Chapter Nineteen
T he next day, Ezra is pacing in the observation room when I enter, hair askew from running his fingers through it. He stops when he sees me and offers a smile that’s strained around the edges.
“You look tired,” he says.
“So do you,” I say, studying the shadows under his eyes.
“I have a meeting with Dr. Wright and the director today,” he says. “You can stay here, practice your abilities, or speak to Dorian through the panel if you want.”
I can’t deny I’m eager for a chance to be alone with Dorian, but the tension in his expression unsettles me. I’ve always been hypervigilant about noticing such things, and now, it’s like a prickle of alarm under my skin. “Is something wrong?”
His gaze darts away from mine. One of his shoes taps against the tile. “No. I don’t think so.”
His anxiety is contagious; now it’s pooling in my gut as well. “You don’t think they know what we’ve been doing? Did they notice the camera being turned off?”
“If they knew I was carrying out unapproved experiments in one of their labs, I’m sure they’d be here this very second, shutting us down.”
Despite his words, he doesn’t look convinced. “Then…?”
“I don’t know what they want, but I’m sure it’s no big deal. Just…wait here for me.” He gestures with one hand, a calming motion. “I should be back in about an hour.”
“Okay,” I say, my stomach coiled in knots.
As he turns to walk out the door, I act on instinct. My hand juts out at my side, and I pull .
When the door clicks shut behind Ezra, I’m left alone in the observation room with his MRF ID clutched in my palm. My heart is pounding, and I’m sure he’ll check his pocket and realize that it’s empty…but a minute ticks by, and nothing happens.
I glance at the camera to verify that it’s still shut off, and clutch the card hard enough that the plastic bends. This is risky. And wrong. I’m betraying Ezra’s trust, and I could get him in trouble with his superiors, but I can’t shake the worry that he’s already in trouble, despite his denials. Maybe his superiors are already onto us, and maybe they’re not. Either way, this may be my only chance to see Dorian face-to-face unsupervised.
But as I step outside, I come to a stop, my eyes finding the camera in the corner of the hallway. I’m sure there’s another one in his cell. Am I willing to risk everything to see him? This could be my last chance.
What if I ruin any shot at Dorian being released from this place?
While I’m still standing, torn by indecision, footsteps approach.
“Gwen?”
I turn to see Ezra’s friend, Mara, approaching with concern etched on her face. I shove Ezra’s keycard into my pocket.
“Is everything all right?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, but my voice cracks and my eyes well with tears before I can stop it. I’m so tired of keeping everything inside, pretending everything is okay. But it’s humiliating to break down like this in front of a near stranger. “Well, no. I-I…” I stare hopelessly at the doorway to Dorian’s cell, the keycard burning a hole in my pocket. I’m so close to him, closer than I’ve ever been, but still not close enough.
Mara follows my gaze to the door, and her expression turns sympathetic. “I see,” she murmurs. “Believe it or not, I may know how you feel.”
“Did Ezra tell you about what we’re doing?” I ask, hope and dread waging war in my churning stomach.
“He didn’t tell me much about you. But he told me about Dorian. I said I’d help if I could.”
“Then help me,” I burst out before I can second-guess myself. “I need to see him. Privately.”
Mara hesitates. “I…might be able to help with that, but…”
“Please,” I beg.
She glances up and down the hallway, wets her lips. “Okay,” she says. “I can get you a few minutes.” She moves her hands in sudden, rapid hand movements I recognize as sign language but can’t understand. Then my attention snags on her shadow cast on the wall behind her. It’s moving, too—but I swear the motions are delayed, and different , than what she’s doing with her hand.
As soon as I blink, it’s back to normal, and I’m not sure if I imagined the whole thing.
“Wait two minutes,” Mara says. “Then do what you need to do.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“You’re welcome.” Her lips twinge. “Daisy.”
* * *
Two minutes later, I hold my breath as I swipe Ezra’s keycard—and the door opens with a beep. My heart hammers in my ears as I step through.
But the second door holds firm when I tug on the handle. There’s no keypad here, nothing but a blank metal door. My heart stops—but I remember watching Ezra come through here, and thinking it was like an airlock. When I shut the external door behind me, the inner one clicks open.
Then there is nothing stopping me from stepping into Dorian’s cell.
I turn in a circle, taking in the entire room. I’m struck again by how tiny it is. I closed the shutters and turned off the viewing window’s opacity before leaving the observation room so even that is gone, leaving what appears to be a normal mirror.
And Dorian is nowhere to be found. Avoiding me even now.
“Dorian,” I say. “It’s just me. I want to talk.”
A moment passes. He doesn’t appear.
Frustration pricks me. “I know you’re here. Show yourself!”
