It was…him.
When did he ever warn my mother? I grew up believing I had no other blood relations aside from my mom and Stein. My memories are distorted from years of agony, but I don’t recall a grandfather, a grandmother, anyone else at all. It was always me alone, then me with the animals, then… nothing.
As if he can read my mind, worm his way into my brain, Sanford Rule—how he formally introduced himself before he left Karia and I to change, then follow him down the dark corridor tohere—trains his dark gaze on mine.
Beside me, dressed in black sweats she took from the Emporium and wearingmyhigh-collar black shirt—the one I couldn’t find when I packed my own things there—Karia stiffens.
We are seated next to one another on a small velvet couch, her thigh pressed against my own. My hair, like hers, is still dripping wet, and I changed into a dark hoodie, dark pants, dry socks, the white, damp bandana still around my throat. But despite the clothing, I am not any more comfortable, and I have the vicious compulsion to wrap my arms around her and never let her go. With her in my shirt, so loose and long on her smaller body, I feel something I don’t think I ever have before. It’s hard to explain, like a craving to claw my nails down her back, mark her in me so everyone knowsshe’s mine.
I don’t move, though. Not under Sanford’s scrutiny. Stein always knew how best to threaten me; with something happening toher.I won’t give Sanford the same advantage,although I am sure he knows what I would do for her, considering I did not abandon her in the tunnels.
“If you think Writhe is bad, Sullen, you should have seen the people who dressed up in finery while they wore the devil beneath their skin, here in this very room.” His fingers dig into the cushions of the chair, bones and tendons flexing beneath wrinkled flesh, but he doesn’t look away from me. “My grandfather bought this building from a descendant of Burbank Gates, allegedly.” Sanford laughs, and it sounds like crisp newspaper balled inside a fist. “He killed all of his family that we know of, so I suppose the seller could’ve been stretching the truth, but it’s documented Gates did frequent this place. I could’ve sold it when it was passed down to me, but I grew up here, and I wanted to keep it.”
“Why?” Karia asks beside me, her tone low and angry. I feel her knee press further into me as she leans forward, her hands balled into tight fists in her lap. “Why would you want anything to do with that man?”
I don’t look away from Sanford as he turns his attention to Karia. My pulse throbs against my temples and I want to claw his eyes out for looking at her, but I grit my teeth and I say nothing.
“I was fascinated with him,” Sanford says softly, and he does not sound ashamed of the truth.
My skin crawls. I feel itchy beneath my hoodie, my bare hands pushed into the pocket of it. But I keep quiet.
“I readThe Scientistseveral times as an adolescent, and many more when I became an adult. It was similar toFrankenstein,save for the fact it explained the creation of the monster, which Mary Shelley never quite managed in any detail.”
“Why would you want to… do something like that? To…” Karia trails off, taking a shaky breath. I feel her glance at me butI can’t meet her eyes. I know what she wants to say. What she won’t, because she hopes to salvage my fucking feelings.
Why would you want to create something disgusting, like Sullen?
My face feels flush, sweat forming beneath my arms, but I do not move.
“There is tremendous pressure, maintaining an organization like Writhe,” Sanford says, and he sounds more fierce than I have heard him thus far, all while he stares at the girl pressed up against me. “You would have no idea what that’s like. Neither you nor your parents rank so high.” His dark eyes narrow, nose pulling back into a wrinkled snarl as he stares at her.
The image of a skinned rat comes to mind, and I try to control my breathing. To not lunge for him now, for daring to look at her this way.
“There is pressure for greatness, success, numbers, money, all achieved by murder, sex, drugs, crime.” He leans forward, eyes flashing as his suit tightens around his broad shoulders. “I imagine you have been pampered and spoiled and fawned over your entire life. You spend the money Writhe rakes in but you don’t put in the blood to earn it. If there was even a chance at immortality, at having enough lives to do everything needed without fear of death or vulnerability, I wanted to know about it.The Scientist, The Principles of Poetic Séance,these gave mehopethat this was not all in vain. That I could?—”
“It seems to me as if you were a coward,” Karia interrupts, her voice strangely calm and sharply cold.
I turn to stare at her: Straight spine, lifted chin, her blue eyes focused fully on Sanford.
“You couldn’t achieve all you needed to, all you were responsible for, so you looked for a cheat code. Is that it?” She tilts her head as she asks, as if she’s deeply invested in the answer to her question, and I have the chaotic, strange desire tolaugh, where moments ago I only wanted to strangle the life out of Sanford fucking Rule.
“I never bit the apple,” he says slowly, after a moment of silence.
I turn to face him again and subtly lean towards Karia. She is not alone in this, and if he stands from that chair in a show of coming towards her, he will die right here in this room.
It is my mess.
She will not pay for it.
“I read the work, but I didn’t initiate any proceedings. Anywhere except in my mind, anyway.” He cuts his eyes to me. Something shifts in his face, like a shadow crosses over his countenance. “I contemplated beginning an experiment on your father.”
I bristle, wanting him to correct that term, but I do not speak. He doesn’t deserve my words. He’s already gotten too many of Karia’s.
“I thought about hurting him very many times. He was surly, stubborn, strange, smart. And even as a child, he left destruction everywhere he went. Dead animals, pinned insects. Why do you think he never destroyedyoursecretlabs, Sullen?” He lifts his chin, attempting to gaze down at me as he leans back in his chair. “Why do you think he never stopped your illegal deliveries or confiscated the creatures you took back from your walks? You think he didn’t know? You think he didn’t harbor some sort of twisted hope you would be just like he was?”
“How the fuck would you know about those labs?” Karia snaps.
He doesn’t look at her, but I’m grateful she asked the question. “I was given insight to many things as I awaited my own punishment in the tunnels.”
