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She gasps. “Lincoln…how do you do that?”
I shrug. “A knife…though my preferred method is razor blades. Metaphorically, of course, since they aren’t real people. But the pain they experience is real, and it all feels very real to me. Sometimes I’m gentle, but with the particularly stubborn ones, I need to use extreme measures. The outcome, however, is always the same. They are silenced.”
Although…that’s not entirely true, either. They are all part of the system; I just found a box to put them in, so I don’t have to hear them.
She swallows hard. “Do you do that to real people, too, or is that just Mikael?”
My vision shimmers and all Mikael’s memories come rushing in.
Blood, screaming, shredding.
“No, Summer, I don’t kill people.”
Her lip trembles. “Mikael kills people, though, doesn’t he? If you’re part of the same system, then that makes you a killer, too.”
I squeeze her sides and pull her head in for a kiss. “He hasn’t killed a single soul since I was created. I’ve made sure of that.”
She lets out a breath, but her face tells me she’s far from done. Her eyes drift to the back wall where I have Cali.
“Lincoln?”
“Yes, Summer.”
“You have a girl hiding in your walls. The girl you told me you killed.”
She shivers as I run my fingers up her back. “I told you, my love, I don’t kill people. And yes, I do have a girl down here with me—you can thank Mikael for that one. He screwed up and took her in a blind fit of rage. She reminded him of you. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what to do with her. She’s seen my face; she could ruin me.”
She lets out a labored breath. “Why did he come back?”
My body tenses, my pupils shimmer again. “Because of you. You woke him up when he saw you in town the weekend you moved in. I hadn’t felt him for two years before that.”
She stares deep into my eyes, her brows furrowing. She sees it—the split, the anger living untethered in my head.
“He’s stronger than you,” she whispers.
“He’s part of the system, an important part, but no, he’s not stronger than me. He can’t function in society, and he knows it. He hasn’t grown much past his adolescence; his brain never made adulthood because I started taking over that role when he was young. He needs me, Summer, more than I need him.”
She’s quiet and contemplative. Her eyes blink and grow distant. “Can’t you just suppress him like you do the others?”
My pupils flare and he pushes into the periphery, and it’s everything I can do to calm him.
“Relax,” I tell him, pushing him down. This girl must really have a death wish.
“Do you remember anything from last night?” she asks me.
I adjust my glasses, seeking a better view of the expression in her eyes. “Not the part you’re referring to.”
A smile hints at her lips. “And you think I had sex with him?”
I don’t respond as her fingers reach down and find my erection. “You’re just full of questions this morning, aren’t you?”
“I have a right to know the person I’m in love—” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
I arch a brow and smirk. “Continue the thought.”
“I want to know who I’m in love with,” she breathes. “And if he’s a part of you, then that means I love him, too, Lincoln.”
She shifts and a surge of unbalanced and irrational emotions hits me as she grinds her pussy over me. He directs them effortlessly, like he’s playing a fiddle, until the jealousy nearly kills me.
