PERFECT LITTLE MONSTERS
Cindy R X He
Copyright © 2024 by Cindy R X He
Cover and internal design © 2024 by Sourcebooks
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by [Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of ] Sourcebooks P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
For the misfits:
you are beautiful,
you are loved.
A NOTE TO THE READER:
This novel contains themes and/or mentions of bullying, homophobia, ableism, fat-shaming, depression, body image, eating disorders, on-page depictions of suicide, mental illness, murder, and death.
If you feel that any of these subjects may trigger an adverse reaction, please consider not reading this book.
HIDE AND SEEK
NOW
The soft, tuneless whistling drifts over to where she’s hiding, as she crouches in the dark closet, peeking through the slats.
She hadn’t known how loud simply breathing was. Surely the person hunting her can hear her panicked, shallow breaths—and her too-loud heartbeat, thumping against her ribs like a frantic trapped bird. To make things worse, it’s so dusty that she’s going to sneeze. She pinches her nose, fights the deadly urge. Sweat trickles down her back, like the faint caress of ghostly fingers.
Her eyelids droop closed... but she snaps them open again. She focuses her eyes on the narrow line of light pooling under the closed bedroom door. She must not fall asleep, absolutely cannot sink into the darkness that is threatening to engulf her. But she can feel how heavy her limbs are; heavy and clumsy with the drug slushing through her bloodstream. She pinches her left arm hard, twists the tender skin to keep herself awake.
A nightmare. That’s what this is. Even so, she can’t quite believe that this is happening, that someone is trying to kill her. Surely, she’ll wake up soon in her queen-sized bed with its 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The muscles in her right calf seizes in a painful cramp from crouching for so long, and she stifles another sob.
It’s so unfair. She doesn’t deserve this, no matter what she did. The punishment is too harsh! She could cry from the injustice of it. A sob bubbles up from her chest to her throat, and she clamps her shaking hands over her mouth to keep it from escaping. Her mind is shrieking, but she mustn’t make a peep because the smallest sound would give away her hiding place in a second. And then this game of hide and seek would be over. The end. You lose. Time to die.
Soft, deliberate footsteps now, in the corridor. That insane, tuneless whistling. The footsteps grow louder, and louder, until they stop just outside. There is a shadow under the door. She watches through the slats as the knob turns slowly...
But she’d locked the door from the inside! The knob stops turning, and she’s almost giddy with relief. She starts to smile...
But then there’s the unmistakable scritch scratch of a key entering the keyhole, and the bedroom door swings open, and that horrible whistling starts up again. She tears herself away from the slats, scrambles backward into the darkness at the back of the closet. Shrinks into a small ball, her knees pressed against her chin. Nonono I can’t die like this can’t die like this can’t—
The closet doors open. She looks up at the person standing over her trembling body. The whistling stops.
“Found you.”
Those empty eyes.
That awful smile.
The dull gleam of the carving knife.
She opens her mouth and screams.
