40. The Pianist #3
He follows me with slow, measured steps.
“I happened to see her pull his hair after he made a few mistakes. There were bruises on his face. Her one chance, blown in a moment of frustration. So I strangled her.” He’s halved the distance between us again.
“He doesn’t know how to fight back. He doesn’t have the mind for violence, like you and me. ”
My eyes burn. My spine hits the glass, icy even through my sweater.
He’s looking at me like he knows—he knows—he knows everything, sees everything, it seems, and it’s so unfair that fury heats my blood.
And then he’s in front of me and my hand is flying, connecting with his cheek.
It’s a miracle the mask doesn’t break, doesn’t fall to the floor.
His head whips to the side.
I gasp at the loud crack of sound. He makes me reckless.
He doesn’t move, his chest rising and falling quicker, and I’m frozen, like winter has gripped me in its tendrils through the glass, holding me in place to receive my punishment.
“I hate you,” I whisper, shaking, tears blurring my vision.
Slowly, those dark eyes meet mine again. “No. No, you don’t. If you did, you would have accepted the money. But no, you decided to stay, Mallary. You want to stay with me.”
“Not with you.” My nails scrape against the glass. “I’m here for Henri. I’m here for my fucking resume.”
“You think they’ll give you a reference now?” I can hear his sharp smile. “After you’ve gone and pissed Mariane off? Sure, Leo will give you what you want if you give him something in exchange—”
“Fuck you,” I spit. My fingers shake against the glass.
“Yes,” he hisses through his teeth, and I realize I can see the whites of his eyes between the holes of the mask—he’s grinning, he’s enjoying this. “Be angry. I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to snap.”
He looms closer again, like there are magnets in our hearts pulling us inevitably closer and closer.
He glances down at my lips. “Do you dream of me?”
“What?” I’m breathless from the whiplash.
He hums. “Interesting.”
“I don’t understand you.” I’m shaking my head, my nails scraping the glass pane of the window, trembling like a fawn.
“I’ve also been wondering when you’d finally stop pretending,” he says. “You do know me.”
“I know nothing about you except that you’re a petulant murderer.” My voice shakes too.
“You hate me because I am your mirror,” he purrs.
“I hate you because you are sick. You are a freak.”
He grabs me by the jaw, forcing my back flat against the window. A gasp stalls in my throat. “And yet here you are, throwing yourself at my feet.”
“I am not—”
“Why are you here, Mallary? Why did you say no to the money, if you hate me so much? Why do you stay if you are so miserable?”
My lips fall open to reply, but there are so many things racing through my head that I can’t make sense of them. Adrenaline urging me to run again, but I know I’ll get nowhere.
“Because you want this,” he murmurs. He leans closer, his knee spreading mine apart. “You want this.”
His masked face nuzzles into my neck, and I’m not fighting him, I’m relishing in the contact. He inhales deeply as though to smell my misery, my arousal.
And just when I think he may plunge his fingers into me again, spin my pleasure to his liking, he pulls away, leaving me cold and empty.
“So go look after the boy. Go be friends with the staff. Because at night, you’re mine.” He backs away slowly, and it’s not out of defeat. He’s taunting me, daring me to come to him again. “Your music, your mind—all mine.”
I flee, feeling worse than when I sought him out. There’s a sob building in my throat that I can only expel once I’m alone in my room. Hot, frustrated tears threaten to blind me.
But even in my room, I’m not truly alone. He could be watching.
So I don’t let the tears fall. I shove the sob down. Sitting atop my bedspread with my fists in the sheets, counting my breaths, weighed down by an exhaustion that I haven’t felt since—since—
I never should have come here. This world isn’t mine. I wasn’t made for this, for the snide comments and threats always looming over me, the impossible expectations.
I came here for music.
There’s less than an hour before I have to watch over Henri again. An hour to get myself together.
Too many things are happening, too many things I did not expect.
I fall onto my back on top of the bed, wanting to disappear. Wishing there was someone I could tell everything to. Out of habit I reach for the necklace.
But it’s gone.
He’s taken it. Like he slowly wants to claim my past for himself. Or maybe he’ll use it to coerce me into being an accomplice, dangle it above my head and tell me to be good or else.
Rolling over onto my side, I curl up into a ball, holding my knees to my chest.
I count, one, two, three, count each breath, count the swirls on the blanket, count the number of midnight blue stripes on the wall, count the number of times the charging port of my laptop blinks, count the seconds until I’m shivering and I can no longer hear my heartbeat in my ears, count the minutes until I realize my phone isn’t on the bedstand, either, because of course he took that too.
And it doesn’t even matter, because if Mariane is right, if Bastien gets what he wants, then I’m trapped, anyway—cursed—imprisoned inside because I was unlucky enough to catch the attention of the Ghost.