Natasha Grimwald's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Natasha Grimwald had the shorts but not the room. She sat on her mattress of dirty gym clothes and pressed Nate's gray shorts to her face. They smelled like sweat and old cotton, like gym clothes left in a bag a week. She had been collecting for months. Socks, waistbands, damp shirts hauled from the gym in her arms. Enough now to build a nest fit for a queen. But a queen's nest belongs in the king's room, and she did not know where Nate slept. She could not stay here. This room was hers, not his. A nest without Nate was only a pile. So she left the room. That alone was new. She stuffed the gray shorts in her waistband and carried a bag of the best clothes to the gym. Her heavy sweater sat at his machine, dripping, exactly where she liked him. She waited beside him and drank from his bottle while he pumped iron. Then she asked the only question that mattered. Where did Nate live? The man wiped his neck. He didn't know a Nate. But he pointed his towel toward the door. He said a small creature had been sniffing around the parking lot, and it wore a collar with a name tag. Natasha found it there. A pet perret, gray and tan, with bright eyes and a fluffy tail. It sat neat and watched her. The tag on its collar read one word: Nate. She knelt. She held out the gray shorts. The perret's nose twitched. It knew the smell. It stood, spun once, and trotted off, tail high, glancing back to see if she followed. She followed. She followed it past the gym, past three roads, over gravel and weeds, clutching her bag of gym clothes to her chest. The perret never slowed. It led her to a shed leaning at the edge of a field. The smell hit her before the door. Sweat, mildew, cotton rotting sweet. She pushed the door. Inside, the shed was packed to the rafters with dirty shorts and socks. Spiderwebs stretched corner to corner. Something long and green lay still in the shadows. A creature she did not know crouched among the piles, watching. And in the far corner, small and swept clean, was a bed. A single pillow. A pair of shorts folded on top. The perret jumped onto it and curled up. This was where Nate slept. Natasha stepped inside. She dumped her bag and let the clothes spill across the corner floor. She had found the room at last. But the room was already full. Spiders above. The green thing in the dark. The silent creature that had not moved or blinked, and now rose to its feet.