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“Should we—”
I silence her with a kiss. She leans close, her breathing erratic.
Yes.
Yes, more of this.
So much more, as much as I can get in the next three weeks…
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
I sleep fitfully, dreaming of people and events that aren’t quite reality… but do have the ring of truth.
In my dream, I am a beautiful perfectly-groomed doll in a pretty blue dress, sitting on Isla’s shelf. Isla is nowhere to be seen so I just sit up on the ledge, high above everything in her childlike room. I long to play with her but it has been ages since anyone has entered the room.
“Isla!” I try calling. The teddy bears glare at me from their jumbled pile in the corner. Like me, I get the feeling that they are alive and unable to do anything but wait to be useful.
After what feels like eons by myself, I decide that I’m going to climb down from the shelf. I don’t know what’s below but it has to be better than just sitting here gathering dust.
Shaking out my long raven locks, I pick up the skirt of my dress and begin to climb down. I can feel my painted-on smile; I was made to please, never to cause anyone anything but joy.
I am so sick of needing to please everyone. What about what I want out of life?
I climb down, hanging onto the ledge by my fingertips. The effort to hold on is enormous… but my fear of the fall is intense. Beads of plastic sweat form on my forehead, falling down and bouncing off my dress. They skitter away as I gather the nerve to look down.
Just then, someone bursts in Isla’s bedroom door. I know it’s Keir somehow, even though I can’t see behind me. The energy of the room changes and Isla’s bedroom vanishes with a swirl.
Keir grabs me as the shelf I’m holding onto vanishes. He turns me around, smirking at how tiny I am.
“Where are you going?” he asks. “Hm?”
I tilt my chin up at him, frowning. Can I speak? I’m not sure.
“I’m a real girl,” I tell him. My voice sounds like the tinkling of a music box. Sweet and angelic, as one would expect from a doll.
He throws back his head with a laugh that chills me to the bone. “You’ll do exactly what I want, when I want it. And if not?”
He points to the darkened corner. In it churns something dark and poisonous, waiting for its opportunity to swallow me up. Ice freezes all the blood in my veins and the breath in my lungs.
“Not there…” I murmur. “Please, anywhere but there!”
“You can go right back in the box, my pretty little doll. Or you can–”
My eyes snap awake in the next second. For a second I’m disoriented. I sit up, trying to see what exactly woke me up.
There is a dark figure standing in the doorway, his face in shadow. I shriek and he enters my room. A stripe of light is thrown from the window and it illuminates him.
It’s Keir.
I put my hand over my pounding heart, my mouth in an O of shock.
“Oh thank gad, it’s just you,” I whisper.
“Ella, Ella, Ella…” he tsks. “How lovely you look in that bed, sweetheart.”
“It’s the middle of the night!” I protest.
“Yes. But I had a couple fingers of whiskey and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About how good you make me feel when you come.”
