing and the story would go on without her if she looked away from it.
Shaking her head with a smile, Wynter turned to Delilah. “You still not hungry?”
After taking a sip of the—literally—smoking cocktail she’d bought, Delilah shook her head. “I’m good for now,” she said, half-walking, half-dancing to the live music. Residents were singing on the manmade stage not far from the bonfire, and there seemed to be a battle of the bands going on. “Hey, we’ve gotta give that straw maze near the forest a try.”
Anabel pulled her arms close to her body. “I don’t know if I could handle having people leap out at me.” She glanced around her, edgier than usual. To be fair, some residents were dressed up in costumes and hiding behind corners to jump-scare passersby, so . . .
“We’ve got to at least try the horse-drawn hay rides,” said Delilah. “And stop vetoing everything just because you want to go home.”
Anabel frowned. “I’m not vetoingeverything.”
The Latina winged up a brow. “Oh, really? So you didn’t say no to checking out the carnival booths, the beer tent, the funhouse, the—”
“Okay, okay, so I’m eager to get home,” admitted Anabel. “But can you really blame me when death stalks us every minute?”
Delilah rolled her eyes and took another sip of her drink. “There’s really no helping ‘chemically unbalanced,’ is there?”
“You’d know all about unbalanced,” snarked Anabel. “That shit runs in your family, and it all started with your precious Annis.”
“Shewasprecious,” said Delilah with a smile, apparently deciding to play clueless.
“Twisted, Del,” Anabel corrected. “She was twisted. Evil. A true plague on this planet.”
“God, you’re such a hater.”
“What normal person wouldn’t hate a child killer?”
“Anallegedchild killer.”
Anabel let out a derisive snort. “You know very well that she murdered kids, just like you know very well thatshe also ate them.”
“We all do things we regret.”
“But does she regret it?” Anabel perched a hand on her hip. “Be honest. You chat with her when you meditate—which, on a side note,totallydisturbs me. Is she sorry for what she did to those children?”
Delilah opened and closed her mouth a few times. “In a manner of speaking.”
“So that’s a no?” Anabel smirked. “See, evil.”
“As were a lot of your relatives from your past lives, so maybe you wanna crank back the whole ‘let’s judge people’s family’ thing. And weren’t you Bloody Mary in a past life? Or is that belief just yet more proof that you’re chemically unbalanced.”
“Iam as normal as they come.” Anabel patted Xavier’s chest. “Tell her, Xavier.”
He chucked the last piece of pizza into his mouth. “Tell her what?”
“A barefaced lie,” sassed Delilah.
His brows inched up. “I’m good at that.”
“You know,” Wynter cut in, wiping her hands on a napkin now that she’d finished her pretzel, “I once read that the magician Houdini died on Halloween. How freaky is that?”
“My uncle died on Halloween,” said Xavier.
Delilah’s face softened. “Aw, did he really?”