chapter thirty-one
THE POISONER
M y room. I see my room.
An invisible gravity holds me down like a heavy blanket.
My eyes are wide open, and I see the chair in the corner of the room.
Just breathe.
A prickling gnaws at my spine, and a dreadful draining overcomes my senses. The only thing I can manage is to wait for it to be over.
Just breathe.
It’s the feeling of being helpless while your mind plays tricks on you. My only issue is that some shadows in the corner could be real.
These spells are getting more frequent. All I can do is hope they pass quickly.
I awake in worse shape than before I rested. Every single time.
My body so desperately wants me to stay awake.
As if to warn me that if my eyes close, something worse is yet to come.
Lately, no matter how much time I spent away from Silas, I felt even more exhausted. Sleep paralysis visited me every night and refused to permit me a simple night’s rest. Of course, when a Creature was not bothering me late at night, my body must make up for it by doing it itself.
A migraine shot through my head like an arrow through the eye, making a feverish nightmare out of my waking moments as well as my sleeping ones. The nights were so rough that even my lower back was suffering from some type of abuse from my unrest.
My fingers picked at fresh produce and flowers at the market.
Normally, it would be therapeutic for me, but the throbbing in my skull made the colors too bright, the world around me moving in a delay as I walked about.
My fingers pinched between my brows, and I rubbed over the right side of my face, hoping to ease the pain.
I steadied myself on the edge of the vegetable crate when a wave of nausea overwhelmed me.
A cold sweat was forming at the back of my neck as I fought the invisible ice pick in the side of my face, further debilitating me.
Someone pulled me from my stable support, and I leaned into the familiar form.
Blackberries and smoked bay leaves. There were no witty remarks this time, just an arm around my waist. “What are you doing? You’re usually at the shop by now.” Silas frowned. “I waited for hours. Where were you?”
“Apologies. If I knew that my stalker had hoped to see me, I would have rushed!” I gritted my teeth, feeling an uneasiness.
He blocked my path and tilted my chin up to inspect me. A gloved hand cupped the right side of my face, shielding it from the light.
I eased into the hand as I watched him through the glow of white lashes on my uncovered eye.
“You know, your marks really bring out the ice in your eyes when you’re irritated,” he teased, but he tensed after speaking, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“What?”
“Who have you been seeing?” His voice was cold. “Have you been seeing him?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the most capable creature I’ve ever met. Don’t pretend to be dense.” He pulled me away from the bustling crowd and into a quiet alley between two shops.
My body slouched against the wall when he let go. “I don’t have time for this.”
“It is all over you. The scent.” He squinted at me. “Is this what you do when I leave you to your own devices?”
“Even if that were true, I do not belong to you.” I clenched my teeth, massaging my temples. This interaction made me want to slam my head into the wall. Anything to get away from the pain. My eyes closed in an attempt to ground myself.
Betrayal was how I would have described the look on his face, but I knew that would require feelings and a willing participant. My chest burned. I was not sure what he thought I’d done, but I could see that something was bothering him enough to think I had crossed some boundary.
As much as I would love to tell him that I had bedded every man in his social circle to get back at him, I’d been too sick to even eat like a living person. All this told me was that he had truly given me time alone.
When I opened my eyes again, he had vanished without a word.
What an insolent child.
This night was no different than the others.
The pain persisted at an uncomfortable rate.
It only got worse every hour, rendering me useless in the confines of my dark room.
Only a modest amount of relief was returned to me when my curtains no longer had to fight the light from sneaking inside my room after sunset.
No position was comfortable. Nothing could relax my tension. The pillows were too soft or too hard. The sheets were an insufferable middle temperature, sticking to my clammy skin. The cold sweat made any loose hair stick to my skin, making the flyaway hairs protrude in awkward positions.
I could feel the bed dip down while my face stayed buried in my pillow.
I had a visitor.
His smoky scent troubled my senses and made the nausea return.
My hand gripped the barber’s blade under my pillow.
Silas moved some of the wet hair from my face, but I kept my eyes closed.
