The cross alone, nothing. But all four tokens… Stirs, flutters, tickling the lining under my chest. An airiness, like the streams of sunlight after it rains. But then—without a hint of a warning, sadness. Sadness in its heaviest form, as if these four wooden figurines unscrewed the bottle of depression in my soul. I want to toss them back in the satchel. I don’t want to look at them again.
“Skylenna?”
“I don’t feel well, Dessin.” I set the sticks in the dirt. A bucket of nausea tips over in my stomach. I want to go home. I can’t vomit in front of him. I need a washroom.
“Finish the game,” he orders.
Anger flashes in my chest, jamming the swishing of bile back down my throat. “No,” I say between the safety of my teeth. “I want out.”
“Tell me what you feel!” he demands, chest expanding.
“No!” We’re on our feet now. “I am done!” I smack my hands against his chest, not taking even the slightest moment to realize who I’m hitting. His jaw flexes, anchors outward.
“Tell me!” He raises his voice, yet the power of his volume doesn’t frighten me. It fuels me with fight. “Now, Skylenna!”
But I can’t tell him. I want to stop thinking about what I just felt. I want it all to go away. Hide it in the leather purse and place it back where it belongs.I hate it!I’m ill.Let me lie down.
“Get me out of here!” I release my arms to push against his broad chest once more, but his hands hijack them in midair, just as he did to Martin, gripping them with a devil’s hold. An unnatural strength pumping from his firm arms.
Air rushes out of my lungs. The fight defusing from my limbs.
“Pain,” I whisper. “Heartbreak.”
The same nameless pit of feelings that plagued me when I went to live with Scarlett. I mourned for a year. I wallowed and shrank down to a speck of myself. I had almost forgotten what that once did to my body.
He holds my bound wrists to his chest, releases his breath in unison with mine.
“We can go now,” he says.
22. Pulling String and Moving Pieces
Scarlett was taken from herhome when she was seven years old.
For five days, she was taken by a man that reeked of tobacco and had gangrene on his feet. He lived alone, in a small cottage on the edge of Hangman’s Valley, keeping little Scarlett in his coat closet while he touched her in places she shouldn’t have been touched and made her touch him. This went on for five days before our mother picked her up and took her home.
There was a part of Scarlett that believed it wasn’t an abduction at all. That our mother profited from this trip.
When I was brought back to reality from our hideaway in the basement, the fearful folk around me used the wordabduction. But they didn’t understand. They thought they all knew who Scarlett was, but they would never know that her version of the word made mine look like a holiday. I was not abducted. To be truthful, I would have gone willingly.
Aurick stumbles around the kitchen, disoriented and dazed, looking for the liquor cabinet. He heard about what happened at the asylum today. He met me in the buggy outside on the gravel driveway to embrace me in his arms, apologies trickling from his tongue. I told him, I told everyone, I was unharmed.
“Did the patient touch you in other ways?” Aurick demanded to know as if theother wayswere worse than physical harm.
But now, after I’ve assured him that I am fine—well, better than fine—I can only admit to myself, and no one else, that I am energized. Filled with an eagerness for my next meeting with Dessin. Now, Aurick can soothe his own soul with substances I’d rather not partake in.
Although, something rather delectable came from my trip to the tunnels. A slice of peach cobbler and a cold glass of milk.AndAurick allowed me to skip my lady-doll regimen. The colorful vision of seeing myself slip off my uniform to dive straight into the fluffy, white, feathered bed is the icing on this warm cobbler.
But tonight, Aurick is the dark shadow from a low-hanging tree. With each sugary bite I place into my mouth, savoring every slimy drop of residue, Aurick looms over me like a vengeful ghost. He aggressively swigs more brown liquid into his wet mouth, all while keeping his eyes burning into my seated body.
“Did he rape you?” he asks, flecks of spit sprinkling down onto the table.
I drop my fork as well as my jaw. “No,” I mumble.
He scoffs, taking another sip from his expensive crystal bottle, sitting beside me. I sigh, relieved he isn’t hovering behind me anymore.
“Red was raped once.”
“Who?” I ask.
