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“No no no…” Vee was rummaging through her- Luz’s- room, growing more and more desperate with every piece of clothing she tossed aside. “Please-!”
There was a knock on the door. And then, Camila’s voice, soft and worried and gentle. “Lu- sorry, Vee? Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah…” Vee internally slapped herself. Even after coming out as a basilisk to her, her first instinct with Camila was to lie. “No. No, I’m not okay!” She finally allowed her breath to hitch. “I’m out of Masha’s cards and-” Her left ear became a fuzzy tuft. “And I’m starting to turn back!”
“C-can…” Camila stuttered. “Can I- uh- can I come in?”
Vee took a second to think. “Yeah. You can come in.”
Camila opened the door to her daughter’s bedroom. Even after a week, she hadn’t gotten used to the fact that the girl standing in front of her, who looked almost exactly like Luz except for the fuzzy tufts on her head, was someone non-human.
She focused on Vee’s eyes instead. The soft amber eyes that looked to her for all the answers, that trusted Camila with her life. That, she was used to. “Okay. You should be able to hide those with one of Luz’s hats.” She moved her arm slowly, so that Vee could stop her if she wanted.
Instead, Vee leaned into it, letting Camila squeeze her shoulder. “Okay. I will. I’ll… I’ll go see if Masha has any more of those cards.”
“Good idea. Want me to drive you to their place?” Camila offered.
“Yes. Please. But um, they’re usually at the park right now.”
Camila gave Vee a knowing look. “Oh, memorizing their habits, are we?”
“N-no, I promise it’s nothing like that! I swear I’m not stalking them or- or planning to hurt them or-!”
Camila chuckled, squeezing Vee’s shoulder a bit harder. “It’s okay, Vee. I know you’re safe.”
“Oh.” Vee relaxed, taking a deep breath. “Thanks. So, um, can you…”
“Of course I can, sweetie.” Camila patted the young basilisk’s head. “I’ll go get the keys, and you can find a hat to put on over those ears. Okay?”
Vee eagerly nodded. “Okay.” While Camila left the room, she rummaged through Luz’s closet until she found the cat-themed hat that would cover her ears. “Ready!” She sprinted downstairs, eager to see Masha and eat their cards. “Camila, do you have the keys?”
Camila couldn’t help but smile at the bounce in the girl’s knees, the way she bunched up her fists in front of her chest. “Got them right here.” She showed Vee the car keys before putting them in her shirt pocket.
Vee felt a sense of relief, despite the fact that more of her skin was turning to scales beneath her shirt.
Vee fell asleep in the car. As Camila drove, she kept accidentally glancing at her. With her mind on the road, she could almost forget that the teenager wasn’t her biological daughter. Her face looked exactly like Luz, who Camila still couldn’t believe was trapped in some horrific Demon Realm, no doubt scared and alone, constantly at risk of having her soul devoured, and yet she preferred that place over her mother.
A horn blared through her thoughts. Camila gasped, realizing she’d ran a red light. “¡Oh, mierda!” She frantically glanced around, panting in fear.
Vee shifted. “Mrph… Where’m I?” The softness in her voice, the apprehension, made Camila desperate to protect her regardless of her species.
“Still…” Camila swallowed. “Still driving, Vee. The park’s right around the corner.”
Vee’s fingers curled into the seat. Her nails were getting longer, almost halfway to becoming full-on claws. “Okay. Thanks, mom.” She muttered the word without thinking, in a delirious, half-asleep state.
Camila’s heart melted as she pulled into the parking lot. “Oh, baby…”
Vee shot up. “No, no- not mom! I m- I meant Camila!”
As soon as the gear was in park, Camila reached over to squeeze the girl’s arm. “It’s okay, Vee. You’ve been living under my roof for months now. You can call me mom.”
Vee closed her eyes. “Thank you. Th-thank you so much, Ca- mom.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie. Now go and meet your friend, okay?”
“Right!” Vee unbuckled her seatbelt and leapt out of the car. As she ran, she concentrated on shrinking her claws back down into nails. She could feel the simple action draining her magic even further.
A teenager around Vee’s age was sitting in the shade of a tree, reading a Junji Ito manga. “Goddess I wish that were me.” As a shadow came over them, they looked up and smiled. “Oh, hi Luz!” They dog-eared their book and set it aside. As they stood up and got a closer look at the girl’s face, they noticed something in her eyes and the crease of her mouth. “Something wrong?”
“Uh… yeah. Do you have any of those, um, those weird cards?” Vee reached deep into her mind for the lie she’d been thinking about in the car, before she’d fallen asleep. “They sort of- um- blew away in the wind. And then got eaten… by uh… a raccoon. With Mad Cow Disease.”
Masha raised their eyebrow. “A raccoon with Mad Cow Disease?”
“Or Mad Raccoon Disease. Or… possibly no disease.”
