Yet I can’t deny her most things.
Only those which would scar her more than giving in.
So to her question, I nod once, wishing we had more than sleep to look forward to for the remainder of the night.
Chapter 30
Karia
“Oh, you’re alive.” Cosmo’s voice startles me from the shadows and I flinch as I stand in the darkened doorway of the room I spent the night in with Sullen. He is still sleeping behind me and when I left him tangled in the sheets, his body was hot in a way I had not felt before. I think of his knife wound, from when his own father stabbed him and I wonder if he is catching an infection. If we should explore this town, find the hospital near Haunt Muren. Since I was sedated upon our arrival, I don’t know how close we are to people, civilization,anything at all.
Because of this, there is a part of me relieved to hear Cosmo, to see his shadow slink away from the opposite wall of the bedroom as he steps forward, his lime eyes illuminated by an electric sconce set in the stark white wall. This house is like a castle from the inside, but the pale paint coating the corridors throws me. As if a ghost glides among the hallways, giving Haunt Muren part of its namesake.
“If you truly thought he would kill me, you wouldn’t have left me with him,” I snap back, my voice dry and tired, wavering in my irritation. I glance over my shoulder to see Sullen’smotionless form beneath sheets of mauve. I do not know who this room belonged to, but it is sparse. Only a queen bed, two nightstands bracketing it, and nothing else. Not even a window. Our green travel bag is on the hardwood floors against one silver wall, and the scent of the room itself is clean and airy which seems strange given the lack of a window or other door, but Sullen chose this place after I showered. He didn’t look at me through the glass stall the entire time. I know, because I stared at him. And when I got out, drying myself off, then changing into what I’m wearing now—a white T-shirt stolen from the Emporium, black shorts—he did not turn his head from the bathroom door. This room isn’t far from that immaculate shower, but it feels as if when he led me here, he traveled miles from my own soul, such was our distance in the night. I know he changed clothes, but only after I myself had fallen asleep. And I only know because I reached for him in the dark and felt the light cotton of a T-shirt, his bare legs beneath boxers tangled with mine.
“You said you’d lick his piss from the floor so it seemed at that moment there was no saving you, Karia.” Cosmo says this lightly, mockingly, and my cheeks burn hot when I snap my gaze back to him, folding my arms over my chest and narrowing my eyes.
“What do you want? Where is Sanford? Why are you even here? How have you been working with this man, and for what? I have questions you need to find answers to, and quickly.”
Cosmo snorts, shaking his head as he slips his hands into the pockets of his blue and black varsity jacket, the letterAon the breast pocket. He must have brought clothes here himself, and I wonder what his plan was when he arrived. It couldn’t simply have been to save me, or why would he have only watched me sleep when I was alone? When I woke and he held the apple, he was across the room. If he wanted to drag me out of this house,he could have attempted to do so while I slept. When I was out of it from having my throat cut, and watching Sullen stab a man to death. I assume that body has been dragged outside somewhere.
“What will you do if I don’t?” Cosmo asks, stepping closer, standing with the tip of his shoes grazing my bare feet. He stares down at me, his jaw tense, face cast in shadow from the sconce along the wall. “You think you have a say here, but what power do you really hold? Maybe you imagine your pussy is some sort of magic spell over Sullen, but he doesn’t even wantthat,does he? You can’t get him to fuck you, can you? I assumed incorrectly, before, but after seeing the two of you last night… I think he’s not interested, Karia.” There is a taunting smirk on his lips and my heart races, lurching in my chest as Cosmo crudely picks apart one of my fears. My inadequacy.
I don’t speak. I have nothing to say. If I fight back verbally, if I try to cut him down, he will know he’s gotten to me. Cosmo’s cruelty is new for us, but he thrives on performances. It’s why he’s an artist in that same vein.
So I give him nothing and only stare up at him, unflinching, waiting for him to give mesomething.I vaguely recall what he said, before he led me to Sullen. Something about Sanford Rule believing he was Burbank Gates. He claimed Sanford—seducer, liar, a ghost who lived underground—taught Stein all about cruelty. About hurting your own family. But Sanford told us the story of Juliet, pushed through the window, theScarved into her face. Stein looking back at him when Sanford entered the room.
Who is the liar? Cosmo? Sanford? All of them?
Why would Cosmo bother? He isn’t a part of Writhe. He could walk away, if he wanted. I assumed his presence here was only about saving me, his friend, but he’s taunting me instead, hurting Sullen in sadistic ways.Why?This seems far more personal than onlyme.
There must be another connection.
Something shifts in Cosmo’s green eyes the longer he stares at me, as if a guard has been let down. As if the friend I knew has returned.
After a moment, he exhales, then lets his eyes fall softly closed.
“You asked me what I thought of his scars. His wounds.” He doesn’t look at me as he speaks and he doesn’t say Sullen’s name, but we both know.
“You said youwouldn’t be surprised if he did it all to himself.”I speak the words through gritted teeth, even as sadness, a sort of heavy grief, seems to fall on Cosmo’s shoulders. The boy I once loved, the one I used to fill the hole in my heart. He stood up for me and hated Writhe but loved me back. He seems as if he’s here again, as if the disrespectful little shit who took his place for the past few days has been exorcized.
“I lied,” Cosmo says softly. His eyes flutter open, locking onto mine.
I say nothing, but tension crawls inside my body, every limb dreadfully heavy as I wait, wondering if I want to know what he is going to say next.
“It is next to impossible for a human to invent, all on their own, the sort of suffering Sullen received.”
I don’t know if that’s true. There is raw evil in the world. Some spawned from cruelty, but all? I’m not so sure. Being a daughter of Writhe protected me in some ways, but exposed me in others. I might have been kept home, out of the way, but I heard things. I know things.
Still, I say nothing, waiting for Cosmo to continue. Somewhere in this castle of a house, a floorboard creaks.
Fear graces the back of my neck, trailing down my spine, over my thighs.
I don’t move.
I barely breathe.
“And it’s the same level of difficulty, once you’ve been gifted it, to stop it from leeching into your life like a parasite, exploiting any scrap of goodness you might have left.”
