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“I was succumbing myself to years of torture and cruelty. But the most dangerous and most feared man in the room is always the wisest. I knew I could manipulate the staff by using their own secrets against them.”
Kind of the way I did when I dove into their memories.
“And you really never learned anything about Judas?”
He shakes his head. “No. He never left the asylum.”
I never got a chance to dig into his past either. He never came around while I was in the asylum. Something occurs to me, and I flash my eyes back to Dessin, who is studying me.
“Sern is free.”
He raises a brow.
“I let her out,” I add.
“Before you set the fire?”
“Yes.”
He watches me. Not in the way he usually does, with hidden amusement or subtle intrigue. No, it’s in the lifting of his strong chin, the patient warmth in his gaze, the straightening of his shoulders. He’s ready to listen, to open this space for quiet. To show me that there isn’t judgment or scorn here.
“I kind of—blew the place up,” I admit.
“I’m aware.”
“I went back to the day Scarlett died. I saw Kane carry me out of the burning house. I saw the way his back caught fire. And…” I lean back on my hands, staring into the small fire that cooked our food. “I lost it.”
Dessin doesn’t ask how I went back. I’m sure he can draw an accurate conclusion.
“I went back into the asylum as a way to feel closer to you. But when I got there, and I suffered, and I heard you in pain from the many times they tortured you—All I really wanted was to exact every threat you made, fulfill every promise of revenge.”
He shifts in his seat but doesn’t reveal what he’s feeling or how he’s taking this.
I wish I could show him what I did. Paint him a picture. Conjure the memory, and—I freeze. Could I do something like that? What limitations does my mind have?
“What is it?” Dessin asks.
A feeling of confidence zings through my body. So, I trust it.
“It would be easier to show you what happened.”
His brows knit together as he watches me lean in, sliding my hands along his temples. I can feel the hollowness of the voice waiting for me, like a buzzing under my skin. Dessin’s eyes widen, and I wonder if he can feel it too.
“Stay still,” I whisper.
The moment that wave dumps over me, there’s a mental click as I latch on to Dessin’s mind; it’s quick, like throwing a fishing hook inside his thoughts. His entire body tenses as gravity pummels over us, sending our stiff frames into the void, into the stagnate nothingness, until we’re right where I want to be.
Emerald Lake Asylum.
Bodies of the orderlies swing back and forth in a terrifying display of asphyxiating human puppets.
I grip Dessin’s hand to steady us, looking up at his towering height, waiting for him to freak out.
He doesn’t.
Instead, his mouth parts and his darkened eyes travel the length of the hallway, absorbing the scene, processing what I did to those orderlies.
“You are incredible,” he exhales.
