And then I scream, because I’m not alone.
I jerk upward on instinct, but my arms don’t move. They don’t respond at all. Panic spikes again until I see it. They’re still attached to me, but hanging limp above my head. My wrists are cuffed, secured with metal restraints to a chain bolted into the floor.
The blood has drained from my hands, they’re numb, ghost-like.
And beside me, sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching me like a curious child observing something trapped in a jar is—
What the hell?
I’m definitely hallucinating.
“Natalya?” I gasp, my voice shredded raw.
She smiles, but it’s not right, not human.
A crooked, eerie grin that belongs to a porcelain doll that should have stayed behind glass.
I must be hallucinating hard.
Her hair is long and bleached white, almost silver. At the roots, there is a hint of black—the raven color I recognize, the color she shares with her brother. She’s thinner, paler, eyes too wide, too empty. She looks possessed.
This can’t be real. This can’t be her.
She tilts her head and, without warning, reaches up to the chain and loosens it, lowering my arms a few inches.
“Better?” she asks cheerfully, that unsettling smile stretching across her face.
I stare at her. My whole body feels foreign, heavy and drugged, like I’m swimming under layers of cotton. My limbs won’t obey me.
“Nat?” I whisper.
“Yeah!” she squeals, as if we just ran into each other at a café.
What is happening?
Her mascaraed lashes flutter over dark green eyes—Kasien’s eyes, but hollow. Beautiful, but wrong.
“Where are we?” I croak, my throat scraping painfully.
She just blinks at me, a smile slipping into something neutral. Empty.
“Nat, where are we?” I try, coughing, fighting the urge to choke on my own dry tongue. She looks around the room like she’s seeing it for the first time.
“At Lucien’s,” she sings, her hair bouncing around her, like she’s proud of herself.
A chill rips through me so sharply I nearly pass out.
This isn’t Nat. This is someone wearing her face.
I still think I’m having sleep paralysis, just instead of a demon, there is Harley Quinn.
She crawls closer and begins running her fingers through my hair, slow and fascinated, like a child petting something fragile. I try to lean away, but the moment I lift my head, the room spins violently and I collapse back onto the pillow. Pain screams through my skull, ringing, pulsing.
I take in the room. It’s large, clean and modern, but empty. Cold wood floors, dark walls, minimal furniture, deliberately minimal. A high ceiling, narrow windows that let in almost nothing. A place meant to keep sound in.
Nat watches me the whole time, head tilted, blinking slowly, as if studying how I break.
I finally feel the blood returning to my arms. I move my wrists and the chain rattles with the metal frame, a sharp, jarring sound that echoes across the room. I shut my eyes, trying to steady myself through the pain, against the dizziness and the rising terror.
