The heart in her chest quickened. Every nerve in her body prickled like hairs standing on end.
“I’m here,” the thing whispered with Lucy’s mouth.
Good, the man in the night whispered back.Are you afraid?
Her head shook. In the hazy bathwater warmth of the dark, not many of her feelings had names. But standing before the silhouette was no more frightening than standing at the edge of the ocean, or under the stars of an unpolluted sky. It was a comforting smallness, a helplessness. There was no more fighting here. There was nothing left to fight.
The gift you asked of me,he said.Are you ready to have it?
Two tears slipped out of Lucy Easting’s eyes as the thing that was not Lucy closed the distance between herself and the window. She’d been ready for days. She’d been ready even as this body had rejected its own readiness. As she reached for the blinds, watched every line of the silhouette, she breathed in that scent in the air. It really was so, so sweet. Whatever it belonged to, maybe this visitor would let her taste it.
She opened her mouth as she drew open the blinds. There were two words that he needed to hear.
Something seized her by the waist and pulled her off her feet.
The thing that was not Lucy Easting dug her nails into the arm locked around her. Lucy might have felt like a prey animal, but she had never known less about her own body—she had fight in her, enough fight to claw through the walls.
“Fuck!” someone bit out. And then the world spun, and the thing that was not Lucy was thrown against the cold tile wall.
She scrambled for purchase, grasped for leverage, but she quickly lost it. The hunter was already on her again, an arm pressed like an iron bar against her collarbone. The thing that was not Lucy opened her mouth. He was still out there. If she called out for him just once—
“Lucy!Wake up!”
Lucy blinked and found herself pinned, Mila’s panicked eyes inches from her own.
She gasped. Her head snapped to Mila’s left, to the bathroom window. The blinds were drawn all the way to the top, and through the pane, she could see the faint lights of the quad beyond. No one was standing there. She had been positive that she was about to see someone standing there.
“Mila,” she said. Her mouth felt cottony.
“You’re hearing me? You’re not about to do a swan-dive out the window?”
“Why would I dive out the window?” Lucy said helplessly.
“Because you were in the middle of doing that when I walked in!” Mila let go of Lucy’s upper arm long enough to make a single, panicked gesture. The other arm remained in place, strapped across Lucy’s upper chest. “He was fucking calling to you!”
“Calling to—” Lucy’s eyes snapped to the window again. Still empty, but…“Was he there?”
“I didn’t see him.” Mila drew back to look at her more fully. “I was a little focused on your jailbreak.”
Lucy felt clammy, almost feverish. When she reached up to rub her eyes, her fingers were trembling so hard that they were slightly blurred. “I’m not going anywhere now. You can let go.”
“Yeah, well…” Mila exhaled. “You said a few minutes ago that you were just going to the bathroom, so excuse me if I’ve heard that one before.”
Lucy rubbed at the arm Mila had been holding. It didn’t hurt, but Mila’s grip had left little dents in her skin. “I sounded normal?”
“Normal as I’ve heard so far,” Mila said. “Though I haven’t exactly gotten to know you in normal circumstances. Come on, back in the room. He could still be watching.”
Mila took a slow step back to let Lucy move off the wall. She really did move like a cat—unhurried but watchful, ready to launch herself at Lucy if she had to. But even if Lucy still wanted to throw herself out the window and into the courtyard, she had never felt less equipped to do anything. Her legs shook as she stumbled out of the bathroom. Mila reached back to tug the blinds completely shut, then followed her.
Mila paced to the edge of the room, then back. “Well, now I know, right? You can go back to sleep, if you want. And if you try to go anywhere—”
Lucy laughed, a little rudely. “I amnotgoing back to sleep tonight.”
“Fair enough,” Mila said. “But I can’t exactly leave you awake on your own, so…let’s sit, I guess.”
“Oh. Good.” Lucy eased herself to the floor next to the bed. “Quality time.”
Mila snorted, and it sounded much more genuine than mocking. Then again, Mila hadn’t actually mocked her, had she? It was Lucy’s own embarrassment that colored it that way.
