Page 42 of Adam, Mine

Then De Lacey made Elias lie down and set upon cutting his stitches.

“It feels more terrible than it is,” he remarked. “Shallow and prone to infection, yes. Deep, no. Perhaps this person intended this as a punishment?”

“I do not know,” Elias said. His tears had irritated the cuts on his face and it was stinging. He took another sip of pine tea, then chewed a few of the needles.

“They are all on the front of you, so you may lie on your back,” De Lacey said firmly. “Your face feels fair. Perhaps he was jealous. Did you court a girl he desired?”

Elias wanted to laugh—his chest even jolted in amusement—but the joy didn’t reach his face.

“No. There is no girl between us.” He sighed.

De Lacey finished removing the bits of string Victor had put inside him, then moved to trim the remaining strands of Elias’s hair until his head was shorn all the way around. Then he rubbed Elias all over with ointment that burned in a healing way and settled clean sheets about him.

“Thank you for this gift,” Elias said. He could feel himself slipping into sleep.

De Lacey chuckled. “Village boys. Always so formal. When you wake, everyone should be back from town, and you can meet the family.”

Elias was fading, but he roused himself to reach out and murmur:

“It is good that you are not here alone.”

Cabin

When Elias woke up, it was to the feeling of breath on his face. He opened his eyes. A child was staring at him from less than a centimeter away. Her brown hair fell about his cheeks as she scrutinized him.

“You look like a quilt, all over in patches,” she remarked sharply.

“Agatha!” A horrified voice. “Get away from him.”

Elias turned to see a woman with dark hair, eyes, and skin peeking in the doorway. She waved Agatha over to her.

“Do not bother him,” she hissed.

Elias closed his eyes.

“It is all right. She is my youngest sister’s age. When she grows, you’ll miss the mischief,” he murmured.

But when he opened his eyes, she was gone. It was strange, though. He was alone in this room but still felt as though someone was listening to him. Or watching him.

Elias lay very still.

There were noises coming from the front of the house, the sounds of a younger man and the woman he’d seen. The old man, too. After a while, he heard the girl shrieking in play as well, all too far to be at his bedside. Elias looked at the light from beneath the door and did not see the shadow of feet.

There was a wrongness to this feeling.

His head had been pounding for days, and the pain of his every movement had been his companion since his rebirth, so he wouldn’t have been able to notice such a subtle feeling until he was safe, clean, dry, and healing.

Now that Elias was aware of it, the hairs raised on his entire body. He forced himself to get up and search the room, but it was empty. He crept to the door and peered through the crack, but there was no one lurking behind it.

Then he went and sat on the bed.

He looked at the ceiling. “Can you hear me?” Elias whispered.

The feeling persisted but did not grow stronger. Nothing changed: the candles nearby did not even flicker more than usual.

Elias lay down, carefully covering his back.

“I see you,” he said to Victor. “You are a beast in the skin of a man. There is nowhere you can run where I shall not give chase. I swear on the power of my own hands, I will bury you in your grave.”