Monthly Bonus Content #2— Skeletons in the Closet... (Nat Version) (Patreon)

Hollow’s Peak feels far from hollow tonight. With a full moon beaming an eerie corn-coloured light down on the clearing, it adds a naturally terrifying ambience to the decorations strewn about the trees and glade.

Plastic skeletons hang limply from trees, their rubber hands swinging in the breeze as though ushering guests further along the temporary gravel path that winds through the grass. Faux-spider webs add a hazy gauze to the surrounding area, backlit by the glow of purple and green lanterns that dot the broken fence herding people into an orderly queue.

There’s an appropriate amount of ‘ohhs’ and ‘ahhs’ from the townsfolk, but a shiver creeps down my spine like spiders crawling down each vertebrae. I’ve seen too much and experienced too much in these woods to ever trust them again.

Nat’s arm wraps around me, drawing me closer to her side. Her warmth envelops me like a shield that I relax into.

“This is supposed to be fun. You do realise that?” she teases with a half-smile that verges on a smirk.

I purse my lips as we shuffle forwards in the queue of people waiting to enter the graveyard, where the true horrors await—at least according to the signs that dot the path—and all only for a small fee. “Considering there are at least a hundred people currently actively trying to hunt me down, you can understand why I might be a little nervous.”

She sighs, kissing my temple. My eyes flutter closed at the gentle contact, the familiar press of her lips enough to calm the rattle in my bones.

“I’m sorry. I only suggested we come tonight because I thought it might be fun to do something away from…work,” she says, leaning into me. “Do you want to go home?”

I shake my head, sliding my hand into her free one and squeezing it. “No. It’s nice to spend some time just us.” I notice a few people eye us in the queue, immediately whispering to their friends. “Well, sort of just us.”

Something buzzes next to my hip, and Nat lets out a groan before dragging her phone out of her pocket. She spends at least forty seconds angrily punching her fingers on the screen with muttered soft curses before her brows arch with relief.

They tighten into a knot again almost instantly.

She steps away, her arm falling from around me as she stares with precise intent at her screen.

The empty space beside me is instantly chill.

My shivering returns. “Is everything all right?”

Her gaze sweeps up from the phone, catches my eyes and then instantly snaps away. She shoves her phone in her jeans and swallows hard. “I need to go for a while.”

“What?” I blurt out, my hands falling heavily to my sides. “But this was supposed to be our—”

“I know.” Her voice has a sharpness to it that cuts through my words. “But someone—something has come up. I just…I need to go.”

For such a tall woman, she slips through the queue and is lost to the shadows so easily, all before I can even manage to form a reply.

The sudden attention of a dozen eyes sink against me. Whispers echo from the crowd as they all begin wondering why I’ve been abandoned before even making it to the main event.

I kind of wish one of those whispers held an answer.

If it had been mission-related, I know she would have told me. If it was personal…well, there’s still a lot about Nat buried beneath the surface. She’s like those old tomes she values so much—bursting with so much knowledge and memory, but all tightly bound by a cover of fear she won’t let me open.

Shrugging the thought off, I stand taller, my gaze piercing into the night where she’d disappeared to.

I follow after her.

-

An owl hoots from above, seeming to signal a path through the trees. The harvest light of the moon highlights Nat’s boot prints as I go. Either she didn’t think I’d follow or didn’t mind that I would. It’s difficult to decide which as I follow them over bracken and muddied puddles.

My steps slow as voices whisper through the branches.

When I recognize the deep, rich cadence of Nat’s sultry voice, a rush of uneasy prickles bite across my skin, but I push on into a patch of deeper shadow and peer around a tree.

It’s definitely Nat stood at the cliff’s edge, the breeze caressing her hair as it blows about her face, getting so much longer than when I first met her. Her hands are resting on the arms of someone only a couple of inches from her.

A pool of something vile and acid pours into my chest at the way she’s smiling at them. It’s the same way she smiles at me.

And that’s when my blood freezes.

Because she is smiling at me. Yet, I’m right here.

So how am I there?!

My brain fights with the reality of what I’m witnessing, while my heart battles with the sight of Nat leaning in close to whisper something gently in my echo’s ear. I don’t know whether to look away or march out there and push my apparent doppelganger off the cliff.

My laughter spills out from my echo self across the scene in response to whatever she had whispered before it smooths into a velvety purr I didn’t know I was even capable of.

