“I have a question,” said Thomas, pretending not to notice as she swiped a tear from her cheek. “What kind of fish do you catch on your trips out to the Sound? Philip said the two of you have a tradition.”
He asked it conversationally enough, but worry wormed into her all the same.
It was a dangerous question, with an equally dangerous answer.
“I went fishing for pike with my uncle once,” he said, setting the first shard in her silver soap dish. “He took this fillet knife and deboned them right there on the boat. The bottom was so thick with fish guts, you could sink in it. I couldn’t get the smell out of my shoes for weeks.”
The last of the glass came free with a pinch. Setting aside the tweezers, Thomas dampened a washcloth and pressed it to her wrist. She winced at the sting. The soft hiss of breath brought his eyes to hers.
“It’s just that you don’t really seem like the type of person to enjoy fishing,” he said, and she knew then that he was prying.
There wasn’t time to be angry. An odd, quirking movement pulled her focus. In the mirror, something peered out over the top of Thomas’s shoulder, its eyes honeycomb dark. Fear collapsed in on her and she wrenched her hand out of his.
You have no idea what type of person I am.
“I’d like to.”
It came out reflex-quick—a little nervously—as though he’d been working up the courage to say it. Her heart hurled itself violently at the wall of her chest. In the mirror, a set of gangrene fingers curled impossibly around Thomas’s throat. The sharp points of its nails made shallow crescents along the top of his spine.
“You, uh, still haven’t answered my question,” said Thomas, reaching up to paw at the nape of his neck. “What kind of fish do you catch?”
She stared up at him, horror-struck. He felt it. Hefelt it. It shouldn’t have been possible. It was in there, and she was out here. She was the one awake.Shewas the one in control.
Wasn’t she?
In the mirror, the other Vivienne’s grip tightened like a noose.
“Miss Farrow?”
Vivienne watched, arrested, as the creature’s jaw unhinged, revealing gray gums crowded with gleaming eyeteeth. Her fingers flew to her own solidly closed mouth, as its drooling maw gaped open just over Thomas’s carotid artery. She staggered back, slamming into the opposite wall hard enough to rattle her perfumes on their little ladder shelf.
Thomas tugged at the collar of his shirt, frowning over at her. “Are you okay?”
Get out, she signed.
He didn’t budge. “I’m not comfortable leaving you in here when you’re—”
She didn’t let him finish. She lifted a crystal atomizer from the shelf and hefted it at the wall. Thomas ducked, throwing up his hands as the bottle exploded into a thousand glimmering shards. The smell of white geranium flooded the space between them. She reached for another.
“I’ll go,” said Thomas, straightening. “I’ll go, okay?”
Behind him, the creature looked enthralled by the chaos, its bones disjointed, its smile jubilant. It wanted her like this, she knew—friendless and half feral, alone but for her own face in the mirror. She blinked back tears.
“I’ll be in the hall if you need me,” said Thomas, still holding up his hands in surrender. She couldn’t blame him. An amber glass of sweet vetiver sat in her bloodied grip like a stone, her arm catapult-ready. She didn’t lower it until she was certain he was gone.
Out in the room, Judd let out a whine. The door snicked shut. She felt strangely ground down, her heart an ugly, wet pulp inside her chest.
Setting the perfume back onto the shelf, she sank to the floor and wept.
Thomas was standing outside Stone College’s Anton Building at eight fifteen the following morning when Reed Connolly’s class let out. The instant the art student slunk out from the door, Thomas stepped directly into his path.
“Excuse me,” said Reed, without looking up from his phone.
Thomas didn’t budge. “We need to talk.”
This got Reed’s attention. Recognition darkened his features as he slid his phone into his back pocket. “Ah, shit.”
“You know who I am?”
