“Yes,” he says with great seriousness. “Despite my efforts to keep it hidden away. They did not hesitate to use it against me when they found it. Which is why I had to leave.”
“And come here? Why, of all places, would you choose to hide out here?” I ask.
“Demechnef and Survivah have an agreement. They do not have control over the other unless one breaks our laws. Meaning, under oath, Demechnef cannot reach its hands in this asylum to bring me back. They can keep an eye on me. They can send people to spy on me. But they cannot touch me,” he says, arms crossed.
“So your plan is to rot in this cage? Live out your days undergoing horrific treatments?” It’s unthinkable that the Demechnef training on him was significantly worse than this asylum. I thought this was as bad as it gets. I thought this was a gateway to hell, where demons danced and preyed on weak minds. I feel a cloak of sadness drape over me. ThisisDessin’s life.
He smiles at me. “I have no intention of staying. My reason for being here is threefold. First, is what I’ve already stated. I cannot be controlled by Demechnef in here. Second, I am buying time for a grand plan. And lastly and most importantly, I don’t dare to say out loud just yet.”
A groan involuntarily leaks from my throat. “I have so many questions.” I trace the lines on my left palm with my index finger. “But I know if I ask them, you will not answer.”
“Just as you are not ready to answer questions about Scarlett.” He says her name carefully, with a softness that couldn’t possibly break or damage such a fragile word.
“What weakness did they uncover, Dessin?”
He breathes in deeply, searching for a way to respond. “A very long time ago, the previous host of this body… Found something to live for.”
I stare at him. An iron rod pulls to Dessin from inside my chest. A force from inside me trying to explode. Climbing a great height. Fighting a storm that has yet to come. I wish I knew why I have such strange feelings when I’m around him. Certain words that he says. Certain ways he looks into my eyes.
“Skylenna, I have to ask this, not because I want to, but because I have to… Has Aurick ever touched you?”
My eyes widen. I bring myself back from the black hole I had fallen into. “What’s your deal with him?” My heart pumps at the rhythm of a hummingbird’s wings. “You act like you two are mortal enemies.”
“Has he?”
I roll my head back, loosening the muscles that have fastened tightly around my spine. “What exactly do you mean bytouch?”
Along the sharp edge of his jaw, the muscles rise and fall, bearing down against his teeth in annoyance. “Has he taken you into his bed?”
The notion disgusts him, it forces his brow line to bunch together and his lips to purse into a fine line. A faltering gaze, like staring into the sun.
“What—” I can’t complete a thought. This feels personal on another level. This somehow acknowledges that I am a woman to him, besides a friend and a conformist. I am a woman, and he is a man, and he wants to know if I’ve beenintimate. I’m elated with fluttering wings erupting from inside my organs, soaring through my veins.
“No.” This is none of his business. I shouldn’t even answer these questions. But, for a reason I am blind to, I jump at the chance to tell him.
“So, you’ve never…”
“Never,” I whisper as if the word itself is intimate, private, and only for his ears.Never. I would never let him touch me. I’ve never had the desire.
His shoulders relax, and he lets out an inaudible breath.
“Why did you have to ask?”
“He’ll hurt you,” he says. “The way Jack hurt you.”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t believe he would. I’m far more concerned about his friend, Masten.” I wonder again why Masten wanted to spend the day with me. Was it truly a peace offering? Or another way of scaring me?
“He was around again today,” he states. I thought this would end in a higher tone to indicate a question, but he says it stiffly.
“Yes.”
He looks down. Considers a thought. “You’ll stay until dark, then?”
“I suppose so, you haven’t given me much choice.”
I leave sometime after midnight when the moon is full and beaming a silver glow over the gravel driveway. The air smells like peonies and soothing woodsmoke from an outdoor fire.
At one point, Judas summoned me to the hallway, where he warned me of the repercussions of Dessin’s actions. There must be treatments to follow his behavior, and he asked me to break the news to him. I understood that if Judas was telling this to me, it meant there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Dessin accepted the consequences with casual ease.
