Radley's Labyrinth for Horny Monsters by Annabelle Hawthorne (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

tell her anything without being judged. Lily, on the other hand, wore a mask that she couldn’t see past. It reminded her of a doctor examining a specimen. Dana had always been uncomfortable discussing her sexuality with others, but Naia smiled at the right moments and gave her space at others, and the single tear rolling down her cheek when Dana described losing Alex again made her wish that she was capable of her own tears.

“Well?” Dana asked.

Naia was smiling, but Lily wore a frown.

“It sounds like you miss her a lot.” Naia rubbed Dana’s arm affectionately.

Dana nodded. “I do. I would do anything for her.”

“Sounds like she would do anything for you.” Lily smirked. “I wonder. What would you say if I told you that the afterlife you saw wasn’t real?”

“Of course it was real. It was the same night we had together all those years ago, except this time it was on the balcony.”

“Nope. Wrong.” Lily crossed her arms. “It wasn’t, no matter how badly you want it to be. This is how Daryl works. He manipulates you using your own weaknesses. Fortunately for us, he has his own weaknesses too.”

“It actually happened.” Dana stood, her fists balled at her side. “And unless I help him, I will never see her again.”

“Naia.” Lily raised an eyebrow. “By now, even you should be able to see it. I can, and I don’t even have to be inside her head.”

Naia shook her head. “Is it always the direct approach with you?”

“We don’t have time for niceties.” Lily leaned back. “Okay, let’s see if I can help you understand. If the afterlife was real, then everything you saw really was a carrot dangled before the horse. But consider this—once you’re dead, you’re dead. Your spirit can be called back, but it can’t be made to stay. The number one rule of the afterlife is that it can never be truly known. Bringing a spirit back intact would take a tremendous amount of power, god-level stuff. There’s a reason that shit is saved for messiahs and rock stars.

“This fantasy of yours was custom built by Daryl.” Lily uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “But you need to convince yourself, or you won’t believe me. He isn’t a mind reader, so he had to fill in the gaps somewhere. A seam in the dream, as it were.”

“I don’t understand.” Dana shook her head, placing her face in her hands. “How could it not be real?”

“You want it to be real.” Lily’s voice was cold now. “It’s called denial. You’re dead, not stupid, so think harder.”

“Lily!” Naia scolded. “This is hard for her.”

Lily huffed. “Yeah, well excuse me if I’m impatient. Daryl made a mistake. Can you spot it?”

Dana frowned, thinking back. There wasn’t anything obvious, at least not right away. Alex had seemed so real, and so had the setting. The feel of her skin against her body, the way their lips touched. The rhythm of Alex’s body above hers.

“Fuck.” Dana scowled at the ground. She had been fooled. After so many lonely months, the feel of Alex’s body against hers had distracted her, had made the deception possible. She knew she should be undergoing a whirlwind of emotions right now, but most of them had been stripped away. Anger was one of the only things she had left, yet even that had been muted.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. He’s had years to get good at it.” Lily stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check on Cecilia. Naia, you can hug her or whatever it is you do to make people feel better.” Lily placed a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “Later, when you are feeling particularly murderous—come talk to me.” Sashaying dramatically, she disappeared through the back door and into the house.

“Tell me about it,” Naia said.

“One time, we got drunk and started making out. Alex thought it would be sexy to watch some porn.” Dana laughed. “We tried to imitate one of the scenes. Alex ended up hurting her back, and I pulled a muscle in my thigh. It was more amusing than sexy, but it was the last time we tried scissoring. Well, second to last time.” She smiled. “A wise man once told me that you should try everything twice, just to be sure it isn’t for you.”

“Yeah, well, some people like it. I do.” Naia smiled. “ I strongly suspect that Daryl was close by, watching your dream. That’s how he knew when to pull you out.”

“What an asshole.” Daryl had tricked her, and when she finally found a way to accomplish what he had asked for, he would allow her to die, her soul moving on to whatever damnation she had earned for it. He was a man who had not only stripped her life away from her but her very soul. It was one thing to kill her, but to strip her of eternity?

Somewhere deep inside her mind, she felt the dam break. Anger, white hot, flooded through her body. She stood and brushed off the back of her pants, then pulled her hair out of its ponytail. After shaking her hair free, she pulled it back and redid the tail, tighter than before. She knew if she were alive, she would be able to feel her pulse in the stretched skin of her forehead.

“Where are you going?” Naia asked, worry on her face.

“Where do you think?” Dana walked toward the house. “I’m going to talk to Lily.”

The Labyrinth had taken on a chill that Mike couldn’t seem to chase away. Cerulea explained that they stood in a passageway that circled a chamber with a frozen lake inside. Rubbing his arms for warmth, he caught himself staring at Sofia’s ass. The cyclops had said very little to him after Carmina had arrived, and he was in a minor state of disbelief over what he had done to her in the chamber. It was as if a part of him had briefly awakened,