Page 177 of These Tears

My insides flip.

The room tilts.

He doesn’t stop, but maybe he can’t now that the valve has opened.

‘Years.’ The word falls out of him. ‘Years of being so good – that’s what they called it.’ His mouth pulls back from his teeth. ‘Arthur thought he’d finally beaten the temper out of me. Isak thought my silence was peace. Melody thought it was permission.’

He breathes against my face. I keep hold of his gaze, drawing on the last of my strength to keep myself from recoiling.

‘Well, it’s true,’ he says. ‘Melody and Cromwell knew exactly which words to put in which mouth, which lie to feed me until I went where they wanted me.’

‘Stay away from him!’ His words from prison begin to echo in my ears. Cromwell.

Elias’ breath shudders once, but his voice stays low.

I can’t breathe.

‘They only had to aim me.’ His jaw flexes. ‘I gave them what they wanted. Blood on my hands. Arthur off the board. Me behind bars. Isak at their disposal.’

For two heartbeats, nothing moves in him.

Then the force holding him rigid seems to give out.

His forearms remain braced on either side of me, but his shoulders drop, the hardness collapsing by degrees until he looks more like a man barely keeping himself upright than keeping me caged.

The pull at his mouth slackens. His face empties.

‘Is that what she told you?’ he asks.

His eyes search mine, and whatever he finds there closes all doors.

‘Go on then,’ he says gruffly. ‘Give me the usual reaction.’

My lungs collapse.

‘Am I too weak for the camera now?’ he asks. ‘Too stupid? Too willing? Too angry? Too much like the animal they called me?’ His laugh rises, but breaks before it becomes a real sound. ‘Or have you already decided I was innocent then, and monstrous now, so you can keep both versions without having to choose?’

My mouth opens. He’s retreating already.

‘Elias—’

The door unlocks. He’s out before I can form the rest.

The hinges give a sharp scream before the door shuts.

The sound, though… it stays in the room after he leaves.

It stays in me.

‘No…’ I whisper. ‘That’s not what she told me.’

I stand there with my back to the wall, fingers already aching around the porcelain, while the past rearranges itself in small, sickening pieces.

The prison room. The silence. How pity made him colder, but recognition made him look as if he might bleed.

The chains on his skin and in his mind.

The one plate, one glass, one bed…