I want to argue, but beyond not knowing what to say, I can’t actually speak. I should have been asleep by now. Sleeping smoke rarely inhibits one's ability to speak, either. Fear, real visceral fear, floods my hazy mind. Saskia must have altered it.
“You took my lover—ruined my life. And now, I’m going to return the favor, with your own creation.”
The organic printer chimes with a completion sequence, and Saskia hums as I listen to the sound of the printer-hatch opening. She mumbles something that I can’t quite make out, and flashes of light paint red hues across the inside of my closed eyelids. There’s a thump, and then the sound of Velcro being unfastened.
My body is trembling in place, and despite her earlier warning not to cry, I can’t help the tears of distress that leak down my still-burning cheeks.
Saskia’s cool hands straighten my head, and she waves something under my nose. I’m still effectively paralyzed, but Icanblink open my eyes now. As my vision clears, it takes me a minute to understand what I’m looking at—because it’sme.
I choke, blinking rapidly to erase what I’m seeing. Her words from a few minutes ago clang around in my head, and I try to scream, but nothing comes out.
She smiles—but it'smylips curling into a malevolent grin on a doppelgänger's face. When she speaks and my voice fills the air,I wince, despite knowing that’s how the organic golems work. It makes sense now why she strapped me to this procedure table. She would have had to run a body scan on me, in addition to the blood sample. But how the hell did she transfer to the golem by herself?
“As I was saying, you’re the reason the man I loved is dead. But he's the reason I'll be able to exact revenge." She holds up a soul-stone, only this one looks different from all of the other samples we've collected. It's fitted into an ornate casing, but that's all I can make out before she tucks it back into her pocket.
"There’s a target on ‘Saskia’s’ back now—Darro would never let me walk freely in the Unseelie world after finding out my true motives. You and that psychopomp have stolen everything from me.” She leans in over me, stroking my cheek as she smiles, “And now that I have your body, I’m going to steal everything from you. I’m going to fuck your boyfriend and use him to my advantage. And then, after I’ve convinced him we need to kill Darro to keep his precious little lover safe, I’ll set him up and end things. Let him rot in reaper prison with nothing but a broken heart until he withers away into nothing. Not physically tortured like my Brenyn, but tortured nonetheless. At least Brenyn had the small comfort of knowing he was loved until the end. By the time I’m finished with Seth, his spirit will be so shattered, scaphism will look like child's play.”
My body is its own sort of prison—unbearably still despite my commands tomove!Inside my head, my mind is thrashing against invisible bars. No.No, no, no, no, no, no, no.Seth! MOON! Moon, moon, moon, MOON! I let my heart pound without trying to calm myself down, praying that somehow, despite my paralysis, he can sense my distress through our bond.
Saskia tsks and shoves something under my nose, and this time, everything fades to black.
23
Chokehold
Seth
My knee bounces as I glance over at Hellas’s closed office door. Not for the first time, I wonder how much trouble I’d be in if I just barge in and demand to be bumped up the list. Probably not the best idea, especially because the only excuse I’d be able to give is that my gut is telling me something is wrong, and my girlfriend won’t text me back.
It’d probably have a little more sway than that, considering now with our bond, Ryn is far more than just my girlfriend, but still. I’d rather not figure out exactly how far I can push his goodwill before he snaps.
I refresh my messages again, hoping that maybe I somehow missed a response, despite the fact that I’ve been obsessively checking every 30 seconds or so. My knee bounces faster as I’m greeted with a big fat nothing, and my shoulders sag right as my phone pings. I jerk,fumbling with the device in my lap until I finally manage to get it the right way up.
Ryn: No, Seth. I need you to listen to me, okay?
Seth: …
Because that’s not ominous at all. Maybe if our bond wasn’t screaming “DANGER”, I’d be more inclined to agree without question.
Ryn: When I take the necklace out of my pocket, put up a shield.
Annnd there’s the crazy I was waiting for. Something is wrong. My bouncing knee is shaking my screen, so I sit back and start shaking one ankle over the other.
Seth: You’re joking, right?
Seth: Right?!
Ryn: Just trust me?
A little whine creeps up my throat, because what the fuck, dude. That can not mean good things. Before I can even contemplate a response that doesn’t make me appear slightly unhinged (because let’s be real, I’m getting pretty fucking close to unhinged right now), the door to Hellas’s office opens and my ticket number dings above the door.Sweet death,it’s about time!
Jumping up and practically floating across the room with more enthusiasm than I’ve ever had while entering a superior's office, I slidein and shut the door behind me. When I look up, Hellas has his brow quirked and his lips pursed.
“Sephtis. Sit down.” His tone is gruff, but not as deadly as the last time I was in here. Which is good. Especially because I’m pretty sure I’m about to royally piss him off.
As soon as I fold myself into the little chair, my knee bounces uncontrollably. Hellas’s eyes dart down to the motion, and he frowns slightly. He’s not stupid. I wasn’t even this nervous after getting caught with my pants metaphorically around my ankles and the cold, hard length of my crimes fucking my ass (again, metaphorically). He also doesn’t like to waste any time, because with no further preamble, he steeples his fingers on the desk in front of him and sighs.
“Why don’t you just come out with it? Either you’re about to piss on my floor, or something is wrong. And you’d better not piss on my fucking floor.” Hellas holds my eyes with an intensity that dares me to look away, and I gulp as I sit up a bit straighter and still my bouncing legs. Oddly enough, I had zero urge to piss on the floor until he levelled me with that terrifying fucking stare.
