I paused to contain my emotions, to keep them at bay. Julian’s posture turned rigid, but his eyes never left me, even when I had to look away.
“One day we were walking home from the bus stop, and they wouldn’t stop. They pushed me around. They stole my backpack. They pulled my hair. They mocked me. They taunted me. Then they pushed me inside the well becausethat’s where witches belong. In Hell. And at first, I couldn’t get up. My whole side hurt so bad … but at some point, I did. And all night long, I tried to get out. I tried so hard that my nails ripped from my fingers. I was bleeding and hurt and alone and convinced I was going to die. It was the longest night of my life.”
I shuddered at the mere thought of going back there. And I knew for certain, if I’d ever see Julian’s face, I would be back there in that well, and my chest tightened. I continued so he wouldn’t notice, “My nanny, Marietta, she found me. For thirteen hours, I was in there,” I shook my head, “Jaxon Jenkins lost his sight the next day. Brady Matthews went mute a week later … and … after that, no one would come near me or touch me or talk to me. They werenice,” the word tasted bitter on my tongue, “because they were scared of me and the things I could possibly do.”
“The Order was right. Nothing’s changed,” Julian mumbled to himself, his brows pinched together in deep thought. “The world is still the same after all these years.” He tilted his head and peered over at me. “But you didn’t do those things to those kids? After everything they did to you?”
“No. Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” I shook my head and pinched the edge of the mattress. “But, now I’m thinking it really was Marietta, and if shecoulddo those things, she’d only do something like that to protect me. She wasn’t evil.” I looked up to Julian. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Not even my dad.”
Julian’s glazed and tormented eyes dwelled on me with all their madness; I noticed the wrinkle between his brows deepen, an understanding or a sorrow. I noticed these things, and it did something crazy to my own heart.
The silence between us was comfortable yet loud. I couldn’t understand what he was thinking, so I shredded the silence with my voice. “But then I get here, and it’s as if everyone wants to be my friend. Usually, I’m the girl everyone is scared of, the one who everyone avoided, but not here. It’s different here.”
“Because they all want something from you,” he answered. “They want you in their coven.”
“Except you,” I pointed out, focusing on keeping my voice steady. “You don’t care. In fact, if memory serves me correctly,” I started, remembering what he’d said at the Town Hall meeting, “You have a certain taste. Wanting someone like me would be absurd.”
His gaze froze on me. “I was—”
“’Cause I’m afreakshow, right?”
Julian’s eyes turned to slits. “Fallon—”
“No, I heard you guys in the woods. I heard what you all said about me. I’ve heard it my entire life. I always hear what they say about me as if I’m not there, as if it doesn’t hurt. But it does hurt! You said so yourself, you saw my memory. Do you think I enjoyed what they did to me? What I had to listen to from your friends? You think being no one’stastedoesn’t hurt? God forbid anyone took the time to actually get to know me.”
Julian’s posture stiffened, his gaze ran cold. A growl thundered inside him, holding back the same turmoil he released at Voodoos. He snapped up, snatched my arm, and yanked me across the room toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the dim room until I was confronted with my reflection. My heart hammered as he stood behind me. His chest slammed against my back. He looked down at my confused expression. My eyes fell to the girl in the mirror with no makeup, bright white skin, and even whiter hair. Colorless, the scary glass blue eyes in the mirror stared back, and I turned my head away.
“No. Look at yourself,” he commanded, his voice like sandpaper. Julian wrapped his fingers around my jaw and forced my head forward until my eyes slammed into my own again.
“What are you doing?” I tried to maneuver my way out of his hold, but his grip tightened, one hand locked around my jaw, the other on my hipbone.
“Youarea freak,” he said slowly into my ear. I closed my eyes, and he squeezed my jaw until they popped open. “You’re an insecure freakshow. Anthrax. Powder. The spawn of Satan. Ghost. Mutant. A strange fucking thing. Look at you!” His voice grew louder with each word. My vision blurred as I tried to fight against his tight grip. He slammed me against his chest to keep me still. “Are those tears coming? That’s … what?” He tilted his head, mockery in his eyes, and I wished I could squeeze mine shut. “Twenty-four years of listening to them? Of letting them define you? Because you care so much about what everyone else thinks, right?”
“Stop,” I gritted through clenched teeth, tears pooling and shaking in the rims of my eyes. I tried to shake my head from his grasp. Julian had turned into something else. Something screaming. Something raw. Something candid and cruel. The shape of a passionate shadow, the color of cutthroat. Was it something I said? “Why are you doing this?”
“Me? You’re doing this to yourself,” he insisted, his breathing hard, his chest slamming against my back. “And it’s sad. Acceptance is a ten-letter prison we’re all eager to be locked in,” his eyes glossy and wild and alive, “You let everyone else tell you who you are, and you listen. You let what’s out of your control, control you! And look at what you’ve become—locked in your personal hell surrounded by the bars of these insults. This isyourfault. At the end of the day, the only person to blame is you. And now that’s all you are. A little. Fucking. Freakshow. Still left inside that well all those years ago. You never left.”
My eyes narrowed, and I pushed back against him. Julian forced my head forward again and curled his hand into my waist, pinning me to his front as he continued, “I bet these words haunt you. You wear the very mask those hypocrites made every day, and I bet it’s heavier than mine.”
Silent tears slipped down my numbed face and spilled over his fingers.
Julian paused, his eyes zeroed in on them. Then he flipped up his mask only to reveal his mouth, his vibrant scarlet lips. His tongue darted out and licked my tears from his knuckles. “Tastes like a salty little freakshow, too.” His eyes flicked to mine. “People will always have something to say, but it’s your fault you become it. At least you can fight back. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
My bottom bucked against him, and Julian’s right hand came over my throat.
I froze.
Julian froze.
My scared eyes locked on his eyes that were thrashing in conflict.
Then the confliction snapped, and all that was left was a weak and vulnerable man who couldn’t catch a solid breath. And time slowed. His movements slowed. His touch slowed. His breathing slowed.
Julian gathered my hair and pulled it off my shoulder, and the grip around my throat became gentle as he tilted my head. And my heart! It was beating so fast that I couldn’t feel it anymore. I couldn’t feel anything aside for his hands on me, and his finger dipping into the hem of my cardigan over my shoulder. They grazed my bare skin as he slipped the material off one side, and goosebumps flared across my flesh.
Then he kissed my shoulder so softly it felt like wings or a whisper. I didn’t understand, couldn’t conform to a single thought. I watched his mouth, his soft lips trailing my skin, and felt myself slipping and heating and falling as my lashes fluttered, having no idea what was happening; how I went from angry to sad to…this. But what was this? This feeling I never wanted to go away? What was it called?
His tongue, it licked the length of my shoulder to the crook in my neck before the heat of his mouth covered my flesh. He sucked hard, pulling and pushing desire between us. My knees weakened, but his hands on me, his mouth on my skin, it all kept me bound to him, and it was torturous yet not enough as the same heat rocketed to the space between my legs. His lips were shaped as if cut by a sharp blade, yet felt so delicate against my flesh when he landed one last kiss on my neck.
