Page 37 of Pareidolia

Fuck.

“What did you do to me?” I don’t want to ask him again, but I don’t feel like I can force an answer.

I don’t feel like I can force anything.

For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I’m in control… and what really pisses me off is that that might be the part of this I like the most.

“You took my shadows before,” he finally answers. “This time I gave them to you.”

“Gave them? You tore me open and forced them inside me. You made me drown in it, you…” The tendrils at my wrists drop me, and he steps close enough that I’m forced to crane my neck to meet that smug, vicious expression.

“You came on my cock while I tore you open, Aspen. You choked on my saliva and bled out on a table, and all I could feel was how much you wanted more. You would have died for it.”

“Fuck you,” I hiss, because saying he’s a liar wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good at this point, but I’m not admitting that he’s right. “You can’t just do that to people, Nox. That’s not how the world works.” I snap. The corner of his mouth lifts as soon as I do.

“Do you think I’m bound by your petty human contracts of right and wrong? I wanted you, Aspen. I want to keep you, so I did.”

The things beneath my skin start to squirm. Worse, my cock perks up in reaction, twitching in the pants I just pulled on. I can’t want what happened between us to happen again—if I let it, there’s a very real chance that he’ll kill me. Or that he’ll keep giving me exactly what I want until there’s nothing left of me.

Either way, I have to figure out how much freedom I actually have. It’s obvious that I’m not leaving, but…

“I need to go,” I say, and his eyes narrow. “I’m not running again, you asshole. I have to get food. I can’t just live on emotions like you.”

His head tilts as he looks me over, those red eyes flashing again curiously.

“You’d be surprised.”

I don’t want to know what he means by that, though I have a sinking suspicion.

“I didn’t ask to be changed.” It’s an accusation that seems to roll off him just like everything else I’ve verbally hurled his way.

“I don’t need permission to take what’s mine.” His answer is so simple, so calm and confident. He says I’m his like it’s a truth born from the center of the earth with roots that run all the way through.

“And I don’t need permission to walk out this fucking door,” I snap back, though there’s something a little less commanding about it when I have to step away from him and go dig through my backpack to find clothes. There’s no point in me trying to scrub myself clean, so I pull on a shirt and do my best to get rid of the visible blood from the skin that isn’t covered by the dark black hoodie I yank on over it.

When I glance in the little mirror hung on the wall above the basin, I can still see the faint traces of blood along the curve of my jaw… and I can see Nox’s reflection behind me. He wavers, his form shifting slightly… tangible, and then smoke, shadows and then solid.

When I turn, he still looks the same.

“You can go.” There’s something curious in his gaze. Something wicked enough that I almost want to stay now just to do the opposite of what he says. If it weren’t for the fact that I need a shower and some food… and maybe to put my foot on the gas and get as far away from here as possible, I’d probably do it just to show him I don’t have to listen to a damn word he says.

I still have free will—I’m still my own person.

Even if I was whining on his cock like a goddamn dirty slut last night while he tried to kill me.

“I am,” I frown. “Going, I mean. I’m going.” I glance out the windows of the fire tower, and my eyes roam over the endless trees—green as far as the eye can see. I don’t even know what time it is, just that there’s still light out, so the stores in town are probably open. When I grab my phone, the fucking screen is black.

Dead.

Great.

It could be noon, or the sun could be setting in an hour. I have no idea. Being in this fire tower with Nox makes me feel like I’m trapped in some strange version of reality, and I can’t get my bearings.

“Go on then, Aspen. I won’t physically stop you.”

My eyes narrow. That’s ominous as fuck, and I can tell we both know it by the smile that he gives me as I turn to leave.

I still don’t know what he did to me—I still don’t know what I am now. He said he gave me his shadows, and I can feel them writhing beneath my skin as I walk out the door, like a warning that I’m going to learn exactly what it is about me that’s changed.