Read Online Made to Love by DL Kopp - Free Book Online

doing.  Was it a good
idea to head toward the creepy monster in the lab, especially when
I had no means of going in or blocking him?  Then again, it
was better than not knowing what was going on, so I pressed
forward.
    I stopped in the hall
behind the kitchen and listened.
    The crying had actually
ceased for a moment, and I heard my father's voice.
    “ See?” he was
saying.  “It's all right, Byron.  Nothing's going to hurt
you.”
    Byron?  The monster
had a name?  As if things couldn't get any wackier.  I
leaned in closer to listen.
    My father was still
speaking, but now, in a more professional  tone, and with
pauses.  “Yes, yes.  All the nerves appear to have
perfect responses in the necessary categories....well, of course
I'm going to keep testing, but--”
    Another voice spoke, and I
assumed it was Byron.  But I couldn't hear anything
specific.  I pressed my ear against the door and tried to
listen, but they spoke in hushed voices.  And the hushed
voices cut off, quickly followed by footsteps, so I ran back toward
the passage.
    I had no idea what I would
find next.

Chapter Twenty
     
    Never in my life had I been
so ready for the weekend to arrive.
    I awoke early on Saturday
morning, before the sun even rose, and I was immediately awake and
alert.  The weather had grown violent sometime
overnight.  The wind shrieked through the tower over my
bedroom, and the rain pummeled my door mercilessly, smacking
against the glass like a torrential downpour of fists.
    Huddled in my blankets, I
stared out my door and the towering windows on either side of
it.  The clouds roiled, angry and black.  I hadn’t seen
weather like this all week.
    A week.  I couldn’t
believe I had only been in Coos Bay for a week.  It already
felt like a lifetime.
    I piled my pillows behind
myself against the headboard, pulled out my journal – a separate
entity from my poetry – and began to write.
     
    Dear diary:
    What a strange week. 
I feel like I’m going insane.  My parents locked my into my
bedroom (I think), I met a hot guy who might not be as friendly as
I thought even though I still want him really bad, and there’s a
monster living in my basement.
    I’m not sure how much of
this has actually happened.  I’ve come down with a fever
that’s turned my days and nights into a haze of half-dreams and
nightmares.  Maybe my mom didn’t lock me into my
bedroom.  Maybe Octavius never existed.  Maybe I didn’t
go into my dad’s basement and see that thing…
    Byron.  His name is
Byron.
     
    I stared down at the page,
gnawing my bottom lip.
    Byron.
    Last night, I had heard him
screaming again.  Was it a scream of fear, as my dad seemed to
think, or pain?  And what was hurting him?
    “ I think I’m going crazy,”
I muttered, closing my journal again and setting it on the bedside
table.  Unfortunately, it was the only logical explanation for
everything that had been happening.
    Oh well.  Logic was
totally overrated anyway.
    I pulled myself out of bed
slowly, trying not to succumb to dizziness.  Although I was
mentally alert – or so it seemed – my body still felt like I was
suffering from one of the worst cases of the flu in my
life.
    Carefully making my way up
the stairs, and trying not to pay attention to the secret passage
at the base of the tower, I went into the room at the top.  It
was small and dusty, but I had ordered the movers to place my desk
and a couple over-stuffed chairs there, and they had
complied.  It was cozy.  There was no electricity running
this high in my tower, but I had also stationed an oil lamp on the
desk, and I bent to light it.  It was enough to fill my room
with flickering golden light.
    I stuffed a sheet I had
dragged from my bed to the crack under one of the draftiest
windows, and the light stopped flickering so madly.  I glanced
across to the tower above my parents’ room as I sealed the
hole.
    There was a light in their
tower.
    I stopped to stare. 
There was