Page 21 of Tick Tock, Darling

He sat on the bed and ran his hand over my leg. Too possessive. Too intimate. Too much like he already owned it, and I wanted to scrub the skin off where he’d touched me.

“Don’t touch me.” I wrenched my leg hard, trying to knock his hand loose.

“All right.” He took his hand back. “But I want you to do something for me.”

There it was.

He’d told me on the path. You can find my shadow, and you’ll be able to mend us back together. That was what all of this was. The chains, the hand on my leg, the not-raping-me — he’d wanted me soft first, or scared first, or grateful first, and now here it came.

Every part of me said no before my mouth did.

“I’m not doing anything.”

He narrowed his eyes and his mouth tightened. But then he blinked and the tension left his face except for his eyes.

“Very well.” He shrugged and headed for the door. “I can send Wendy in here.”

Everything in me dropped. My ribs, my hands, my breath. She’d put her boot in me and held my face in the water and smiled while the thing behind her eyes watched, and she’d done all of it without being asked.

He had his hand on the latch, waiting.

“What do you want?”

Like I didn’t know. Helping him become a living nightmare wasn’t what I wanted to do.

“You know, beautiful. My shadow.” He met my gaze and held it, waiting. Watching to see if the price landed. Then he gestured toward the chains. “That metal binds your power⁠—”

So patronizing.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Yes. Well. I want to loosen those chains.” He said it kindly. Like a cop doing me a favor. “All you have to do is locate my shadow.”

And there it was, sitting right in front of me.

I could have my hands back. I could sit up. I could put my legs together and cover myself and stop being a thing arranged on a bed for whoever walked in. And somewhere under all of that, further down, the part that mattered — I could reach my magic. It was in there. I’d been feeling for it all night and hitting iron, and this man could give it back to me with one word to his men.

Locate his shadow. That was all. Just find it. Finding wasn’t mending.

I let myself have that thought for about two seconds.

Then I put it down, because I knew exactly where it went. Find it, and then it’s just over there, and then what’s the harm in getting closer, and then his hand on my leg again and Wendy at the door and the chains coming off a little at a time for every good thing I did for him.

That was the trap. He wasn’t offering me my hands. He was offering me the first step.

“No.”

He headed over to me and clasped my cheeks hard. “Oh, you will. I just have the right thing to motivate you.” He released my cheeks. “Let’s start with… pain.”

I tensed, praying I would pass out. My rib still throbbed.

He tapped on the door. “Wendy.”

Just pass out. Just pass out.

She sauntered in wearing a long black dress and a hooded cape. She looked more like a vampire than a witch. Her eyes were black. The thing was back. No reasoning. No mercy. Nothing.

“She won’t help?”