Masha snickered. Something about the sound, the way their mouth curled upwards and their eyes creased made Vee want to look at them forever. “Right, okay. I don’t have any more of those particular cards, but I could take you to my place and lend you a spare Tarot deck if you like.”
Vee felt the ground under her give way. Her legs, already covered in scales, pushed together as if trying to meld back into a tail. “No!” Her voice cracked, grabbing Masha’s shoulders hard enough to visibly alarm them. “No, Masha, please it has to be those cards!”
“What the- Luz, what’s gotten into you?!” Masha demanded.
Vee wanted to answer. She needed to answer. Any explanation, however, died in her throat. There was nothing she could say without revealing everything, without making herself a monster in Masha’s eyes. She could feel herself turning into a monster, her cells changing, her every individual scale tingling and burning and her clothes tearing.
The last thing she heard was Masha’s scream.
Vee didn’t wake up. She didn’t open her eyes. One second, she was dissociating, transforming right in front of someone she never wanted to see afraid. The next, she was in a strange white void. And standing in front of her was a man she’d only seen in pictures around the Noceda house.
Someone she couldn’t imagine seeing not cradling an infant Luz, or with his arms around a young Camila’s shoulders, or somehow being with them even if she’d never seen him in person. “You… you’re Manny. M- Camila’s husband.”
“Yep. And you must be my-” He hesitated. “I mean, her new daughter.” The way he addressed her was pure warmth.
Vee squeaked. “I’m not-”
Manny shushed her, and Vee stopped mid-sentence. His hand moved slowly. “Of course you’re her daughter.” When she leaned in, he cupped her face in his palm. “Haven’t you seen the way she looks at you?”
“I’m- Mr. Noceda, I’m not even human. I’m a literal demon.” Vee leaned in, her voice cracking like a porcelain egg.
“Aww, baby.” Manny put his other arm around Vee and pulled her into a hug.
Everything collapsed. Vee was sobbing into Manny’s chest, her entire body trembling against him. His arms tightened around her. On some level, she knew she should’ve been scared- whenever one of the Emperor’s Coven soldiers had grabbed her, it was to throw her back in her cage or torture her or take her to another experiment- but the way he held her, tight enough to be secure and yet loose enough to be unrestrictive, was familiar.
Exactly like Camila. “I’m sorry. I- I lied to your wife and I stole Luz’s identity and I left her for dead in the Demon Realm andI’mamonster!”
Manny’s face turned pale. His hand moved to gently stroke her upper back. “Vee? Vee, listen to me. You’re not a monster.”
“Yes I am.” Vee’s tone was flat, the vocal equivalent of catatonia. “I’m a basilisk. An evil, magic-eating basilisk who shouldn’t exist. I’m just some emperor’s glorified pet project.” Her fingers dug into Manny’s sleeve, subconsciously clinging to him.
“Oh, God… sweetie, no.” He kissed the top of her head. “You may’ve been created for evil, but you’re not evil. You took Luz’s identity because you didn’t have a choice. You needed to, to survive. And you deserve to survive.”
“I- I do?” Vee looked up at Manny with big, moist eyes.
“Of course I do. I know you would never hurt anyone on purpose. I can tell, just from how guilty you are.”
Vee whimpered, as suppressed memories dredged up from the depths of her mind- being forced to eat live rats or drain the magic from living things to the point of killing them or rendering them catatonic. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want any of it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Manny gently shushed Vee, petting her and holding her head against his chest so she could hear his heartbeat. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I know that Luz is okay.”
“D’you think she’ll ever come back?”
“Of course she will. And I know you two will make great sisters.”
“And then Camila will have three mouths to feed.”
“Hey, vet work pays well. And I know my wife. If anyone can make it work, she can.”
Vee smiled. “That’s true. So… do you forgive me?”
Manny looked down at his daughter with a soft, loving gaze. “Vee. Mija. No has hecho nada que necesite perdón.”
Vee took a second to internally translate the soft-spoken Spanish. And then, she broke out into a sob.
When Vee’s consciousness returned to the physical realm, she was in a metal cage. Her breaths came out in rapid, frantic huffs, causing her scale-covered chest to expand and contract at a dangerous speed while her tail thrashed against the bars. She would’ve screamed if not for the iron muzzle over her mouth.
As her senses came back, she heard the sound of fighting, of familiar voices screaming in protective rage, and saw Camila, Masha, and the other two kids from Cabin 7 fighting people in riot gear with baseball bats and brass knuckles.
“¡¿Cómo te atreves a ponerle un bozal a mija?!” Camila screamed, punching one of the agents hard enough that her brass knuckles shattered his visor and left it open for one of Vee’s cabin-mates to fling a tiny bag full of powdered cayenne pepper into his helmet. The bag exploded, causing the agent to fall and scream in agony.
One of the agents frantically turned on a walkie-talkie. “Mayday, mayday! We’re being attacked by a woman and some small teenagers-!”
