Chapter 14
14
Sonny
H e smiles at me, and it pisses me off so badly, I can feel the bread roll that was shoved between the grates of my door for breakfast start to make its way back up my throat.
My head is pounding from being thrown around by those two fucktards who ripped me out of my cell like nothing more than a sack of flour. My nail beds are sore from digging into their skin, their hair, the stone walls—really, anything I could get a grip on. In fact, I’m pretty sure at least three of my nails have broken off completely.
I think Matilda was right when she guessed I had a collapsed lung, because every time I take a breath, there’s a hollow, wheezing noise. I’m sure that happened when Thing 1 and Thing 2 paid me a visit yesterday.
At the moment, none of that hurts worse than the sight of him.
“You.” The word is an accusation.
How dare you, of all people, show their face to me after what you’ve done? I think. But I keep my face carved into an angry mask and do my best to keep the pain and sorrow buried deep inside my chest. I won’t let him see how deeply his presence hurts me.
“Oh, come on, Little Nightmare. Surely, seeing me isn’t the worst that’s happened to you this week.”
The rebuttal fills my head louder than my own thoughts. It’s like he’s everywhere all at once. I scurry backward to put some space between us, resting my back against the opposite wall.
I’m going insane. Add that to my list of injuries—my fucking brain is rotting inside my head.
“Happy to see me?” he says aloud, tilting his head in amusement.
“Do not react to what I’m saying in your mind. Just relax and let me talk to you.”
“What the fuck?” I hiss, glaring at him through startled eyes.
“Have a seat,” he repeats. I wait for his words to fill my mind again, but nothing comes.
“You can hear my thoughts?” I think skeptically, just to test it.
“Sometimes. Come sit down and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I blink at him, watching his mouth closely as the words flow into my thoughts to confirm he’s not speaking at all.
Raze Whitlock is a Null.
Out of all the things I’ve heard about him, that was the most emphasized. It’s the one thing I was sure of.
“Raze doesn’t even need gifts to destroy you,” they had warned on the beach.
So, what the fuck is this?
Tucking my feet beneath me, I slowly lift myself off the ground to stand. My thigh muscles are so sore, I nearly collapse, but I use the wall for support.
“They hurt you.”
The words fuel my fury enough to propel me off the wall and into the empty chair. I fall into it with a wince, then twist around to face him.
“Astute observation.” I choose to play along and send the reply through our mental pathways. “ It’s been such a dream living here, in the bowels of hell. What gave it away? Was it the blood dripping down my face or the whistling my lungs make when I take a breath?”
Raze doesn’t look amused. He doesn’t seem pleased by my injuries at all. In fact, for the first time since I’ve known him, he’s somehow allowing exactly what he’s feeling to play across his face and flow into my chest.
And what he’s feeling is pure rage.
More bitter and potent than I’ve ever felt before.
“What do you want?” I voice the question aloud. I’m far too curious to ignore this little game he’s playing.
His rage disappears in an instant. It’s like he’s flipped a light switch and turned it off. Or at least, shut me out. Instead of replying to my smartass mental remarks, he answers the question aloud.
“I want to know what you know about the Midnight Syndicate.”
“The cameras in the room have been disabled, but they’ll still have an Aeternum come in to relay what happens here. You have to play along carefully,” he silently warns.
Inhaling through my nose, I lean back in my chair. “Nothing.”
He shakes his head. “Come on, Sonny. That’s not going to get us anywhere.” His voice is tauntingly smooth as silk, with a hint of amusement. It’s the first time I’ve heard him use my real name, and I hate the way it sounds on his lips.
He sounds nothing like the man I knew. Even in my thoughts, his tone is urgent and rushed—a stark contrast to his snide, grumpy attitude.
I can’t decide if this is some sort of mental torture they’re using with me, or if he’s truly playing two different people right now.
The Viper and the professor.
“There’s a key in your cell along the back wall.”
That has my eyebrows raising.
“I can’t see anything in my cell, jackass.”
“Feel around for it, then, ” he growls into my psyche impatiently.
“Silence won’t help you,” he coos in a remarkably contrasting tone, reminding me to speak out loud too.
