Page 35 of Her Creation

He said nothing, but the carriage came to a stop, rocking back and forth softly. Nervously, she looked out the window to find they were at the edge of the forest, just outside of town. The old church was in the distance. The moonlight spilled onto the light-colored headstones that crumbled behind it.

“Thank you,” she said and waited for the carriage to turn around. Her eyes darted around the interior of the carriage nervously.

Suddenly, Wilhelm’s hands were around her waist, lifting her up easily and pulling her into his lap. No. No. No. She wanted to shout. She wanted to claw his eyeballs out. For some reason, her mind went to the lifeless man in the laboratory waiting for her. She wished more than anything he were alive and could help her. He would have. Somehow she just knew it.

“You’ve lost more weight,” he said, disgust sharpening his voice. “You look horrible.” His hands were everywhere—pulling, bruising, squeezing without care. “No doubt you’re doing it on purpose,” he continued coldly, “trying to force me to find you unappealing. Repellent.”

His mouth pressed into the crook of Victoria’s neck.

He never kissed her. He only pressed his mouth and nose against her skin, as though marking territory rather than seeking closeness. The urge to scrape herself raw with a scalpel rose sharp and immediate.

“It will not work,” he panted. “I already find you unappealing and grotesque.”

“Then why do you do this to me?” she demanded weakly. “Leave me be. You have a beautiful fiancée who loves you. Forget about me—please.” She was pleading now, despite herself. Too much was happening at once. She could not retreat into her notes, could not numb her mind and send it elsewhere. It would not go. It refused to leave her.

“Wife,” he corrected. “I have a beautiful wife.”

His hands moved to beneath her skirt, but she slapped them away and crawled off him. For a brief, dark moment, she wondered why she felt nothing at all—until she realized he had not even removed his gloves to touch her cold, shivering skin. She wondered randomly if Innominatus would hate the idea that she wore gloves when working on him. One day she would find out. One day. And when that day came, she would never be in carriages alone with monsters ever again.

“You got married?” she asked.

“Yes, now you are going to be mine as well, however I want.” He lunged toward her, but she slid to the other side of the bench.

“You cannot do this to Sophia. You cannot! Please!” Victoria cried. Her heart broke for Sophia. She had always believed Wilhelm would grow tired of her. She realized, in that instant, she had invested far too much weight in a belief she ought never to have held. Wilhelm was a man who cared for no one—neither Victoria nor Sophia. He cared only for himself. She doubted he even desired her in any sense beyond possession. Yet he acted as he pleased because that was how he felt big and powerful: by hurting someone who could not fight back.

A hot tingle of rage surged through Victoria, sudden and consuming. Her hand shot forward with all the force she could muster, nails aimed to tear at his face.

Just before her nails could reach him, his grip snapped tight around her palm, halting her strike.

A menacing laugh rolled from his lips. “This is precisely why I cannot forget about you,” he said. “Despite your unappealing—nearly repulsive—appearance, I enjoy your resistance.”

Hot tears of rage flooded her eyes. The fury inside her flared. Her gaze darted wildly to the corner of the carriage, where a satin curtain was pinned back, the window left open. The metal rod that held it in place caught her attention. She could take it—she knew she could—and drive it through his neck. She knew exactly where there would be the least resistance. He would bleed slowly, painfully, and the only person in town capable of helping him would refuse, for his daughter would have caused the wound.

The realization settled deep in her bones—not only that she could do it, but that she had thought it. She leaned back, eyes wide, the fight draining from her. One more surge of anger would be enough. She knew it. The knowledge sent her nerves reeling, as if her entire being had been turned inside out. Was this what Innominatus had felt while killing? How had he managed it?

“What is it?” Wilhelm asked lightly, already trying to pull her back onto his lap.

Her mouth opened, but no words came. All the while, her mind—and her dark, chocolate-brown eyes—remained fixed on the metal rod at the window.

It was not merely that she had thought of killing Wilhelm. It was how deeply she had wanted to. In truth, she was no longer certain she had ever truly wished to be a doctor like her father. She had always been drawn more to the sciences of nature and animals, never envisioning herself charged with the preservation of human life. Until this moment, it had never occurred to her what it meant to hold that responsibility, to keep a person alive with knowledge, and how easily that same knowledge could end them.

She wondered, fleetingly, whether God had ever felt such conflict—whether He, too, had known this duality. Perhaps her father had been right—perhaps this burden was too great for mankind. Perhaps there was more to it than resurrection and destruction, more than knowing how to give life and how to end it.

It seemed Wilhelm had grown bored of chasing Victoria around the carriage. He closed his eyes, and an evil smile settled on his face again.

Her eyes continued to flicker to the rod, to Wilhelm’s face—to the soft spot under his collar. To the rod.

His face drew closer to hers, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. Instead, he leaned past her. With a sharp click, he opened the carriage door and settled back into his seat.

“Walk back,” he said coolly. “I’m headed to the club gathering.”

With one final glance at the metal rod, Victoria wasted no time in leaving the carriage. Her legs protested as she stood, sore and trembling in the snow-churned mud, one hand clutching her skirts to keep them clear.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at Helena’s,” he called after her.

Before she could respond, the coachman cracked the whip. Horses surged forward, hooves pounding, wheels rolling away into the dark. And just like that, Victoria found herself alone in the dead of winter’s night.

The cold snapped at her heels and throat like a frostbitten beast. She pulled her hood up and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, drawing the warmth of her cloak close. She had no sense of how long she had been gone—minutes and hours seemed indistinguishable.