“I can hear the pulsing of your heart. You can’t pretend to be asleep,” he whispered against my ear.
I glared over my shoulder from my fetal position. “If you can pretend you’re a gentleman, then I can pretend to sleep.”
“You wound me, my dear.” He clutched his chest mockingly. “My heart is yours to do with as you please! Even if you are to run blades through it!”
“Must you be so melodramatic? Are you not the one that eats flesh and chased me like an animal through this very house?”
“Whatever do you mean?” he gasped. “That is the height of romance!” His expression darkened as he got closer, climbing over me. He threw me a puzzled look. “Why do you smell like that?” His nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Like what—” My words were cut off by his hand grabbing my face, forcing it in his direction.
The swift action prompted my arm to swing out at him with the barber’s blade, cutting the pillow in the process, and feathers trailed in the wake of the deadly swipe.
The blade cut his shoulder before he slapped it away, cutting his hand as well. The razor clattered on the wood floor as he pinned both of my arms above my head.
“Get off!”
“Is it him?” he shouted at me, his eyes becoming dark.
“Who?” I choked back, bucking my hips to try to get him off, but his weight held me down. My vision trailed from the pain of my migraine, his blurry figure impending above me.
“Don’t lie to me.” His voice was strained. “I can smell someone all over you. Is it that lab partner? Someone you met elsewhere? A tavern fellow perhaps?”
It was exhausting being labeled only by the ownership of another man.
I spat in his face, and he froze, letting go of one of my arms to wipe it off.
“You know, I’ve been easy on you. I thought we were getting to know each other.
Such a shame,” he said, his voice lowered, grabbing me by my arm and yanking me off the bed.
“If you want this to be transactional, then fine. You will let me feed willingly in exchange for me not taking it myself.” He shoved me forward away from the bed.
His words cut through my skin and made me shiver.
“I am in no condition for you to feed from me.” I rubbed my wrists.
I almost preferred him before. This change was frightening. A shooting pain hammered at the inside of my skull, and I gripped the right side of my head again, letting out a loathsome groan.
“That is not my problem,” he hissed. “Come on, Alina! Where did all that nerve and valor go?” He circled me, taunting.
“I need water,” I croaked, not taking my eyes off of him. I did not have the energy for another one of his games or tantrums. I had to put distance between us. “I need bandages as well, especially if I am to accommodate your carefree feeding style.” I glared.
“Fine, fetch them.” He waved at me, pulling a fresh cigarette from his pocket and seating himself in the chair in the corner.
“I trust that I don’t have to tell you what happens if you run, correct?
” he mumbled, letting the cigarette hang on his lips as he set it alight.
The flicker from the flame reflected strikingly off his sharp features.
With a nod, I steadily moved out of the room, the air lighter as I got farther from him.
I did not understand why he kept mentioning another man.
While I wish I had the company of someone who was not an all-consuming psychopath, there was no one else.
I was a shut-in. He should know that. Which was what made this whole situation even more odd.
I had not seen the lab or Viktor since my incident.
All of my interactions were reduced to telephone calls.
The kitchen had no light, not even from streetlamps, as I had closed my shutters earlier. The candle in the middle of the counter was lit to aid in my rustling through the drawers.
An instinctual pitch nagged at the back of my head and warned me of danger.
I examined the syringes and knives in the drawer.
I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the long meat-carving knife.
Maybe Silas had decided that he preferred not to wait and was going to just finish me here.
Everything in my body told me to ignore the looming presence in the corner.
Something wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right.
A sickly-sweet smell surrounded me, reminding me of the first time I smelled embalming fluid in the lab. My hair stood on end, and my heart would soon be punctured by a rib if it beat any harder. I turned my head to catch a glimpse out of my peripheral vision.
Two dots of blue light peered at me from the corner, but this wasn’t my regular phantom.
If I ran, would it chase me?
Admittedly, my first thought was to run to the other dangerous creature within the house. This must be why he thought he smelled someone else on me, because someone else was here . The question was for how long?