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I opened my mouth to speak, but instead of words, nausea swirled through me, threatening to erupt out. Before I could voice it out, everything I ate came out of me. The smell of vomit in the air made me heave again. If it wasn’t for Lazarus turning me to the side, I had a feeling I would’ve vomited all over myself.
“See!” Gabriel yelled. “This is what I’m talking about. We drugged her, electrocuted her, or whatever the fuck that was. She’s in need of medical help.”
My eyes closed, my cheek pressed to the cold surface of the table they were keeping me on, and I felt tired. So fucking tired, but I didn’t want doctors.
“No… Doctors,” I croaked out, breathing through my mouth and trying to calm my stomach.
“Lazarus, please,” Gabriel pleaded with him. “You gotta admit that she looks bad. Really fucking bad.”
“Lazarus isn’t the one making decisions,” Judah piped in. “I am. Don’t you forget that, Gabriel.”
“I wouldn’t dare, but even you have to notice that she looks terrible. The last thing I want tonight is to have another death on my hands.”
Another? Hmm. Maybe Gabriel Lacroix wasn’t as boring as I thought him to be.
I wanted to ask about the other deaths, about the Order Judah spoke about, but I couldn’t move my lips. I couldn’t open my eyes anymore. With the feel of Lazarus’s hand on my back, I could feel the dark lull of sleep coming over me, taking me into its sweet embrace.
As their voices became louder, the pull to just switch off and go to sleep became stronger. Without another thought, I let it take me, dragging me into the pool of memories long forgotten.
I remembered everything now. Every little thing, and I hated my mother all that more for keeping it from me.
Strong gustsof wind pulled out shivers from me as I walked between the houses where Danika lived, careful to avoid any windows or any visible spots where others stood, where they could see me. Even I wouldn’t be able to get out of the interrogations if they saw me with her, bloodied, bruised, and unconscious in my arms.
The first time I saw Danika Ascelin, I was standing above Mikaela’s and my father’s bodies, trying to think of ways to bury them both and to make up a story for their disappearances. And there she was, like an angel standing in the moonlight, with her blonde hair dancing in the wind and the unmistakable interest in her eyes as she perused me, tilting her head when she saw their bodies on the ground.
I saw her before that, of course I did, but she was younger than me, practically invisible in school, but I still saw her. I had no idea why I remembered her or her name, but I simply did, even when I thought that Mikaela would be my entire world. And that night, that fateful night, I knew I was chasing the wrong girl all along, because Danika didn’t even blink when she saw the corpses next to my feet.
She didn’t bat an eye when I pressed my forefinger to my lips, telling her to keep quiet about this. She didn’t run away from me. She didn’t try to scream or shout. She simply left, smiling the entire time and looking at me, as if she'd just found the answer to all her questions.
The next day I found out she was in an accident and that she couldn’t remember her own name, much less anything else.
I waited and watched, counting the days until she would remember that night. Until she would come back to me, bringing back all that light and the darkness that lived inside her. But the girl I saw that night was lost, completely gone, replaced by this stranger who didn’t look at me with the same eyes.
I knew I had to have her, no matter what. Fuck the consequences. Fuck the society and all they wanted us to be and all they wanted us to do.
I wanted her.
I needed her.
I craved that insanity that lived inside those brilliant blue eyes as much as I craved control. I wanted to unravel her, to show her the world, to show her that she would never be alone with me by her side. I wanted everything with her, but she never came back to me.
She never found me, sought me out, not once.
And when I saw her tonight, when I realized that Judah wanted her to be the first Red Maiden for his little Order, I had to bring her back to me.
One way or another, Danika Eleara Ascelin was going to be mine, and no one else’s. I followed along with most of Judah’s plans because it was funny allowing him to think that he had an upper hand on any of us. He knew nothing about me, and he spent every waking moment trying to dig up dirt.
But I covered my tracks and hid the corpses far away from everyone else. Judah Blackwood was just another pathetic, spoiled rich boy who thought he could control someone like me. His family may have owned this town, with their Order and the rituals they did every single year, but they couldn’t own me.
I knew that Judah’s father sent him to befriend me. I also knew that Gabriel Lacroix wanted nothing to do with them, but it wasn’t up to him. None of them had the freedom I did, and tonight showed it.
The moment I gave the serum I personally played with to Danika, something awoke in me. Something primal, unhinged, something that wanted to take her far, far away from here, from these people, these men, because none of them could understand her.
Just how nobody else could understand me.
I found her file in my father’s old office. He played with words like sociopath, borderline personality disorder, and an array of other things I didn’t bother reading, prescribing pills and possible hospitalization, but for me she was perfect.
She would’ve been even better if they hadn’t given her suppressants, letting her think she was just an ordinary girl, letting her suffer in loneliness because her mind wanted to be set free. She wanted the same things as I did, I saw that, but they hadn’t let her.
