“How long?” I rasped.
Talen glanced at Kellee. A sure sign the answer would hurt.
“How long?” I asked again.
“Nine months,” Kellee replied.
Laughter threatened, tugging at my mouth. Nine months of dreaming. Nine months of being his to toy with as he pleased. The drug they had given me could only last so long. Every time I closed my eyes, he would be there. Every time I lay down to sleep, he would be waiting.
I looked at them. Kellee’s concern was easier to read, but worry also pinched Talen’s brow. They had brought me back. Why? Dozens of questions surfaced, but I didn’t ask them. Not yet.
“I just… Can I have some time alone?”
Talen tensed. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
“I don’t care what you think, fae,” I snarled.
He flinched, and I might have regretted the words if I’d had the energy. I owed him and Kellee a debt, but the chittering insanity in my head wouldn’t shut up.
“Go,” Kellee ordered.
Talen’s mouth set into a line. “If her awareness slips—”
“Get out!” I screamed.
He left, long hair swishing like a tail.
“I didn’t mean…” I reached out a hand, and Kellee took it, leading me back to the bed. “I’m sorry. It’s just… He’s…”
“He understands.”
I didn’t think he did, but I didn’t have room in my head to feel sorry for him. I sat on the edge of the bed, cupped my hands on my thighs and sighed. “I have a million questions, but I’m not sure I can handle the answers right now.”
“There’s only one thing you need to know. You are safe here.”
He was wrong, but I smiled anyway. “The last time I saw you…” I winced, trying to find the real memory. My mind was a soup of dreams. “I think… he cut you?”
“He would have killed me. You saved me. Do you remember?”
I did and nodded. I also remembered stabbing him over and over while the Dreamweaver laughed. I swallowed the acid in my throat and looked away. The memories were slippery and difficult to hold on to. But the dreams, the dreams were so real. So real I could reach out and take one.
“It will take time,” Kellee was saying.
The bed moved as he stood. I didn’t want to look up. It would be easier if I didn’t care about anything here. Easier for when he came and took it all away.
“Kellee?”
I didn’t know if Kellee looked. I wasn’t even sure if he was still in the room.
“Thank you.”
The door clicked closed, sealing me alone with the madness clawing at the insides of my skull.
Blood welled in my hands. I plucked my nails free of my palms. That pain was real. And this room was real, and Kellee was real, and I was real. Reality hurt.
They were keeping me in chambers carved into rock. Occasionally, I’d hear something clunk somewhere far off, like a heavy door closing, but there were no other voices, besides the ones in my head. I dry-showered alone, watching my thin arms tremble and the black marks sink deeper into my skin—skin that hung off my bones, distorting the once beautiful swirls.
I had been so proud of those marks. Now I wanted to sink my nails under my skin and peel them off. Sinking my long nails into my palms instead alleviated those urges.
As I exited the shower room, I discovered that one of the males had left some clothes folded at the end of the bed. Simple gray jogging pants and a black long-sleeved top. I returned to the bathroom and looked in the mirror for the first time.
I was skin and bone and nothing else. I poked at my face, below my right eye. The skin barely sprang back. I hadn’t been this emaciated since I’d been punished for fiercely defying an order as a child. I’d learned how to behave after that. How to please my fae masters.
My eyes were sunken, my cheeks too. I was all edges and angles, and not in the striking fae way.
“Shit,” I hissed. It sounded good. Felt good too, forming the word around my tongue and pushing it against the top of my mouth. “Shit, shit, shit.” Then my head spun, and I had to grip the rail to keep from falling over.
I probably should have lain back down, but I couldn’t. I had lain and wasted away for nine months, lost to the dreams. I would have died like that if it hadn’t been for Kellee and Talen.
I scratched my arms, leaving red marks behind. Pain. It was real—or as real as I could tell.
I left the room and drifted wraith-like down a cold corridor. Lights buzzed above, flicking on as I passed under them and blinking off again behind me. Emerging around a bend, a cavern opened ahead. Normal household things were huddled around the edges. A chiller, chairs, couch, a few tables, two cots. A glass cage sat dead center in the middle of the cavern. Its door hung open, chained in place so it couldn’t fall closed.
Talen sat on the edge of a bed on the opposite side of the room. He looked up through the cage’s transparent panes.
Kellee wasn’t here. My empty saru heart fluttered like that silly bird trapped in its cage.
Talen seemed to sense my apprehension. He looked down at the book in his hand. “Kellee will be back soon.”
Why wasn’t he in the cage? Why wasn’t he locked up like he should have been?
His violet eyes flicked up. “I won’t hurt you.”
I swallowed, knowing he heard the click in my throat. I needed a weapon. My hand dropped to my hip, but my whip was long gone. Wouldn’t matter anyway. Without my magic, it was just a metal whip. My fingers brushed the grazes on my neck. I heard—recalled the clatter of the collar hitting the ground. Recalled his hand pushed against my chest. Recalled the life leaving me.
My breath caught, throat closing.
“Are you hungry?” Talen asked.
I blinked. The memory shattered.
He had moved to where the couches formed a circle. Behind them a line of cupboards had been pushed together, forming a kitchen area. I bumped against the wall, unaware I’d been backing up. And now I had nowhere to go, but Talen wasn’t looking. He took a bowl from inside a cupboard, poured something into it and set it on an old heating hob.
“Why…?” I croaked out.
“Why am I not in the cage?” He leaned back against a cupboard and folded his arms. “You will have to ask Kellee that.”
Vague fae karushit. They were all the same. I breathed in through my nose and lifted my head. I was in no condition to fight back. He could snap me like a twig. But I would at least keep my head up and pretend I had strength enough to fight him.
“This is your prison,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Was.”
“Freedom must be nice for you.” I started forward, one foot in front of the other. Not backing down. One foot, then the other. Nothing bad happened. Again. One foot, then the other, then the first again.
“Perhaps it would be, under better circumstances.”
“What do you mean?” I reached for the nearest couch. So close.
He looked down but didn’t hide the full range of emotion on his face. Pain. Shame. Fear.
What in all Halow had happened while I was gone? I opened my mouth to ask and all the expressions on his face fled. He knew what I was going to ask and was already shaking his head. “Wait for Kellee… Right.”
I had only made it as far as the first couch. I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me much farther.
Talen scooped up the bowl and set it down on the table at the center of all the couches. Without saying a word, he returned to his cot and picked up his book.
It was a trick.
He would often do this to me.
Offer kindness and then rip it away.
But the soup smelled good, and I was so hungry my stomach might eat itself at any moment. I pawed my way around the couch and lowered myself into their mismatched cushions. Keeping one eye on the fae, I picked up the bowl and ate, unable to contain the groan when the soup touched my tongue.
Talen’s little smile didn’t go unnoticed.