I ignore it. “How are you doing this if you’re a Null?”
His answer is swift. “I’m not a Null.”
“Valeria, then?” I guess, cringing at the thought. Surely, he wouldn’t have slept with me if he thought I was of the same bloodline...right?
His mental response is a gentle purr against my mental walls. “Worse.”
Scraping his chair across the floor, he pushes against the table to stand, then paces toward the wall to my right and leans his shoulder against it. “Sonnet Ellery...” He clicks his tongue tauntingly. “Secret daughter of Constance Chevalier and Carter Ellery.”
That has me seeing red. “Don’t speak their names,” I quickly bark out. It’s a knee jerk reaction that I instantly regret. Lowering my voice, I add, “You don’t deserve to say their names ever again.”
He smirks, but I swear I can feel a hint of remorse wafting off him. Perhaps it’s just my sadness blinding me.
“They did a fantastic job of hiding you.”
I sneer. “What does that mean?”
“It means that legally, Sonnet Ellery is nowhere near related to”—He pauses, eyes flicking to mine before they bounce away to look at the door behind me—“your parents.”
He’s respecting the boundary I set.
“In fact, Sonnet Ellery hardly exists at all. A couple of credit cards, a fake passport, and an ID with a photo of a woman who looks astoundingly close to you, yet...not. That’s all there is.”
Our fake IDs. How could he have found them both? Unless...
“Did you kill her, too?” I think, hoping he can still hear me.
“No.”
He continues his spiel. “How is it that someone can go twenty-one years without a single school transcript? A tax form? Hell, even an overdue medical bill?”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve had all those things.”
How does this mind communication thing work? Do I have to let him in, or does he insert himself whenever he wants? And how many times has he done this before?
“More than you’d be comfortable with.”
I straighten against the back of the chair. “ What does that mean?”
His dark chuckle vibrates through my thoughts. The familiar, velvety sound sends chills skittering down my spine.
“You’ve had very dirty thoughts about your Psych professor, Miss Ellery.”
Fuck.
“Have you? Anyway, once I dug deep for all your personal information, I did some social digging. Never one to really find your place, huh? Perhaps that’s why you decided to take on Penelope’s identity and stole the Carmichael legacy spot.”
Grief punches me in the gut at Poppy’s name being said aloud. I’ve done a stellar job avoiding all thoughts of her since I’ve been here, too occupied with surviving to allow myself a moment to process. But hearing her name brings it all crashing to the surface again.
“Why are you doing this?” I cry out to him mentally.
There is no response.
Wobbly legs lift me from my chair and drag me over to where he stands. “Don’t fuck with me,” I bite out, jabbing my finger into his chest with every word.
The threat is weak. Realistically, what can I do? If he put a gun to my head and told me to walk a straight line, I’d be dead in seconds. The most lethal thing about me right now is probably my breath.
A large hand wraps around my knuckle and squeezes just as I’m spun around, my back slamming into the wall. My head bounces off the stone when he wraps his other hand around my neck and pins me in place.
Everything happens so quickly, I hardly have time to react.
“Be careful, Little Nightmare. No one lays their hands on me and walks away unharmed,” he warns quietly.
“Fuck you,” I spit, squirming against his grip. He’s keeping his fingers tight enough around my throat to hold me in place but loose enough to allow me to breathe and speak.
“I’d love to. How should I do it?” He flicks his head to the left, tightening his grip on my fist. “Should I bend you over the table and do it? Or maybe you’d like to straddle me on the floor. Oooh, I know. I can spin you around right here and fuck you from behind while you beg for your next breath.”
His tone is too playful to be intimidating. If anything, I’d say the idea of fucking me is actually getting him excited right now. Like when we were back in his office with our usual banter before I ended up sprawled out on his couch.
“I doubt your masters will be happy if you do that, pet ,” I spit, too stupid to back down.
A chuckle rolls up his throat, vibrating against my chest. His thumb moves in slow circles against my jawline as he considers what to do next.
“Your eyes,” he muses, and all his amusement drops from his face at his new discovery. “They’re red.”
