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I dig my fingers into his jaw until I can feel his teeth under the skin. “What have you done to yourself?”

His brow pulls together. “Wh…”

“Answer me.”

He tries to turn his head away.

I wrench him back. “You look at me when I’m talking to your body.”

For a moment there’s nothing in the room except his face in my hand and that fresh pink line on his thigh. The others are old. I can live with old. Simon had an entire life before I chose him.

This one happened on my time.

I let his head fall and put my fingers on the pink mark, pressing until Simon groans. A week or two. Mine. He did it while his clothes were in my dresser and his shifts were in my head and I was already building the room around him.

“You did this while I was watching you.”

Simon makes another useless sound.

I drag his face up until mine fills whatever consciousness the drug left him. “That thigh is not yours to decorate. Not one inch of you is yours to punish. None of this is yours to ruin. Do you understand me?”

Nothing.

I shake him once, sharp. “Simon.”

“Heather,” Jamie says quietly.

I’m off the bed and on him in two steps. I twist my fist into Jamie’s hair and drag his head down until he’s close enough to see the pink line. “Look at it. Look at what he did to my doll. Do you think that’s acceptable?”

Jamie’s voice comes out strangled. “He can’t answer you.”

I haul him upright by the hair, close my other hand around his throat, and walk him backward until his shoulders hit the wall. “What the fuck have I told you about damaging my things? You don’t interrupt me when I’m correcting him. You don’t get to be careful with a man who took a blade to a body that’s mine.”

His next swallow pushes against my palm.

“If I want your fucking opinion, I’ll tell you what it is.”

I drop my hand. Jamie stays against the wall, breathing through his mouth.

I look back at the scar. Then at the older ones around it. He likes pain. I knew that. I didn’t give him permission to administer it.

I’ve buried six Jamies and three Olivers. I know where they break and what they reach for when they start coming apart. I’ve never had a Simon before.

I take his face again with exactly enough care to preserve what belongs to me. “You’re going to learn. You don’t damage my things without permission. You don’t bleed without asking me first.”

Simon won’t remember the first rule I give him.

That’s all right. I’ll teach it to him on his knees when the pills wear off, and Jamie can watch that lesson too.

I leave Simon on the bed and cross to the shelf.

The first puzzle is wood, six interlocking pieces fitted into a cube. Harmless. I put it back. The second is heavier, two pieces of polished steel twisted through each other. One end tapers enough that I can catch it beneath my thumbnail.

I throw it at Jamie. He catches it against his chest.

The next one is wood. I leave it. The little brass puzzle comes apart into four pieces, none of them long enough to matter now that I’ve seen what he does when he’s unsupervised. I leave that too.

“I thought those were for him.” Jamie adjusts the metal puzzle against his chest.