A migraine started at my temples, even as a dull sucking ache throbbed in my heart.
Bianca pulled my hand off my cup again to give my fingers a squeeze. “I know you are a good person. I know you want to do the right thing. Please, Miranda. Do the right thing.”
ChapterThirteen
THE BEAST
I’d been waiting for Miranda. It felt like an eternity between her visits, and our evenings had become my favorite part of the day. Before her, I didn’t have a favorite part of the day. Before her, my life was knitted together by moments of excruciating pain.
I could try to tell myself her arrival, triggering my heart to gallop and throb with excitement, was only because I looked forward to dying. But it had become more than that.
Our verbal sparring woke up parts of my brain that had slumbered so long I’d thought they died before the rest of me could. When Miranda’s cat-like eyes flashed as her body squared off, preparing for a fight, tendrils of warm blood snaked through my body. Scratching at the paint on her perfect veneer, trying to get underneath to the real her, had sparked an obsession.
Perhaps I’d get to peel away some of her armor before I died my final, true death.
I inhaled a shuddering breath of anticipation, my eyes fluttering close.
Death.
Every day I neared my true, perfect end. Freedom from flesh and bone. Oblivion.
“Well, Ms. Badass. Aren’t you going to kill me today?” I asked, letting a grin curl my lips upward.
She stared at me for a long time as if trying to figure something out. The smile slid off my face. My gut churned with anticipation and foreboding, a sickly charged sensation.
Before she could respond, her phone rang with an ear-splitting shrillness that felt like a physical blow. Panic raced through me like a lightning bolt. The air shimmered like a place over hot coals and the blaring in my head felt like a river of water being pulled through a pinhole.
My fists balled into shaking fists. Teeth cracked when I clenched my jaw, in an attempt to gird myself. I couldn’t afford to lose control. I couldn’t afford to scare her off.
I wanted to die today. Ineededto die today.
“Make it stop,” I growled.
Miranda fumbled for the phone, but it slipped from her fingers.
Do dee do dee do.
The jarring melody continued to drill into my senses. The notes blasted through my ears, shattering my fragile mental defenses. My hands shook, my veins popping out as my skin twisted and morphed into a blackened shell of rage. Unholy fire ignited inside me, a raging inferno ready to scorch the world and anyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. It would be so satisfying to grab her and thrust her hard against the bars until the noise ceased. Technicolor violent fantasies drove my insanity to dangerous heights.
No, I absolutely would not fucking hurt her. No one hurts my dark angel, not even me. My fear of hurting her or scaring her surged faster, outrunning my crazy. Still, I didn’t know how long my need to protect her would keep my senses intact. If I fell over the edge, she’d see, see me for what I really was. She’d never come back.
I gripped the bars so hard they shuddered. “Turn it off!” I roared.
Miranda winced. Her fingers wrapped around the phone, and she went to dismiss the call.
“Oh crap,” she muttered as a face appeared on her screen. She whipped the phone away so whoever it was couldn’t see me.
“Hi mom,” a young voice chirped.
The bell clanging in my head fell blissfully silent, and I sagged against the bars.Fuck, that had been close.
“Hey kiddo, sorry, I actually can’t—”
But the boy interrupted. “Mom, we had the best day ever. They let us assemble actual robots. It was the coolest. Have you ever done anything like that?”
I focused on the steady beat of Miranda’s heart. On the voice of the kid. I slowly but surely reeled in the power that almost took me entirely.
“No Jamal, I haven’t but I need to—”
