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I think I may hate him, but I’m too shattered to be anything but terrified.
“There’s water by the bed,” Hermione whispers, once she’s helped me into pajamas and pulled back the covers. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe a sleeping pill?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you. If I take a pill, I might not be able to wake up if I need to,” I mumble in my tear-clogged voice. “If there are dreams…”
Nightmares. They won’t be dreams, they’ll be nightmares, I know that already. And I know I will want to be able to wake up from them, to flee into the relative safety of my prison in Maxim’s tower.
“All right. But do try to rest. You need it. And the more you can sleep, the faster the fear will fade. It’s always worst right after.” The gentle wolf tucks me in and promises to wait by my bed until I fall asleep.
I thank her, though I know it’s no use.
I won’t be safe in sleep. That evil man will come for me there.
And when I wake up another evil man will be waiting…
He is evil.
Isn’t he?
I honestly can’t say for certain. But I know it hurts to hold the Maxim who sat beside me in the theater, laughing at the play, the Maxim who kissed me like my lips were all he needed to survive, and the Maxim who tortured me, all in my head at the same time.
It’s too much. Too confusing, especially now that my head is full of an ominously humming swarm of terror locusts, primed to feast on what healthy things are left in my mind as soon as I close my eyes.
But I’m too tired to keep them open.
My lids slide closed, and I fall into a dream, but it isn’t of the man or the alley.
And it’s so much crisper and cleaner than any dream I’ve had before.
When I look down at my hands, I can see the wrinkles on my knuckles, the veins beneath the thin skin, the freckles near my wrist, even the dry, calloused place by my thumb nail that I try to file down when I remember. It snags on my gloves at the lab if I don’t.
The lab…
That’s where I am. I know it, even before I look up to see the rows of white tables with their beakers and burners all wrapped up for the night. It’s dark in the room, and outside the windows, the stars are coming out.
I’ve never been in the lab this late, but I like it. It’s peaceful, and the smell of the chemicals is strangely comforting. Familiar.
In this room, I rule.
In this room, no one puts me on my knees.
My brain was nearly my ticket out of the lowest survivable status in my birth pack, and it will serve me well again. I just have to keep using my head. I can’t let my body start calling the shots.
And I certainly can’t lose my heart.
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice,” a soft, familiar voice sounds from in front of me.
I look up to see my reflection staring back at me from the window, but it’s crisper than it would be in a normal dream, too. And it’s not actually a reflection. I’m wearing my lab coat in the dream, but in the window, I’m wearing a red dress with a plunging neckline that’s far more daring than anything I’ve ever worn before.
My hair is flowing in curls around my shoulders and my lips are bright, ruby red.
The color of fresh blood.
“Everything is a choice,” I reply, pulling my coat tighter across my breasts, feeling the need to cover up to compensate for the way my other self is letting it all hang out. I swear, I can almost see my—her—nipples. “There’s always a choice.”
My reflection arches a dubious brow and glances up at the sky. “The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they?”
I frown, not enjoying her thinly veiled reference to Fate and what it might have written in the stars for me. “Fuck fate,” I say, heat in my voice that isn’t like me.
