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I shrugged and lifted my hands to ask why.
“They said it is like talking to one’s food. It only makes the job harder. Is it strange that the first toy I’ve really wanted to speak to can’t speak back?” She let outa soft laugh, as if fate were cruel and laughing was the only response a person could have. “Perhaps they’re right.”
She leaned in, staring into my eyes, and that was when I experienced the full wash of her power. The command in her voice had been a whisper against my defenses, but her eyes pulled me into that dark void I’d seen inside Kit. It yanked me beneath it, made me unable to surface again.
I found myself in darkness, in a black, endless shadow. I spun around, finding nothing around, having no idea where I was.
“We can speak privately now.” The girl’s voice had me turning again to find her behind me.
But not exactly. It had the same feeling as when I saw Kit in my dreams, a knowledge that it wasn’t exactly real, that we weren’t there. “Where are we?” Just as before, my voice left my lips this time, telling me again this wasn’t the real world.
The corner of her lips on one side tilted up. “You have a lovely voice. It is a shame it was taken from you. As for where we are, it isn’t anywhere, really. We are still there, in that room, but we can communicate here. Think of it as the emptiness inside me, the endless hunger where we can talk privately.”
“What do you want with me? What do you mean by toy?”
“You saw the others that you passed when you came here, didn’t you? Those are the toys. They are empty vessels to be used for the betterment of the world. They are monsters on leashes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t?” She frowned, as if surprised and disappointed at having to repeat herself or explain. “Ican remove what they are, their will, their memories, everything that makes them who they are. I consume it until they are docile, until they are obedient. They become toys, just shells to be moved about and played with, who follow only the order of the Warden.”
“How does that better the world?” I pushed the question out past the fear that threatened to lock my throat down. Of all the things I’d suffered through in Larkwood, the idea of losing myself ranked as the most terrifying. My past slipping away, not being who I was anymore, that was a nightmare beyond anything I’d considered before.
“We are monsters,” she said, though her words came out softer, as if she’d heard them so many times that she knew them by heart. “We destroy the world. We are unnatural and we do not belong here. However, we are also stronger than we should be. That means creating toys to keep the balance is necessary.”
The self-hatred in her voice broke my heart. I’d heard it before, from Wade, from Knox, but never like this. I’d heard it from people who had other voices in their heads, who had a life before turning into shades. This girl spoke with the certainty of someone who had learned nothing else, as if she’d lived her entire life hearing only that she was evil.
“You’re not a monster,” I said.
“Of course I am. We all are. How can you see what we do and not realize that? How can you see the damage shades can inflict and not realize we don’t belong here? That we are unnatural?” She paused, her gaze moving away as if she were thinking. “I canfeelthe tears through which source flows. Did you know that? You might feel them too, if you learned to, but I can feel them all the time. I’ve heard whispers throughthem, and it makes me wonder…what is on the other side? Is that where we belong? Perhaps we are creatures that are natural to the other side of the tears but somehow end up here?”
I got the sense that she didn’t expect an answer, and I really didn’t have one for her. I’d never heard that, never considered there might be something beyond our realm. Where source came from? How it leaked in through tears? How those tears were made? Those things were never spoken about, they were ignored and pushed aside as just facts of life.
It was like wondering if life existed on another planet. The question was beyond me and would never have any meaningful effect on me, thus I ignore it.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I came to Larkwood as soon as I changed, so I don’t know anything about that.”
“So you lived outside of these walls before?” She leaned forward, as if drawn by my answer.
“I was nineteen when I changed, so I lived most of my life with my parents.”
A sad longing crossed her features, and it told me what she didn’t need to say. She’d been raised here, without a family, without access to anything else.
It made me want to save her, made me hope she could escape as well.
After a moment, she shook her head. “I guess we’re about out of time.”
I stepped backward and shook my head. “You don’t have to do this. I want to help, to save people.”
“There are many ways to save others. One is to ensure that we can’t harm others. That’s why I do this. It won’t hurt, and you wouldn’t remember if it did, anyway. Perhaps you should be grateful, because whenI finish, you won’t remember what you’ve lost, who you were. All the pain in your life will go away and you won’t have to carry it anymore. You will be happy to follow orders, won’t have to worry or be sad or lonely ever again. That is a gift that few are lucky enough to receive.”
The word lonely stuck out. No doubt she best identified with that feeling. Her tone even had an odd kindness, as if erasing that loneliness mattered to her.
She moved so fast that I couldn’t retreat, couldn’t do anything. She wrapped her hand around my throat, the skin shifting to a familiar form. It elongated, thinned, and had long claws at the tips of each finger. It was what I’d seen so many times from Kit.
Her face changed, shimmering until a skull stared at me instead of her young face. Her voice was disembodied and darker when she spoke again. “Don’t fight—there’s no point to it. Just let everything you were pour out of you, become an empty shell. It’ll happen either way, but it will be easier on you if you don’t struggle.”
A darkness slipped into me, her eyes drawing me deeper down. Except, as soon as it happened, something else slid through me.
