“That’s why you could never be in The Castle after sunset,” I said quietly, realizing how close to sunset we were right now.
“I am this thing,” he answered. “I will always be this thing. But I thought I was the only one.” His back straightened. “Something is here, though, in New Haven. Someone else like me. He’s taking women and hurting them, including the girl currently chained up in my family home.”
“But you have her,” I challenged him, doubt creeping back in. “Not someone else.”
“I found her in the woods. She was near death, and though I figured it was a lost cause, I took her home hoping I might be able to save her. At the very least, I thought I would be able to make her final moments more comfortable. But then something strange happened.”
When he didn’t continue, I waved him on. “What happened, Abram.”
“Long story short, the body reanimated. It was hijacked … by Satina.”
I gasped, reacting more as though what I was hearing was a telenovela than my actual reality.
“It was the first time I had seen her since the first time I changed. I didn’t know until then that she’s always been with me, always following me. Because she cursed me with her death, her spirit is connected to mine either until I die or until the curse is broken.” He scoffed, ticking his head to the side. “She said it was time to break it.”
“Break it how?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter!” He growled. “She’s a liar. She wants nothing more than to torment me. Besides, this isn’t about me,” he said, lowering his brow again. “It’s about you.”
“Me?” I asked, scrambling to my feet. “How could any of this be about me?”
“Because of what you are.”
“I’m nothing like you!” I yelled, blinking away whatever momentary crazy allowed me to listen to that story and actually take any of it seriously. Calling himself a monster was one thing, but pulling me into it, that was something else entirely.
“If you would calm down, Ms. Bell—”
“Oh, for God’s sake. You’ve been inside me. I think you can call me by my goddamn name.” I gritted my teeth. “Or better yet, don’t call me anything. Don’t call me anything at all.”
“Get mad if you like, but I’m not the reason this is happening. You are. And until you accept that, it won’t stop. If you would just let me explain—”
“Why? Because those girls look like me? That’s why I’m in danger, right? That has nothing to do with what I am.”
“You’ve got it half right,” he muttered. “You’re not in danger because you look like those girls.” His gaze traveled from my toes up to my eyes. “Those girls were in danger because they looked like you.”
Now he moved closer to me. “You’re a Supplicant, Ms. Bell—Charisse. Your blood has magical properties—the magical properties that a Conduit needs to perform their magic. And there is someone out there like me looking for you, to use you for just that. And it’s obvious he’ll stop at nothing to get to you.”
“How do you know I’m a … whatever it is?” I asked, backing away. “How do you know that beast is after me?”
“Because I knew your father,” he said evenly. “He was a Supplicant, too. You have his eyes.”
My mind flickered back to the first time I ever saw Abram and to the first thing he said to me.
You have a freckle in your eye.
Just like my father.
“You’re insane!” I said, my mind spinning. Maybe magic was real, and he certainly was a beast, but I had nothing to do with this. And to bring my father into it—I refused to hear another thing he had to say.
“You stay the hell away from me. Do you understand?”
I turned and ran, bolting through the woods. When I glanced back, he was just staring after me. As promised, he was letting me leave now that he had said all he had to say.
I swallowed hard, resisting the tug in my heart and stomach that made me want to erase all I had learned.
“Don’t ever talk to me again!” I screamed, more to cement my resolve than to rebuke him. “Not ever again!”
This time when I ran, I didn’t look back. And I swore to myself, right then and there, this would be the last time I ever laid eyes on him.
Chapter 15
It was strange how easily I found my way out of the woods that night. Maybe I had been up and down this path enough to know my way around. But, given my astonishingly bad sense of direction, it probably had more to do with the way my thoughts were racing.
Monsters and witches, curses and fangs—all these things filled my mind. Conduits, whatever they were, and all that other garbage Abram expected me to believe mentally batted me around like one of those beanbags Lulu and I used to kick back and forth in grade school.