I try to jerk my chin away, but he slips his palm from my throat to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “No, they aren’t,” I insist, then close them like the child I am.
There have only been a few instances that my eyes have morphed from their odd violet hue into near-crimson. The first was after days of crying over my parent’s deaths, and Aunt Divina was the one to realize it.
She looked at me with a similar expression that Raze has—a mix between horror and amazement.
Then, she told me to never let it happen again. She even made me promise, which I thought was insanely out of character for her.
Of course, I can’t control it. But I knew better than to let anyone else see the weird trait after Aunt Divina acted like it would have me brought into a science lab and studied.
“Let me see,” he insists, fully sobered. When I keep my eyes downward, hiding them behind my lashes, he releases my hand and gives my shoulder a shake. “Now.”
Anger has me lifting my gaze back to his and my nose lifting in another snarl. “I’m not your fucking rag doll to throw around.”
My words fall on deaf ears since he’s clearly too enamored with the color of my irises to care what I have to say about how he’s treating me.
“They’re going to try to destroy you,” he mutters, hardly moving his lips. As the weight of the moment finally weighs on him, he removes his hand from my jaw and takes a full step backward. “ I won’t let them,” he finishes the thought inside my head.
We stay like that for a weighted moment, staring into each other’s eyes while I process his promise. Why is he playing two polarizing personalities right now?
The realization of what he said before dawns on me—that they’ll have an Aeternum come in here and replay what was said.
I take the opportunity to land one last jab at Divina, bringing us back on topic before the ice in my heart thaws too much. “I didn’t steal anything. Poppy hated the Carmichaels. She hated her mother.”
Raze’s brows lift into his hairline and he nods, quickly catching onto the redirection.
“I don’t doubt that. What I can’t figure out...” he goes on in that fictitious, cocky tone. “Is whether you knew that the Syndicate existed before you came here, or if all of this was some stupid, happy coincidence?”
My brows pull together in a scowl. “What would be happy about that?”
Someone knocks on the door and both our gazes snap to the source. I straighten, remembering what those two assholes tried to do on their way here. For a split second, I have the urge to reach for him. To beg him not to let them touch me again.
But we have to keep up appearances. He can’t jump in to protect me. And I don’t think I’m any safer in here with him, anyway. This is all a game to disengage me.
“What?” Raze bites out to the intruders.
The voice on the other side is muffled. “... Just got the call to return.”
My eyes ping back over to Raze, who is pinching the bridge of his nose, swearing under his breath.
“Give me a minute,” he calls toward the door, then looks back toward me.Everything about his demeanor is calm and relaxed, but I can feel the frenzy of emotions bubbling beneath the surface. They’re strong enough to have my own heart kicking up in rhythm.
How the hell is he so good at hiding them?
“Why is that a happy accident?” he repeats my question in a cool tone. He rounds my chair in a leisurely circle, pacing to buy himself time as his voice fills my mind in a rush.
“Find the key and get yourself out. Don’t go through the tunnels—they don’t lead anywhere good. Sneak back up into the ballroom and slip out of the castle. Head northeast, into the woods. There’s a cabin set back. Go there and wait for me.”
My eyes ping around his face, scanning his features for any sign that all of this is a trap. Is he really offering me a way out?
Can I trust it if he is?
“Yes. I don’t get it,” I reply to his question when I realize too much time has passed.
“Because now that we’ve been made aware of the final Landry legacy, we can eliminate you and eradicate the problem altogether.”
“Someone will catch us,” I think. “What happens when they catch me creeping out of the dungeons? They’ll kill me on the spot.”
This has to be a trap.
“They’ve got you locked away in a cell that is supposed to nullify your gifts. No one is expecting you to come walking up those steps.”
I have no clue how to respond. The two messages are so different, I can’t discern which one is true.
“And I’m supposed to trust you?” I question mentally.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got less than twenty-four hours before they come to slit your throat.”
“You mean before you come to slit my throat...” I correct. And I know, based on the hard set of his features, that I’m correct.
Instead of disagreeing, he says, “Don’t let anyone see you.”