I looked at him because Bael let me.
Hellsing’s eyes were bloodshot. His throat was bruised where my fingers had dug in that morning. There were red lines across his chest, hidden now under his shirt, but I remembered them. His drawl skimmed over my name, warm and rough.
“I’m right here,” he told me. “We’re gon’ fix this. You hear me?”
I tried to answer. The words built in my chest. I pushed them up to my tongue, but nothing reached my lips.
Instead, my face softened. My mouth curved. My voice came out steadily.
“I’m fine,” my voice said. “You’re overreacting.”
I heard it. It sounded like me, but it was not me.
Bael laughed in the space behind my thoughts.
“See?” he said. “They believe me. They see your face. They hear your tone. They feel your skin. They want you to be fine. They will swallow anything I feed them.”
Hellsing frowned.
“The hell I am,” he said. “You cracked a man’s skull and smiled through it. That’s not you, Grace.”
“It’s more me than you can admit.”
“That ain’t you, Grace. Don’t tell me you’re fine. Not when you ate raw meat off my counter. Not when you laughed in theshower while you touched yourself for me, as if it were all a game to you. We are not a game.”
“But I sure do like paying with you, exorcist.”
Heat burned my face. Shame. Fear. A thin thread of arousal slid through it, unwanted and undeniable, because my body remembered every moment with him. Bael coiled around that memory and tightened his grip.
He spoke again through my mouth.
“You keep bringing up the fun parts,” it said. “Maybe I should do it again and see what else you remember.”
Hellsing’s jaw clenched.
“There,” he muttered. “There you are.”
“Did you think I’d go far, Exorcist. This pretty body is warm and wet,” it hissed at him.
“You son of a bitch, I will take you back from the hell you came from.”
I screamed in my mind as Bael took one of my fingers and I watched it bend so far back, heard the crack and felt the pain.
“Keep it up, Exorcist, and soon I’ll be snapping her neck.
Peter reached for my hands. His palms closed around my fingers. His skin was warm, the pads of his fingers calloused, familiar. The contact sent a jolt through me. I tried to squeeze back but my fingers stayed loose.
Seraphine stepped in behind him. She laid one hand on my shoulder and the other on top of Hellsing’s. The pressure of her touch sank deeper. The air shifted. The candles flickered. The surface of the water trembled in the bowl.
“All right,” she said. Her voice was calm, controlled. “Grace, I need you to listen. You are not alone in your head. We know that. I need you to find yourself and hold on. I’m going to call, and when I do, you answer. You understand?”
Yes, I screamed inside. A low, bored sound rolled through my mind.
“She talks too much,” Bael said. “I prefer your lover. He’s weaker, he bleeds more.”
Rage flared in me.
“You could have killed him all those years ago,” I shot back, referring to when Hellsing was a boy. “You had your chance. You pushed him to the edge. You could have snapped his mind, ripped him apart, ended him.”
