“What do you want most?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and cocked her head. “What does that have to do with anything?”
If a spirit could roll its eyes, Perez was doing it.
“It has everything to do with everything.”
She blew out a breath, and shrugged. “Whatever.” Rubbing at the bridge of her nose, she pinched her eyes shut and opened them again. “What do I want? I want to get home.”
Silence. Then, “Is that so?”
If a spirit could rub its chin in thought, that’s what he was doing.
“Yes, I want to get back to my life in 2025—the life you took me from.”
“Do you?” His questioning tone raised the hairs along her neck.
She heaved a loud sigh. “Yes.”
“Why, I wonder.” The questioning tone grated against her nerves, sending waves of anger into her chest.
“Because it’s my life, why else would I want to get back to it?” Her voice pitched an octave, but she couldn’t seem tobring her urge for violence under control. She wanted to punch something.
Her fingers flexed against her thigh.
“I only ask because from what I’ve seen, heard, and gleaned from your life in 2025, you weren’t happy.”
Tilting her chin to the ceiling, she sniffed. “What do you know about my life?”
“Everything.” His condescending tone rippled through her, burning at her nerve endings.
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“You were born to a teenage girl with more hair than sense. She grew to be a hallow husk of a woman who would latch onto the first sweet words a terrible man said to her. You lived with your stepfather for over a decade, and you spent most of those years avoiding him. He enjoyed taunting your mother, using her for all she was worth. He stole your childhood from you, didn’t he?”
She couldn’t answer for the lump in her throat. Trembling shook her whole body.
“After high school you wanted to leave your past behind, but your experiences and your past led you right into the arms of a man who took your physical innocence, and then used you to pay off his gambling debts. When the collections department came to collect, you were forced to drop out of school and take a job as a stripper to pay off your husband’s debts. Sure, you met a few great friends along the way, but in the meantime, you spent your nights degrading yourself in front of men who, just like your stepfather and husband, used you for their own purposes. It wasn’t until I called you to me at theCarnal-Val that your life made a turn for the better.”
Speechless, the warmth drained from her face. Her clammy hands shook, and her heart thudded painfully.
Was he right? Was that her life?
Blood pounded through her ears, and her breaths came in painful gulps.
“How dare you say those things about me? I was happy. My life was everything I wanted it to be! I had just cut ties with Elgin forever, and a new chapter in my life was starting. How am I supposed to start my life over if I’m stuck in goddamn England in the goddamn nineteenth century?”
Red filled her gaze. She paced, her feet pounding into the carpet in a rapid footfall.
Through the haze in her mind, Perez began, “You say you were beginning a new chapter in your life....”
“Yes,” she practically shrieked.
“Why can’t your new chapter begin with, ‘In 1817...’?”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Desperate to leave the voice in her head behind, Haven left the watch on the bed, and fled from the room. She had to go somewhere, do something to take her mind from Perez’s words. He’d dug things from the bottom of her soul and laid them bare before her like moldering bones. She hadn’t gotten the information she wanted, but she knew from what they’d read in the book that Perez had to fulfill a task.
