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"I'm fine. I was hoping I'd be able to get into these boxes, but I guess I'm not sharing Sefton's magic anymore."
Which means we're screwed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dax
I'm not convinced that the fact Allison can't access those boxes means she no longer shares the power Sefton has gathered for himself. But she believes that, and I have no evidence to the contrary. For once, I keep my mouth shut. Well, that's what I should do. I've never been good at not speaking my mind, and I manage to stay silent only until we've gone back upstairs and stand in the foyer, neither of us having any idea what to do now.
"You might still have the power of the Echo inside you," I say. "Perhaps the spell Sefton cast to stop you from escaping again is also dampening the magics you share with him. Or maybe it's not sharing at all."
"What do you mean it's not sharing?"
"Sefton told us you share the Echo power. We don't know if that's true. Your magics might stem from a different source."
"I guess that could be the case. Doesn't help me now, though."
"When did you first notice something different inside you?"
"Back in the warehouse." She hugs herself and looks away, biting the inside of her lip. "When we, um…"
"When we what? You need to tell me everything."
"Oh really." She lifts her chin. "Have you told me everything? No, of course not."
I thought we were past all this rubbish, but of course we're not. Did I expect her to trust me implicitly just because I fucked her? Yes, I'm that sort of idiot. And perhaps I've misunderstood her mood right now. She told me she noticed a change "back in the warehouse." She can't mean… No. It has nothing to do with me.
Even when I'd been popular with women, I hadn't known a ruddy thing about intuiting their feelings and needs—other than the sexual kind. I'm even worse at it now. Allison won't tell me what she wants, and that fact irritates me. Which explains why I resort to growling at her.
"What are you claiming I haven't told you?" I demand. "You know about my past and what Sefton did to me."
She huffs. "You seriously think that's everything? Come on. You were trapped in the Echo for five years."
"I'm aware of that."
"Tell me about it."
"About what?"
She throws her arms out and growls, not unlike the way I often do. "Tell me what happened to you in the Echo."
"You don't want to know."
Allison throws her head back and makes another frustrated growling noise. "You are so pigheaded. I want to know. I need to know. Has it never occurred to you that what happened in the Echo might have some bearing on the current situation?"
"Not what I went through. It was torture, not information gathering."
She stares at me for a moment, lips puckered. Then she exhales a long sigh. "Do what you want. I'm going to the kitchen to get a snack. All that self-defense training made me hungry."
Allison whirls around and marches down the hallway toward the kitchen.
I hurry after her.
Yes, I've now been reduced to trailing after a woman like a lost puppy. In the Echo, I was fearsome. I'd needed to be, thanks to the brutality inherent in that world. I became a monster out of necessity. But the longer I'm with Allison, the less I feel like a beast. I haven't reverted to the old me, but I have begun to feel less like the monster who abducted Allison and more like a human being. Something has shifted inside me, but I can't explain or describe the change.
I find Allison in the kitchen. Though she was only a few seconds ahead of me, she already has the refrigerator open and is grabbing items from inside, then tossing them onto the island. Tossing them with more vigor than seems necessary.
Allison wants to know everything. And I suddenly realize I want to tell her.
