Page 93 of Adam, Mine

Cupido laughed at him. “German very weak. Can make do.”

Victor flushed. He didn’t like the way Cupido was looking at him.

Cupido ushered him inside by the elbow, closing the door behind him. He pulled Victor through his beautifully furnished house and to the back, where a meticulously clean, white room awaited him. Cupido settled Victor down on the cot in the center and immediately started giving him some kind of examination.

“I must look. Stay still, yes?” Cupido forced Victor’s head back so he could look up his nose, shined a candle close to his eyes, thumped his knees and elbows to look at his reflexes, listened to his heart and lungs.

Between each examination, he wrote detailed notes. He even had Victor blow his nose into a dish and took samples of his saliva and blood.

“What are you using this for?” Victor asked tentatively.

Cupido shrugged, then waved his notebook at Victor. “Rare . . . beast, no? Notes for the histories. You have . . . not long? The voices?”

Victor felt a thrill of terror. “No, the . . . voices haven’t started.”

Cupido laughed and then thumped him on the back. “Good boy. Perhaps one month, then.”

Victor’s stomach swooped nervously. “I’m going to Russia soon, to meet Yaroslav Voronof. Do you know him?”

Cupido pursed his lips. “To Russia? Better go quick.” Then he prodded Victor hard in the chest. “One month, ay?”

Victor nodded and swallowed. “Yes . . . One month.”

Cupido went to wash his hands. Victor stared at the broad expanse of his back and wondered what Cupido saw when he looked at him.

“Did a man called Elias come this way?”

Cupido turned around. “Elias? He speak . . . not so good. Only German, dialect different. Did not stay long. Mentioned I would receive a visitor and your . . . crimes. Why? You are friends now?”

It was Victor’s turn to laugh. “No. No, we are not.”

Cupido shrugged once, then again.

“Perhaps, one day,” he said.

Victor stared at him. He didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Come. Do you want to meet my wife? Very beautiful.”

Victor shook his head. He had to get out of here. He felt like he was about to cry and he didn’t know why.

“I have to go.”

Burial

Victor walked until he found a private spot far from farms and houses, where the grass was green, the trees shaded the ground, and the river ran clear and clean by the shore.

Victor Frankenstein stripped off his clothes.

The water lapped at his toes, his ankles, his calves, his knees, warmer than any stream he’d ever known.

He felt the silt on the palms of his feet. Dripped sparkling gems from his fingertips on his heated flesh until it trembled with goose pimples.

He crouched, dipping his head underwater. Let it sluice down his back when he stood. He scrubbed at his hair, opening his mouth to tongue at the flavor of his own salt as it ran past his lips.

He took the time to feel every part of himself. Memorize it.

Even the hidden parts like the valleys on the inside of his ear, the crease behind his knees, the inside of his elbows. Skin thin, rough, tender, bruised, or soft as lamb’s ears leaves—lightly furred or dense with hair.