“You shouldn’t hurt yourself. That’s my job.” The self-satisfied chuckle that came out of Quin’s mouth was miles away from his normal laugh, and yet Kit was all too familiar with the sound.
He needed to be certain. Kit cracked his eyes open, his wet eyelashes sticking together.
One of Quin’s hands rose towards him, a gentle finger rubbing under his eye. Only, Quin didn’t clean the bloody tears from Kit’s face: he collected them.
Through blurry vision, Kit watched as Quin put the finger in his mouth, sucking noisily before removing it with a pop. “Tasty.”
“How?” Kit whispered, getting up the courage to ask.
“All because of you, darling. I’m only as strong as I am, thanks to you feeding for me.”
“But you’redead.” The statement didn’t hold the same relief as before.
“So are you,” Quin said.Not Quin, Kit told himself.
“I’m not dead the way you are,” Kit said, as if pointing it out would change what stood in front of him.
Quin made an irritated noise. “Go back to being scared—you’re less argumentative.”
“I—What?”
A fist flew into the wall right beside Kit’s head, cracking the plaster and sending flakes of it dusting into the air. Kit flinched, but a hand gripped his arm to keep him in place. He looked down at it. In his imagination, the touch would have seared his skin. But the grasp only felt firm.
He pulled away, but Quin spoke up, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t even think about running.”
At that moment, Kit realised this wouldn’t end. He wasn’t about to wake up screaming. He wasn’t imagining it.
This was happening.
And he was the only one able to stop it.
“I won’t run. I’m not leaving without him. Give him back,” Kit demanded, his voice wavering.
“I’ll consider it on one condition.”
Kit gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”
“You.”
It should have been obvious, but it caught Kit off guard. He shook his head. “No.”
The fingers holding Kit’s arm tightened, digging in so hard they’d leave bruises. “Do you understand what I’ll do if you don’t comply?”
“Nothing you can do will make me?—”
Kit’s words ceased when another punch flew. Instead of hitting the wall again or Kit, like he’d expected, Quin’s fist collided with his own face. Blood sprayed from his open mouth, landing on Kit’s lips. That it tasted the same as usual was a shock. He’d expected it to be infected, like the rest of Quin.
Kit surged forward and caught Quin’s wrist to stop him from throwing another punch. “Don’t,” he begged.
Quin’s face, even with his reddened jaw and swollen mouth, looked inordinately happy. His smile showed teeth stained pink with blood. “Do you understand now, darling?”
Kit didn’t want to say it. But he did. “I understand.”
“Actually, I quite like the ‘Daddy’ moniker. I’m annoyed that I never came across it before. You should keep calling me that.”
“I won’t ever do that,” Kit spat. His statement was as good as admitting out loud that Quin’s body was no longer his own.
“Call me Daddy, Christopher.” It was a command, not a request, and it made Kit sick to his stomach. His fingers twitched where he held Quin’s wrist.