“Who are you calling small?!” Masha lunged at the agent, raising their baseball bat overhead and slamming it into the agent’s shoulder hard enough to break it. The agent fell to his knees, wincing and grabbing his aching shoulder while Masha pounced on him like a wild animal. They wrested the helmet off his head.
“Wait-!” The agent struggled while Masha vaulted behind him. A knife flipped open beneath his chin.
“Call them off!”
“W-what?”
“You heard me! Call off your superiors, or whoever you’re calling! Tell them it was a false alarm- some old lady saw a snake in her yard or something! Otherwise…” Masha pressed the knife in by barely a millimeter, drawing blood.
“Okay! Okay okay okay!” The agent whined. He lifted the walkie-talkie up to his mouth. “Sorry, false alarm. Turns out an old lady just saw a snake in her yard or something. And… and her daughter and grandkids got spooked by government agents in their yard. Over and out.” He reluctantly turned it off.
“Good boy.” Masha picked up the larger part of the baseball bat and bonked the agent over the head with it, knocking him unconscious.
Eventually, the agents were all unconscious. Camila, Masha, and the two boys were all bleeding, but relatively unharmed. “Tom, Colin, are you two okay?” Masha asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Camila was already running to the cage. “Oh my God! My baby!” She reached between the bars. “Come here, Vee. Please let me take that muzzle off of you.”
Vee slithered towards Camila. The muzzle was like a vice, crushing her head from all sides and digging into her scales. The sound of her mom’s voice, the scent of her skin and sweat and freshly-ironed clothes and the fading lavender perfume she’d put on that morning… all of it made Vee feel safe. Like she deserved to be loved.
As soon as Vee was close enough, Camila put her hands on the cold, stone-hard muzzle that’d been forced on her. “Sweetie…” She felt around the muzzle, until she found a lock. “Kids, the muzzle’s locked! See if one of these cerdos has the key!”
“Got it!” Tom agreed.
While Tom and Colin searched for the key, Masha ran over to Camila and Vee. “OhmygoddessLuzImeanVeeyou’reanactualmonsterandyou’resofreakingcuteIcan’tbelieveInevernoticedit’ssoobviousinhindsightandIknowwhyyouneverwantedtotellmebutIswearyou’resecret’ssafewithme!”
The woman and the basilisk each blinked in pure confusion. Vee quietly whimpered through her muzzle.
“S-sorry. I meant, L-Vee, I swear on Goddess’s True Name, your secret’s safe with Cabin 7.” They turned to yell over at Tom and Colin, “Right boys?!”
“Hell yeah!” Tom answered.
Colin admitted, “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m down for being involved in an anti-government monster conspiracy! Also, I think I found the key! Or, well, a key.” He jogged over to the cage, hand outstretched.
“Thanks.” Masha took the key just before Camila could. “Oh, s-sorry, Mrs. Noceda.”
“No no, you’re good.” Camila pulled away, letting Masha reach into the cage.
One hand cupping her cheek as best it could. The other, trying to put the key in the hole. When Vee looked into Masha’s eyes, she still half-expected to see fear, distrust, resentment for lying to them for months. Instead, all she saw was worry.
Worry for her.
Vee whimpered, leaning in close enough that Masha could see the tears staining her face. “It’s okay.” Masha spoke out loud, plunging the key into the lock. “You’re safe now.” The key turned.
The muzzle opened and fell. The deafening clang of it on the metal floor of the cage echoed throughout the transport truck, physically injuring everyone’s ears.
Vee gasped for air. “Maaaa- Masha-!”
“I’m here, Vee. Your mom’s here. We’re all here.”
“The cage is a combination lock.” Tom observed, “Any idea what it could be?”
“Try 1-2-3-4.” Colin suggested.
“Any non-stupid ideas?”
“Here’s one.” Camila took the smaller part of Masha’s baseball bat, screaming as she plunged the sharp, broken end into the lock hard enough to break it.
Masha blushed. A tiny whimper escaped their mouth. “Mommy.”
“W-what was that?” Vee asked through an aching jaw.
“Uh… nothing.” Masha stroked Vee’s mane. “Listen, Camila explained everything. And now that I know about your magic-thing…” They reached into their pocket and pulled out a handful of tiny, colorful gemstones. “Would these help?”
Vee gasped in a cocktail of relief and delight. “Concealment stones! Masha, these things are pure magic!” Colorful lines of pure magic emerged from the stones in Masha’s hand, draining them of all their color as she ate their essence.
The concealment stones were reduced to gray pebbles. Vee fell into Masha’s arms in a form that looked exactly like Luz. “Thank you. You’re perfect.”
“Aww, you’re welcome.” Masha squeezed Vee just a bit tighter. “But I’m just trying my best.”
Camila watched as her daughter was picked up off the ground by another teenager. One who made her feel safe, who knew her secret and would keep it as such. And she thought it good.