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“Dormant,” I finished for him.
“Yes.”
“And do they all attach themselves to one person?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like you’ve done with me.” His silence suggested that he didn’t follow my thinking. “You followed me here. You wanted Tyler dead because he hurt me. I’d say that speaks to some level of attachment.” I went into the kitchen to make myself a coffee while the paint dried. In retrospect, I was extremely glad I chose that moment to turn my back, given the words that came out of his mouth next.
“I love you. I’ll do anything for you.”
“That’s…” I used filling the kettle as a delaying tactic. It didn’t feel nearly long enough. “I’m not going to lie. That’s more than a little intense.”
“Intense?”
I still didn’t turn. “You know what the word means, right?”
“Very forceful, with powerful emotions and opinions.”
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“Do I scare you?”
I gave the question some thought, wanting to answer it honestly. “You’re much stronger than I am, and you have abilities far beyond anything I could ever do. I’m concerned about what might happen if you interpret anything I do or say as a rejection.”
“You won’t reject me.”
I laughed. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about. We’ve had sex twice. The first time I thought you were Dr. Collins, and the second time, I was asleep for most of it. Yet, you seem to have decided that we’re the real deal. It’s a bit like a baby duck imprinting on the first thing it sees.”
“I’m not a duck.”
I finally turned, tipping my head back to look up at him. “Yeah, you don’t get many seven-foot ducks.”
“I can make myself shorter if you’d like.”
“You shouldn’t keep offering to change for me. You should be proud to be whoever or whatever you are.” I grabbed my coffee and went back into the living room, keen to change the subject away from all the feelings Caligo supposedly had for me. Love! Was that even possible when he barely knew me? “How is being dormant different from sleeping?”
“What?”
“You said you don’t sleep, yet being dormant sounds remarkably similar, only for a longer period.”
“I can’t compare the two because I’ve never slept.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” I thought back over everything he’d told me. “So all these other shadow people—the thousands you told me about. Is there some sort of annual shadow-person convention where you all get together and compare notes? Number of people you’ve scared that year. Most extreme reaction. Best house you’ve hung out in. That sort of thing. Like Comic-Con, but with less pop culture.”
“No. We do our own thing.”
“Sounds like a fun existence. You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. You don’t socialize. You just do a lot of watching. Although I suppose there’s also possessing people and using their bodies to have sex. Got to have a hobby.” It was amazing how casual I could be about that. “How many times have you done it?”
“Once.”
“You mean once before me?”
Caligo joined me on the sofa, completely dwarfing it. If he was going to be a permanent fixture, I’d need to buy a bigger one. I hadn’t had a seven-foot monster in mind when I’d bought it. “Once in total.”
“Oh… That’s—” Yet again, he’d rendered me speechless.
“I’ve possessed people before, but I’ve never used it for that purpose.”
