“The same reason I never let him go free. Because he’s mine,” Damien said. He walked forward. I felt dizzy as he bent down to Levi, sinking his fingers into the deteriorating skin of his cheeks. They broke through the skin. Damien pulled his oxygen mask up and kissed him. My throat burned. The match went out.
Hands grabbed my clothes and pulled me from the room, closing the door.
“Why?” I asked through the mask. Damien pressed the elevator button.
“We’re similar, Baz. I was also born a disappointment. My family didn’t accept me. Threw me out of the house.” The elevator door opened, and he pulled me in. “I was born powerless. It’s rare, but sometimes witches are born with no ability to use magic. So you see, I know how it feels to be rejected by family. Unwanted.” He pressed the button for my floor.
“What does that have to do withthat?” I asked, pointing at the door. Damien watched as my strength finally gave up. I slid to my ass on the floor. My heart was beating hard in my chest.
“What would you give to be a phoenix? For your family to have loved you.”
“Fuck off,” I panted.
“I’m serious, Baz. I bet you’d be willing to giveanything. Just like I was.”
“What did youdo?” I gripped the bar above my head. I didn’t have the strength to get to my feet.
“Magic costs. I know what happened at Verfallen. Your sister gave up something precious to get Zero free. She gave up you.” He smiled. “There are always ways to get what you want with magic. You just need to bear giving up something equally important.”
“What’s equally important to your powers?” I asked, but I knew. A mate was equally important.
The elevator doors opened. Damien reached over, grabbed my clothes once the door opened, and dragged me into the hall.
“Get off me,” I growled, ripping away from him and stomping to my room. The redhead’s body was missing already. Damien stayed in the hall, circling my bubble like a shark.
“Imagine it, being the phoenix you were supposed to be. Having everything you were supposed to have. Really, I’m thankful for being born powerless. I’d have never become the man I am today if I hadn’t been forced to research a way to fix that issue. Once I cured that, I realized I could do more. That’s why I made Supra.”
My head swam as he forced terrible thoughts into my head. A knife at Bree’s throat, telling her I was sorry before I sliced it. Her blood spilling on the ground as immortality danced like flames across my skin. And wasn’t the ultimate prize dashed away from me? Isn’t it whateveryonewould kill for? Immortality. My family would have accepted me. All the previous pain could be washed away. And Bree, dead at my feet.
I stumbled across my room, barely making it to the sink before I threw up.
Damien destroyed everything I was sacrificing myself for. My life would have been worthless, a cold void until I died. But Bree had changed all that. She’d given me everything that had been cruelly denied.
I’d give up everything for Bree, Nemo, and even fucking Orson. Really, I already had, and I would keep doing it. Meanwhile, Damien had destroyed Levi just for fuckingpower. We weren’t the same at all.
I began ripping the cleanroom suit off me. Fuck Damien and his Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever mind fuckery he’d been slowly working on had been stripped clean from my mind. I truly hated him for thinking we were alike. It made me feel unclean. But also, tongue fucking a rotting corpse didn’t sell the whole “he’s an okay guy, just misunderstood”.
“We’re going to make some changes to your room,” Damien said. The fans kicked on louder than ever. I swiveled around, looking in dread at the oxygen numbers dropping.
“You fucking bastard.” By the last word, I was slurring. I didn’t even get time to lie down. It all went black in an instant, the oxygen so swiftly taken from me that I passed out.
When I woke up, I was in chains.
“Why am I always getting chained up?” I groaned.
22
GREEN BLOOD
BAZ
Out of all the people to hallucinate, Doreen, my group therapist from Verfallen Asylum, was the most spiteful. Despite her being burned alive, here she was, as pristine as she had ever been in life. Her blonde hair was twisted up, and a heeled boot bounced as she sat on the chair in front of me, fiddling with her pentagram necklace.
“They’re taking more blood. Baz!”She leaned forward and clapped several times.“Are you even paying attention?” She asked me in that southern drawl.
“Shut up,” I snapped at her. The very real extractor twitched, causing the needle to jerk from my neck. A warm trail of blood slid down from the wound. Once it hit the metal collar locked around my throat, I heard a hiss. Then an acrid scent bloomed, causing me to cough.
“Shit,” the extractor gasped.