I’m still turning to search the room, but I jerk to a stop as he appears. He’s suddenly standing in front of me, looking down from behind his mask. I step toward him, and he steps back. He folds all four arms over his chest and tilts his head toward the door behind me.
“Really?” I clench my jaw, teeth grinding in frustration. “I’m not leaving here until you explain what’s going on.” I step closer, and he steps back. I circle around him, forcing him to turn to watch me. As if he’s the one who needs to be wary here. “Why are you avoiding me? Ezra and I are trying to help you—” His eyes flash behind the mask, and I pause. “What? Ezra ?” He turns his head. “Has he done something?”
Dorian gives the tiniest shake of his head, like he loathes to admit it.
I sigh. Relieved, despite myself. “So you’re just…what?” I stop circling, one hand on my hip. “Are you jealous of him?”
With his head still turned away from me, I can see the hard line of Dorian’s jaw as he clenches it.
“You’re ridiculous,” I whisper. I feel ridiculous too, having a conversation out loud by myself, but when we’re this close, it’s like we don’t need to talk. “There’s nothing between me and Ezra.” Dorian turns back to me, rolls his eyes behind the mask. “Fine, there’s something, but we’re just friends .”
His eyes darken.
“I am allowed to have other friends.”
He is radiating silent fury. But when I step closer, he doesn’t retreat this time. I reach out and grab the front of his suit, digging my fingers into the fabric. Real, solid fabric bunched in my hand.
“But you and I are something different,” I say. “Something more. I remember enough to know that.” I search his eyes, so very dark behind the mask, his pupils huge and black and locked on me. All four hands clench like he’s physically holding himself back from touching me.
Why?
“Just tell me what’s going on,” I beg. “Tell me what to do.”
He reaches with one gloved hand to touch my face, but when I lean into the feather-soft contact, he pulls away. Another hand points at the door behind me.
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” I say. The words taste familiar. “I’m not afraid of the MRF. I’m getting my powers back. And my memories.”
The lights flicker above us. A burst of static comes from the radio. I glance at it, and then back at Dorian—and his hands wrap around my throat. He forces me backward until I hit the wall, and leans in close, his mask brushing my nose.
“It’s not them you should be afraid of,” he whispers, his voice coming both from behind the mask and the radio, dark, distorted.
I smile, even with his gloved hands wrapped around my throat. I tilt my head back, surrendering to him.
“Are you trying to scare me away?” I ask. “It’s too late for that.”
His grip on me goes slack. I wrap my arms around him before he can pull away. He rears back, but I hold him close. After a second he gives in, shoulders slumping, mask resting against my forehead.
“My Dorian,” I murmur. He’s so warm and solid against me. I hadn’t realized until now how long it’s been since anyone touched me. I arch against him, pulling him closer, asking for more, more .
There is an answering desperation in his touch. One of his hands grips the back of my head in a possessive motion; two others slide down over my hips. The last still grips my throat, but it’s more of a caress than a threat.
“Dorian,” I say, lower this time, hoarse, a plea. I’m not sure what I’m asking for, but he seems to know.
He lifts me, carrying me to the table. In the mirror behind him, I see only the reflection of myself sitting on the edge with my legs spread and my dress rucked up around my waist. Mortified, I move to close them, but Dorian is standing between them, making it impossible.
This isn’t what I came here for. There is so much I need to talk to him about, to understand why he’s acting like this, to form a plan to help him escape. But…he is so close, and I’ve missed this so very much.
“We shouldn’t,” I whisper. But as Dorian leans closer, I tilt my head back, lips parting, opening myself to him.
Dorian lifts his mask just enough that he can kiss me. It’s hesitant at first, but when I kiss back, he grips me harder, kisses me more deeply. Urgently.
“My Dorian,” I say again, my fingers digging into the muscles of his back. He groans at the sound of his name in my mouth and kisses me again, his tongue moving against mine. Two of his hands caress my breasts while the other two slide up my thighs. My skin is hot and sensitive, each touch making me whimper. My power sizzles beneath my skin—and when Dorian kisses me again, it flows through me and into him. His body feels harder, hotter, as he grinds against me.
As his mouth moves down to my neck, I catch another glimpse of myself in the mirror behind him. My hair is askew and my lips parted as I pant. As Dorian bites a sensitive spot on my neck, I cry out and watch through heavily lidded eyes as the red marks appear on my skin. God, it’s hot, watching myself be ravished like this.
I feel so held, so cherished in his arms, yet still I want more. I want all of him. I want to show him that all of me still belongs to him. I want to know that our bodies still fit like we were made for each other.
Right now, I don’t care about how I look in the mirror, or about Ezra finding out about this, or even whether or not Dorian is a murderer. Because I have never felt anything as right as being held by him. This is how it was. This is how it should be. The two of us, forever entwined, never to be separated.
