She looks different this way. Curled up and absent.
I can’t place the tightness that pulls on my shoulders, my throat, at the sight of her like this, but a vague recognition stirs inside me. I’ve felt it before, even if I haven’t allowed my thoughts to wander there in years. I detest the feeling now as much as I did then. Perhaps more.
My brothers and I have a lot in common, one of them being our shared disdain for Katerina. We were all caged. We were all on death row, waiting to become fleshless pieces of art set in a display case. Watching others come and go. But there was one major difference between them and myself.
I was the onlysubjectKaterina kept stored inside her studio. My cage placed five feet away from her work table. I was the only person who watched it all—every fucking thing—day after day after day. The only one who spent almost two years with my face lit by rows upon rows of relentless bright lights as she worked, and worked, and worked.
The only one—for the first year.
My second year in the studio, there was another. Another with black hair, pale skin, and those haunting sky-blue eyes. Another who, with one thought, makes my blood boil for entirely different reasons.
But no. I won’t think of her. I won’t do it now, or tomorrow, or the next day.
She’s not like Katerina. They will never be in the same category. She doesn’t burn my veins with deep hatred. I can deal with that. Hell, I thrive on it. Hatred’s the fuel that keeps me alive. Sofia, though ... the things she ignites inside my chest are darker than that. Raw. Damaged. Everything I depend on forgetting.
For the sake of keeping my chaos locked inside my mind, packed in tight where it can’t escape, I intend to never think of her again.
My gaze slips down to the smooth curve of Emmy’s slender neck, her protruding collarbone. The fragile slope of her left shoulder, damp and slumped forward. My fingers squeeze into fists at my sides. I fan them out and roll my tight shoulders back. Before my gaze can travel any lower, I turn on my heel and pace straight out the door. There are many places in this house I should be right now, and none of them are here.
