“Goddammit,” I breathe, pulse crashing through my veins.
For a long, numb beat, I can only stare, disbelief and dread freezing me in place until an incredulous laugh scrapes free of my throat. Doubt claws at me, questioning chemical attraction and gravity and my own fucking mind. Whether what I felt was even real, or only this ravenous void that devours everything that dares to get too close.
Fury coiling my muscles, I lean in and kill the screen.
Tearing off my other glove, I reclaim the star-taker, its comforting weight settling into my ruined palm. Tempted for the first fucking time not to turn my eyes to the hunter in the sky, I keep my gaze trained down to where Ophiuchus rises.
The thirteenth constellation.
My thumb sweeps the empty groove where the rule should rest on the star-taker, noting the absence with a vicious pang. My grip tightens on the instrument as the echo of her melody fuses with crashing waves and howling winds and the staccato rhythm of her heartbeat.
In search of some order, my fingers tap a rigid count against the brass. Twelve beats in sequence. I start to repeat the compulsion—until the twitch of my ring finger adds a faint tap.
Thirteen.
The undeniable presence of an anomaly, syncing to that fractured cadence.
Brass bites into my flesh, and I invite the pain as blood spills hot into my burning palm.
It’s a bittersweet truth of astronomy, that we can gaze into the brilliance of a star, observe its endless beauty, only to realize that its light is a mere echo, reaching us long after the source has burned away.
“Fuck,” I curse as the fiery ache consumes.
If all I can think about is kissing Collins whenever she’s near, how the hell am I supposed to kill her.
Apophenia (noun): The tendency to perceive meaningful patterns and connections in unrelated or random things, like seeing faces in clouds, or familiar shapes in shadows. A concept coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in 1958.
8
Muscle Memory
It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed.
—THOMAS MOORE
COLLINS
No one counts the beats of their heart.
As long as the muscle pumps, we don’t want to consciously think about the finite number we have left. The moment it will stop.
Hand trembling, I reach into my coat pocket and produce the silver pill case designed to look like a nondescript compact. I open the lid and count the white tablets, the only number I keep track of. I had to stockpile enough of my meds to last several months.
A violent gust of wind whips through the arched walkway as I swallow down a dry pill. The ends of my wind-torn hair snap at my cheek, triggering a burst of anger. The fury bubbles up too quickly to contain, and I smash the case against the stone column, bitingdown on my lip to hold back the scream trying to claw up my throat.
One. Two?—
My body quivers through the attack until the coppery taste of blood hits my tongue, and the fire wanes into smoldering ash in my stomach.
I release the pain with a shaky breath, now dulled to a tight pinch in my sternum. Keeping my hand braced to the stone, I curl my fingers around the case as I wait for the nausea to subside, and vertigo gradually recedes.
Three.
“Shit.” That might have been the riskiest,stupidestthing I’ve ever done.
I can practically hear Darby’s scowl, see the emphatic shake of his head, gearing up to lecture me.
A broken smile fights onto my face at the thought of him even as the cold penetrates my bones so deep, I fear I’ll never be warm again. While I was able to collect a change of clothes and shoes from my office, I had to be fast, not giving myself time to recover.