“I miss you so much,” I groan as his tongue trails down my neck. I missed him before I remembered him. Even when I thought I was insane, I could feel that a piece of myself was missing, and here it is. Dorian, my Dorian.
He breathes against my skin, inhales the scent of me, and then rips my panties straight off. He crumples them in his fist and shoves them into his pocket before I can protest. “You have no idea,” he whispers through the radio as his fingers slide inside of me. I can feel the heat of him through the leather gloves. His voice is so much clearer now, barely a crackle of static to it. “I thought of you every day, every minute, every second. Even when I didn’t know myself, I knew you.”
I whimper as his fingers work inside of me, stretching me out, effortlessly finding the spot that makes me gasp and writhe. “Take me,” I say. “Take all of me, I’m yours.”
“Mine,” he echoes. Two of his hands pull off his belt while he continues to fuck me slowly with his fingers. I fumble with his buttons as he kicks his shoes off. Soon he’s long and lean and gloriously naked over me, except for his mask and his gloves. He pulls his fingers out of me, and my whimper of protest dies away as a long tongue slides out of the hole in his mask to lick them clean.
My gaze darts between his mouth and his cock—
Cocks , that is.
I blink, a strangled noise escaping me as I take in the sight. Two cocks, both of them hard and ready and terrifying in their size. I don’t know why that shocks me more than the four arms, except that I know that every time his body has changed, it’s been—
“For me,” I whisper, wrapping a hand around one thick shaft and giving him an experimental stroke. Dorian gasps, thrusting into my hand.
“Always,” he pants through the radio. “Only for you.”
I bite back a whimper as I reach with my other hand to stroke both of his lengths at once. He grips the table so hard, the metal groans, his head falling forward and his eyes shutting in bliss.
“I’ve always been everything you need,” he pants. “ All that you need.”
“Yes,” I whisper, drinking in the sound of his voice, the sight of his pleasure.
But when he opens his eyes and looks down at me, there’s a vulnerability in his gaze, too.
“You still are,” I promise him, realizing what he’s after. “You’re the only one. Always and forever.”
“Tell me he’s nothing.”
It takes me a moment to remember who he’s even talking about. “He’s nothing,” I say, burying a hint of guilt as I think of Ezra’s late nights helping me, everything he’s risking for us.
“I hate watching him with you,” Dorian confesses, a raw note in his voice that makes him sound more human than ever. “While I’m trapped in here— While I can’t—”
“Stop it.” I squeeze both of his cocks hard enough that he grunts in surprise, hips jerking. I look up at him, holding his gaze. “Stop talking about him. I’m here. This is about us.”
He breathes shakily. Nods.
But just as I’m finding a rhythm again, Dorian pushes my hands away and spreads my thighs, lining one of those stiff lengths up with the wet heat of my core. He strokes the other slowly.
My breath hitches. I want this so badly, I’m dripping for it, but still… “You’re so big,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I can…”
“You can take me,” he promises, before I can even finish. He lifts my chin with one finger, looking me in the eyes. But though he said it like a fact, there’s a question in his gaze.
I swallow and nod. I always thought I was a virgin, but…there’s a sense of rightness, a flicker of familiarity, as he slides the head of his cock against my slick need. My body remembers him, even though our past is lost to the void of my memories.
And of course, how could Dorian be anything but perfect for me?
I tremble and arch as his fingers slide down the notches of my spine. My legs part wider, ready for him.
He yanks me to the edge of the table, and then he’s pushing against me, working himself into me inch by inch, stretching me out until I am full to the brim.
A perfect fit . Like he was—
“Made for me,” I gasp, clutching him. Of course he is. Every piece of him is designed to give me what I need. Four strong arms to hold me, two perfect cocks to please me.
I cry out, digging my nails into his shoulders as he fucks me slow and deep, pressing me into the table. I claw at his back, whimper his name. His hands are all over me, caressing and gripping me, all four sliding over my ass, my breasts, my hips. We are caught somewhere between a feral need and an aching tenderness. When tears gather in the corners of my eyes, he licks them away—then at the trickle of blood sliding down from my nose to my upper lip. He shudders at the taste of me.
As his pace increases, he lifts me off the table, holding me effortlessly in the air as he thrusts inside of me. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror again, and I look— God . I look unhinged, possessed, otherworldly. Then Dorian turns me and pushes me against the mirror, fucking me against it so I look up and see him, and only him, his eyes dark and intense behind the white mask. His other cock slides against my clit as he thrusts, and my eyes roll back in pleasure. As my fingers dig into his muscular back, I know—I know with absolute certainty—that he has held me just like this, fucked me just like this.
