Page 145 of Damsel in Disguise

Little did they know, I wanted to be worse.

Everyone seems convinced I have it, as if that alone holds value. But potential without application is inert. Just as a stored possibility. Utterly useless.

“Work with us. Let us refine what you are and make you useful. Or…” the sentence trails off unfinished.

They don’t finish the alternative. Yet it lingers in the space between us, heavier than any coercion.

They called it a choice. I call it an opportunity to choose a better hell.

I fully look at them, the three of them, and for the first time—since the kitchen, since the repetitive pattern of the deaths started to bore me—something unfamiliarly interesting stirs beneath the surface.

So I smile widely. Just like my mother taught me. “I’ll work for you.”

“Even if I say we killed your mother?”

I should react.

The chopped-off body I left behind hasn’t cooled completely yet. A few pieces are still twitching.

I should reach for the discarded axe and relive the moment on the silhouettes standing before me.

But I don’t. Mainly because I don’t have a chance against three grown-ups who are already aware of my potential. I don’t want to turn into chopped pieces before playing with their leash.

So I tilt my head slightly instead, my gaze steady.

The absence of light in my blue eyes—the last thing I’ve left of my mother in me—is far more telling than any visible reaction can.

“If you did, then you should know exactly why I belong with you,” that same quiet smile remains fixed in place.

And just like that, the sad little boy with the song in his head stops being something the world can break.

He becomes something that can destroy the world instead.

With my smile I turned the world upside down.

43. DISORIENTED

alistair

Kissing Synthètes is what I was used to doing.

I’ve measured their emotional responsiveness, monitored pulse fluctuations, hormonal spikes, and neural synchronization.

I mapped desire into algorithms and replicated intimacy with clinical precision until every moaning became another rehearsed response programmed into muscle memory and synthetic nerves.

Every reaction had a reason.

Every touch had data.

Every kiss had an outcome.

But with Ariella, I can’t measure any of this. And the worst part is it feels real.

My thumb still presses against the frantic pulse fluttering beneath her throat. It refuses to stabilize, each heartbeat slamming violently against my skin as though her body is trying to escape itself.

Or maybe escape me.

A part of me wishes I could see the marks blooming beneath the black leather wrapped around her throat. Finger-shaped bruises staining pale skin. Proof that I touched her hard enough to leave something behind.