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The icing on the cake, the thing that made me want to punch him the most? I was smiling. He’d used my name, the one I hated, and made me smile while he did.
The compulsion slowly drained away, the feeling of being a puppet softened, and my body became my own again.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I said the second I could.
“You don’t like it? Learn to stop me.”
All I wanted to do was get up and go to the door. I’d never felt so helpless in my life, but there was nowhere to go, no one to help. This was it. The only thing that had saved me from dying was some strange reservation that I didn’t understand and no one explained. As far as my life went, he was king. I had no recourse, and even though I had full control of my body, the weight of what held me in this place felt heavier than ever.
“Are you ready to try to focus now?” he asked.
I opened my mouth, the wordsgo screwprimed for release. I could nearly taste the joy of seeing his face as someone finally said that to him. I suspected he heard it much less than was deserved. Yet the words didn’t come, and it wasn’t from lack of balls. I’d been accused of having too much passion in my past, but I wasn’t an idiot. I was playing in a world, a game, where I didn’t know the rules. If I wanted out, I had to learn how to survive in it first. I’d figure out this place and then turn it inside out and get my life back.
“I’m ready,” I said, my tone calm because it had to be. I was a numbers girl, and the deck was stacked against me, but damned if I wouldn’t try to turn this hand around.
I was going to have to learn how to maneuver in this world, one where he had control, for the time being. I’d learn it so well I’d find a way to rewrite the rules.
When his gaze met mine this time, it seemed to get stuck as we both reassessed the parts we played.
He nodded slowly and cleared his throat. “Let’s begin. You’re going to tell me what to do in a benign way, as if you were asking me to hand you something. Most tinkers need to form a physical connection. Skin to skin is best, but as you get better, you might be able to do it with a layer of clothes in between.” He rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm.
“What about how you just did it?” I asked. That was a neat parlor trick I’d like to have in my back pocket.
“We’ll see,” he said, not seeming evasive but honest.
I wrapped both hands around his wrist, ignoring how physical contact with him made me even more unsettled.
“You’re not concerned that I might make you do something you don’t want?” I smiled.
“No.” He smiled back.
There was no hesitation in his belief that I couldn’t possibly do anything to him. I gripped him tighter.
“You’re going to find a way to get me out of this godforsaken place,” I said, focusing every thought, every ounce of energy I had, on him.
His face went slack, his eyes dazed.
Then he said, “Not as horrible as I feared, but you’ll have to practice your focus. It feels scattered and all over the place.”
I dropped my hand and could see his amusement as the corner of his mouth lifted.
“I’m a very focused person. I’ve never been called scattered in my life, not even as a kindergartener.”
“According to what I feel?” He raised a brow. “Scattered.”
“You’re mistaken,” I said, trying to keep the calm façade even as I wanted to punch him in the face and storm out. Unfortunately, the latter had already been attempted and failed.
“I think I’m capable of judging.”
“And you’re never wrong? Why does that not shock me?” I asked, poking at him the only way I had left.
“Continue,” he said, looking down at his arm. “But put a little more effort in this time.” He grinned.
You can’t win a game when you don’t know how it’s played. I’d let him bully me and talk down to me as long as it took to learn, because I was going to become a master of this, if for no other reason than to beat him.
Chapter Thirteen
Cookie, Connor, and Dice were sitting around the lounge area, another marathon on the television as they continued their endless mundane chatter, which usually included something about lollipops, bets, what some human did, or another idiotic topic that made me want to be knocked unconscious.
