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Val
For a momentI stood there lost—a stranger in a strange living room.
My warm cheek prickled, the sting of the slap still on my skin. I should leave, but my feet seemed unable to take me to the door. I patted down my pockets. For what I didn’t know? Something. Anything.
Anything that would ground me.
As I adjusted the jacket, I found a floppy, long-limbed teddy bear in the inside pocket. It was small and barely filled my palm. Its presence baffled me. The blankness in my memory bothered me.
But it was my behavior that disturbed me.
No, notmybehavior; for a moment I had been a passenger on the bus. Not in control.
Jesus. I raked my hand through my hair. Not alone.
When I’d had my hand around Zara’s throat, my mind had opened, a two-way flow of thoughts and desires as devastating as any bomb.
Possession.
The cold slithered in my gut.
I had a parasite.
Either I was insane, and no, I wouldn’t contemplate that, or this was real, and I was fucked six ways to Sunday.
I had always liked it hard and rough. I knew my boundaries. Knew the lines not to cross. But what I’d done to Zara...
I felt more than heard her presence enter the room. Turning, I found Zara in the doorway, her edges softer, ripe, like a woman who’d just been fucked even though I’d never been inside her.
We stared at each other, slow seconds of mutual shame.
Then her jaw hardened. Eyes flashing, she raised her chin and jiggled the gun dangling from her hand. “You want ground rules? Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.”
I believed her, the way she looked at me. I inclined my head in acknowledgment.
Maybe she believed me back.
But she didn’t step any closer.
Instead both our gazes fell to the bear in my hand, averting our eyes from any further truths.
The small limbs flopped to either side of my palm. The bear face had tiny glossy beads for eyes, and the mouth was a smile in embroidered black cotton. For some reason, the smile made me sad. I played my thumb over its belly fur. And I remembered.
“This bear...it was supposed to be my son’s.” I didn’t know if I was confiding or reminding myself. Pain lanced sharp, my heart hurting because for a moment I’d forgotten. “He died with his mother.” Twisting the pain so that I’d never forget again.
“I’m sorry.” Zara stepped further into the room.
Just like that, I’d gone from monster to human.
I tucked the little stuffed toy into my inside pocket.
“Something’s wrong.” I met Zara’s eyes. “When she cut me, I think she put something inside me. An infection or something. I don’t know.” A lie. There was no reason to tell her what I really thought. No reason to scare her. “I need the knife.”
She was shaking her head before I even stopped talking. “Your head...the explosion, maybe—”
“No.” I was unmooring, the feeling undeniable, even if nothing around me was moving. “This is where you tell me I’m crazy.”
She looked at me, frowning.