And I somehow forgot.
My heart aches as I hold him. Even as he ruts against me and gasps my name, even as my body pulses and trembles through another orgasm right along with him, I cannot ignore the sense that something important is missing. I miss him even when we’re skin to skin, even when he’s still deep inside me. Even as he pulls out only to thrust his second cock into me, filling me up again, I gasp and plead for more.
Tears slide down my cheeks as I press my face into his shoulder.
Dorian pulls out of me, leaving me aching and empty, and sets me down on the floor.
Two hands still hold me steady as the others grip my face and lift it toward his, gentle and questioning. I squeeze my thighs together as I feel him dripping out of me, desperate to hold on to any piece of him I can get.
“How could I forget you?” I ask, my voice trembling. “How could I ever forget?”
Even without seeing his face, I sense him shift. He pulls away from my touch, turns his masked face from me. When he releases me and steps back, I teeter on my feet, leaning against the window for support.
“You mustn’t remember,” he whispers through the radio, and presses a hand to his heart. “Trust me, Daisy. And leave me .”
“No.” I wipe at my tears, furious at my weakness. “We can leave right now. Let’s find a way together.” I don’t have to remember everything to know that I want him walking out of here with me. “I don’t care what you’ve done—what we’ve done. We belong together.”
“You’re safer without me,” he says.
Before I can open my mouth to refute it, he disappears. And no matter how much I cry and shout for him, he doesn’t come back.
* * *
Ezra finds me slumped at the table in the observation room, head in my hands. I lift it to look at him as he walks in. I hid his keycard among his files on the table and spent a while cleaning up in the bathroom, fixing my rumpled clothes and wild hair, washing my face and between my thighs. Still, it feels like my guilt is written all over my skin, like every place Dorian’s hands and mouth touched me must glow like red brands of condemnation. I am humiliatingly aware of my bareness beneath my skirt, the throbbing soreness between my thighs.
But Ezra seems like he’s hardly able to look at me anyway. His head is low, his eyes on the floor.
I sit up. “What’s wrong? What did they say?”
He pushes his glasses up to massage the bridge of his nose. “They think I’ve been spending too much time working with Dorian. That I should place more focus on my other subjects.”
My heart sinks. “But Dorian needs you.” We need you .
Ezra shrugs. “They don’t see it that way. Dr. Wright is angry that I haven’t encouraged Dorian to pass on, and I couldn’t come up with a good excuse without revealing everything.” He looks at me. “She and Director Ramsey still believe he murdered your parents, so they’re not even considering rehabilitation. Therefore, he’s a lost cause.”
My lower lip trembles. “But that’s not true.”
“I don’t know that for sure. Neither do you. And he won’t cooperate.”
I open my mouth, shut it again. “We can’t give up now,” I say in a quiet voice. “Let’s…” I pause, swallow. Think of Dorian saying “you mustn’t remember.” Warning me of danger . “Let’s do one more memory retrieval. Let’s go back to that night.”
He blinks at me, surprised. His mouth works for a moment before he says, “I’m not sure if you’re ready for that.”
“I might never be ready,” I say. “But I need to know.”
Ezra searches my face, and I feel laid bare in front of him. “Did something happen?”
“I just…” Should I tell him the truth? But I’m not even sure what the truth is. I don’t know how to express the jumble of fears inside of me, the nightmares that have been keeping me up at night, the weird occurrences around me and my unpredictable powers. If I try, I’m scared I’ll just sound crazy.
I trust Ezra, but I know it would put him in a difficult position if I admit that my powers are getting out of control. If I told him I think I might be a danger to myself and others, would he continue to let me walk around town freely? Or would he lock me up in the MRF, just another one of his subjects?
Tears of frustration sting the corners of my eyes, and I blink them away, turning to gaze through Dorian’s viewing window instead of looking Ezra in the eyes. “It’s…so hard for me, being this close to Dorian but not being able to really be with him.”
“I understand.” The sympathy in Ezra’s tone makes my stomach twist with guilt. “But we can’t rush this. Like I said, I want Dorian to be free, but I want to do it officially. There was an incident, with X-14, that shook peoples’ faith in our new leadership, but I think this can restore it and pave a path for the future. I’m sure I can convince Dr. Wright and the Director, given time. But that means we have to be extremely careful about this. Not just for Dorian, but for all of the other patients that will come after. That’s why I’ve been so careful this whole time. We have to do this the right way.”
Another wave of guilt churns my stomach, but I swallow it. I hadn’t thought about what this means for the other patients. I can only afford to think about Dorian. I have to do what’s right for him.
I feel the same flicker of guilt I did in the cell, when I told Dorian that Ezra was nothing . Maybe I meant it more than I thought.