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Forest had gone silent the moment Max found Holly, and she wasn’t sure if that was a sign of Max being a monster or the illusion breaking from seeing something real, like Max told her.
Holly’s eyes were wide, uncertain. He knew this girl in front of her was in a coma in hospital, how was she here? Henry’s warnings echoed in her mind, monsters can look and sound convincing, but they only seek to destroy a person by sucking out their soul.
But at the same time, she seemed so… real. So Max, what little she had seen the redhead. Every instinct told her that she should believe her, but at the same time… Henry’s warnings about monsters being able to shapeshift.
So Holly tried to cling on to what Henry had told her. “Maybe you’re mistaken, maybe you think he’s the bad guy, and the real bad guy is lurking here in the forest. Maybe if I take you back and you talk with Henry, he’ll understand and let you stay, and he’d help—”
“Listen to me,” Max said, a little louder this time. “Nothing Henry told you is true, everything is an elaborate lie.”
“But Henry said—”
“No,” Max sighed. “Henry knows just the right words to make you trust him, but once you start to see past him, you’ll see how manipulative he is.”
Holly narrowed her eyes. “But how can I make sure you’re not a monster? Henry said they can be convincing. I mean, you should have gone insane by now if you truly can’t find a way out.”
“I would have, yeah,” Max sighed, sitting down on a rock. “But I was kept sane because your older sibling keeps talking to me. They visit me almost every day at the hospital and I keep hearing their voice in little things, like in the wind.”
Holly frowned. “You hear them? What do they say?”
Max smiled sadly, and Holly noticed her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “They remind me of things we used to do together. How they used to slip their notebooks into my bag so I would have to give them back to them, and they’d get a chance to talk to me. Or how they wanted reassurance when we started high school together. How—” Max swallowed, closing her eyes and a tear slipped out. “How they kissed me for the first time.”
Holly frowned, growing increasingly certain about Max actually being Max. Henry’s warnings were still echoing at the back of her mind, but if Max told her was true, Henry’s powers also allowed him manipulate her memories and she’d have to ignore his voice to see the truth — that the monster that hurt her parents and kidnapped her actually worked with Henry, and her memory of Henry saving her from it was a delusion forged by him and not what really happened.
“So… what should I do?” Holly muttered, glancing at the cave opening carefully, suddenly feeling like they were being watched.
Max wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. “Nothing for now. Pretend you haven’t met me, but when Henry starts bringing other kids, you will help me help them see the truth about who — what — Henry is. And we’ll make a plan to get out of here together.”
“I have to go back there?” Holly gasped. “What if he’ll kill me?”
“He won’t do anything until he has all the kids he needs to execute his plan,” Max reassured her. “But until then it’s very important you will stay calm.”
Holly’s hand wandered up to touch Holly the Heroic, before he looked back at Max and nodded slowly. “Okay. I will do it.”