CHAPTER TWELVE
Sasha was in trouble.
She knew it the moment the world of Vile’s library reformed around her. Was there even any point in running? Probably not. It was probably like running from a mountain lion—it’d just encourage him to chase her.
Rage filled the room like a palpable fog. She took a slow breath and braced herself for what was about to happen to her. Flashes of imagery of him pulling her limbs off or disemboweling her played through her mind.
“Think you’re clever,do you?” The snarling words came from right behind her.
“I couldn’t let you?—”
He grabbed her by the upper arm and whirled her to face him. Before she could react, his hand was around her throat. Or rather, she thought it was his hand at first. But it wasn’t. The room around her was almost consumed by those strange, drawn-on, black tendrils that seemed to spread from him whenever he was angry. And from the darkness, too many eyes. Too many of those purple, strange, inhuman eyes were glowering at her in matching anger.
It was one of those tendrils that had coiled around her throat andwas cinching tight, limiting her air, but not cutting it off all the way. Not yet. The thing yanked her backwards and she had no choice but to go with it, staggering to keep her footing.
Vile followed after her, wearing his own face—his purple eyes dark with fury. “After all I was doing for you! That is how you thank me?”
Gasping for air, she grabbed uselessly at the thing around her throat, trying to get her fingers under it to pull in more breath. She hit one of the long reading tables that ran the length of the impossible library as the tendril kept pulling her backwards. But it didn’t stop there. It pulled her down until her back was flat against it.
He was going to kill her.
Maybe he’d skip the game entirely and just kill her for keeps.
Vile loomed over her, his lip curled in disgust. “I wanted to ease you into all this, I really did. But I see now how pointless that endeavor truly was.”
“I wasn’t going to”—she could just barely get enough air to speak in bursts—“let you kill Sidney.”
He slammed his hands down on the table on either side of her, blotting out the dim light of the amber stained glass lamps overhead, his purple eyes eerily and faintly glowing in the darkness. “Thenyou’lldie in her stead. Don’t you understand? In games where someone wins, someone has to lose.”
“And you don’t care which.” She tugged at the thing around her throat. But it was impossible to grab. It wasn’t slimy, but it was extremely slippery. She couldn’t get a purchase on it no matter how hard she tried.
“Precisely.” Lifting one of his hands, he placed his palm against her cheek, his thumb resting against the underside of her chin. He studied her for a moment before a slow, terrible smile crept over his face. “At first, I thought I had clearly picked the more entertaining twin. But now, I wonder if the sexual one would be more fun. I wonder how she might take to my more…twisted instincts.”
“Don’t—you—dare—”That got her struggling for the first timesince they’d reappeared. She kicked and punched at him, forgetting the thing around her throat in her attempt to get him away from her.
He merely laughed like the villain he was. It was made no less terrifying by how perfectly it would’ve fit into a Vincent Price movie. More of those inky-black things snapped around her wrists and ankles, pulling her back down to the table. “How sweet. You think you have a say in the matter.”
“Leave. Her. Alone!” She glared right back at him, not caring about her own safety at that point. She was stuck. There was no saving herself. She could only worry about Sidney. At least she had Virtue to protect her, for as much good as that would do.
“Why should I?” Vile rested his thumb against the hollow of her chin. His gaze flicked to her lips and lingered there. “Give me a good reason.”
That…stumped her.Because it’s wrong. Because you should. Because I said so. Because. Or else.
All of them were shit reasons said out loud. Her threat was vapid and empty, and she had nothing to back it up.
Her words were raspy and breathless. “If I agree to play along, will you agree to leave her alone?” It was a stupid gambit. He could just do whatever he wanted. But she had to hope that above all else, he wanted her to play his stupid game for his own amusement.
That seemed to intrigue him. Tilting his head to the side slightly, he hummed, his gaze still on her lips as he pondered it for a moment. “You’ll stay in character, stay onmyside, no longer act against me? If I agree not to specifically target or otherwise act against your sister? Now, we have to make it very clear that if I, in the fiction, would do so logically, I have to be allowed to do so. I can’t very well pretend she doesn’t exist.”
“But you can’t go out of your way—break character or logic—just to hurt her. If I make you angry.”
He leaned down a little closer to her, resting his weight on his elbow. She could feel the warm length of his thigh pressing against hers. The tendrils around her tightened ever so slightly.
The anger between them fell away instantly like the planks underneath a hangman’s block into something else. Something far more treacherous. Something far more dangerous.
The memory of him as Captain Hook flashed through her mind. The press of the tip of that metal spike underneath her chin as he threatened her. The way that?—
He can read minds here.
