Plop…
The door is right there.
Plop…
Go now.
Plop…
If you do nothing, then it will be your fault.
Plop…
Again.
Yet, nothing was exactly what I did. I didn’t even bother to rip my chin out of Felix’s grip. I just sat there.
Felix let go of my chin and took a step back. When my eyes shifted back to my escape, he tipped his head and widened that eerie smile on his face.
“You keep looking at the door, Poppet, but you don’t move. Do you know why?”
“What’s the point?” I said. “You’ll just chase me down.”
It was the best lie I could come up with. Honestly, I had no idea why I hadn’t taken off yet. Any normal person would’ve run the second they were unbound.
“That’s true.” Felix agreed. “Flynn and I do love a good hunt.”
Flynn didn’t have to nod or say anything for me to know that statement was true. The spark lighting up his cold, blue eyes told me everything I needed to know. His white painted face and black smile remained expressionless and dead, but his eyes were more alive than I’d felt in years.
“But that’s not why you aren’t moving. Running isn’t in you anymore…” His lips curled down in a mocking frown. “Is it, Poppet?”
I wished I could say he was wrong.
“Or it’s something else that’s keeping you here.”
Nothing was keeping me here. I was still feeling the residual effects of the drugs. That’s all it was. I was going to make a mad dash for the door as soon as I could make my legs cooperate.
“You want to watch, Poppet.”
What?
“No, I don’t.” No one was that heartless. Not even me.
“You want to feel their suffering,” Felix argued. “Because it’s the only way you can kill your own.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not like you.”
The only person I wanted to hurt was myself.
“Oh, but you are. Every human has that black seed of destruction in their soul. Most bury it and pretend it isn’t there. But you…” He bent over, placed his hands on the arms of my chair, leaned in, and drawled, “You don’t have the strength for that, do you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then Felix said a name that caused every muscle in my body to freeze. “Thomas Carington.”
There was no way he could know that name. I left nothing behind, and there was no connection between us. His body hadn’t even been found yet.
“How long did it take you to track him down?”
