I looked at the pile of paperwork. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.” His glance was keen on my face again. “And I believe you need to reflect on the significance of what you’ve done with the Kleins, so that you understand your strength and your weaknesses before we move any further.”
“What I’vedone?” Just like that, the anger was back. “You mean expelled a demon out of an old woman so she didn’t puke bugs anymore? And that’s supposed to be wrong? And yes, I know, Igetit. I shouldn’t have gone in there alone. But you weren’tthere, Mordechai. You weren’tsupposedto be there.”
Even as I said the words, fear coalesced inside me, hardening into a lump. Somewhere far away, I heard a cruel, satisfied chuckle.
“Iwassupposed to be there.” Mordechai shook his head, his smile still gentle. “Isn’t that what you meant to say?”
I stood up abruptly, swinging away, unable to meet his gaze anymore. “I gotta get to work.”
Chapter
Six
My reprieve from night terrors didn’t last.
That night, I woke on a half-choked scream, delirious on fumes and wielding a paintbrush like a switchblade in my pitch-dark room.
My hand swept across the wall both in broad, sweeping strokes and short, jagged strikes, the paintbrush moving with a confident precision I’d never possessed. Up, across, down, over. Disgorging some twisted vision from deep inside me. Willing it into being. Giving it life.
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t open.
I tried to stop. Couldn’t.
I was a prisoner in my own skin, trapped behind my eyes, watching my traitorous hand paint something so fucked up I couldn’t fully see it, didn’t want to see it, was desperate not to?—
Shhh.
My inner voice was louder than it had ever been—not in my head but in all of me, weaving through every nerve and muscle. It swelled and pushed like a living thing, guiding my body with the casual ease of someone who’d been doing it for years.
Maybe it had been.
“What are you?” I tried to ask, my voice strangled in my own throat. It heard me, though. It answered, anyway.
Almost done.Along with the murmur, satisfaction bled through me like warmth through thin cloth.It’s more than time.
My hand dipped into the paint can at my feet—when had I opened that? How long had I been standing here?—and came up again, dripping black. The brush moved with aching tenderness across the wall, adding shadows to whatever I…it…was creating.
Making it more real. Making it something I couldn’t ignore anymore.
I tried to scream. Nothing came out.
Terror crashed through me in waves, but underneath it, I felt a different sensation: Focus. Concentration. An artist’s absorption in his work.
The scent of embers and chocolate wove around me, heat and want. It smelled almost like...
Longing?
My hand jerked away from the wall, moved to my face. I felt the brush stroke across my cheek—a slide of thick paint marking me. The liquid dripped down my jaw, my throat, sinuous fingers slowly exploring unfamiliar territory. And I sensed the moment the pressure of those fingers shifted, hardened…held.
Mine.
The word ripped through me like a violation, the pressure expanding so abruptly it felt like my skull would explode, my bones shatter, my blood spray out against this wall of filth and horror?—
Then everything went black.
The next morning,I awoke in utter darkness, the smell of craft paint nearly choking me. But I didn’t look at what I’d done to my bedroom walls.