And my indecision dissolves.

My hands fist at my sides as I take one step out, only to draw to a sudden halt as Nat—who’d been so softly smoothing the doppelganger’s arms—suddenly grips tight and twists the echo’s arm up behind their body.

The two are pressed chest to chest, but there is nothing but anger and revulsion casting dark shadows across Nat’s face now.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know?” she hisses.

The doppelganger’s expression morphs from pain to a tight smile as they shrug. “I thought I’d take my shot.”

Nat leans in slowly with just the merest flash of fangs bared. “Your shot missed.”

Both of them snap glances in my direction as I step out of my hiding place. I didn’t even realise I’d moved.

I clear my throat as I glance over the pair. “I do so hate to interrupt whatever…this is but does someone want to tell me what the HELL IS GOING ON?!” My voice pitches, tearing through the night’s calm and seeming to make the trees quake as a gust of wind rushes through them.

The fury drains from Nat’s face as she pushes my echo self away from her and smiles at me, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It seems this shapeshifter thought I would believe they were really you and give up all the Agency’s secrets.”

“Not all of them,” the shapeshifter interrupts as they brush themself down and rub at their arm. “Just a few little ones maybe.”

Nat shoots them a glare that makes my blood freeze. “I’ll call in the rest of Unit Bravo to have them taken in.”

They roll their eyes. “Can’t you just let me go? It’s not like you told me anything.”

“You tried, and that’s serious enough,” she replies.

The shapeshifter’s head tilts with an unnatural crack as they stare over Nat with growing interest. “Or I could just be you and tell them not to bother.” Before either of us can move, the shapeshifter snaps a hand out with lightning speed and grips her wrist.

My breath sinks into the sudden pit in my stomach as I watch the shapeshifter’s face waver and twist from my features into the form of Nat—a face that I’ve grown to care for so deeply. Their body draws tall, stretching and contorting until it matches that of the vampire beside them, right down to the slight stoop of her shoulders and the depth of her eyes.

It’s horrifically enthralling to watch—like a macabre nightmare I just can’t look away from.

The shapeshifter sucks in a long draw of air and lets it out slowly, as though getting used to a new set of lungs. Their exhale sounds just like Nat’s.

“You know, human,” they say, and my stomach lurches at hearing those words through a voice I’ve come to know so intimately. “When I transform into someone through touch, I not only gain their shape but some of their strongest memories too.” They give a sickly-sweet smile that looks like they might throw up than actually be overcome with happiness. “Nearly all her memories are of you.”

Nat’s whole body tenses, even her fingers flexed to their limit. “That’s enough.”

“But there are a few buried much, much deeper in here,” they continue through Nat’s command, tapping a long finger to their temple, a few wavy locks of dark hair curling around the gesture. They straighten up and grin widely at Nat before clicking their tongue. “Tut, tut, Agent. Someone’s been a very naughty vampire—”

“I said enough!” It’s rare to hear Nat shout, so that startles us both, but the flash of fear that spreads like a crack of webs across her expression is something I’ve seen more and more of late.

She turns her whole body to me with a wobbly smile quivering across her lips. “Go back to the party. I’ll be with you after the others have seen to them.”

My gaze slides behind her. “You mean seen to the shapeshifter that just made a dash for it over the cliff edge?”

“What?” She swings back around, almost toppling over the grassy ledge herself as she lets out an annoyed huff.

I walk to her side and stare into the plunging darkness below. “Do you think they survived?”

“Yes…unfortunately,” she breathes out.

I keep my focus straight ahead and risk asking, “Are we going to talk about what they just said?”

Her fingers find mine in the darkness, shivering and cold, and I wrap my hand around hers. “Eventually.” She looks at me with an expression so shaken that it makes my entire being ache for her. “I promise I will.”

“Then let’s go back to the party,” I say, tugging on her hand to lead her away. “I think we could both do with some new memories.”

We walk hand-in-hand back towards the cackles and howls of the Halloween-costumed actors dotted about Hollow’s Peak, allowing the sounds to fill the heavy silence that lingers between us as we go.

--

Soooooo long, sorry! :D I tried to really rein it in at the end before it became a novella, hehe!

Also, next month's scenario for N and the MC will be full of happy, sweet romance to make up for all the angsty pain I've put them through in these past few scenarios, lol!