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Go on, tell her. Tell her how rotten you are inside. Tell her what a pathetic creature you are.

“Sunny.”

Leech.

“Sunday.”

Parasite.

“What’s wrong with him?” Another voice joins the fray, familiar, but not one I need.

“Don’t worry about it. Can you go grab some water, Séverin?”

You’ll siphon the life out of that boy, you know. All that will be left is the husk of a witch.

I can’t take it anymore.

I can’t.

I don’t realize I’ve hunched over until the points of my elbows dig into my knees and my fingers shred apart my hair, biting at my scalp. The pain grounds me for a second, but it’s fleeting. I just need it to stop.

Someone touches me, and I reel away from it.

“No,” I growl out, pushing the chair as far back into the corner as it can go. I drag the blunt ends of my fingers through my scalp, desperate for the agony, sliding my hands down my head until my palms press into my eyes.

“Sunday.” Lara again.

“Sunday,” Séverin’s soft French lilt echoes my name. “Look at me.”

I don’t want to. I strain against Séverin’s voice, the cords in my neck fighting as some unseen force lifts my head with similar effort to building the pyramids.

Séverin’s boyish face swims in my vision, his brown waves falling into his face—the texture so much like Bellamy’s it sends a fresh wave of pain through my system.

“Écoute ma voix, slow. Slow, Sunday.” His voice remains soft, but there’s a demand under the surface of his words that my lungs cave to, expanding and contracting. A new way to be a passenger in my own body, stuck somewhere between this need to survive and the desire to drown.

I don’t know how long it takes to school my breathing back into a normal rhythm, but when I do, there’s a snap of pressure, my muscles relaxing that last inch.

I’m still being watched, two pairs of eyes looking at me with concern that I don’t want. I hate being looked at like that. Makes me feel weak.

Séverin slides a bottle of cold water into my hand and I give a tight smile in return. He tucks himself into the desk on the opposite side of the room, ready for his midday nap instead of lunch.

Fucking youngsters, man. Even I didn’t party hard enough in my early twenties to need a nap in the middle of the day.

“If you’re still feeling crappy, maybe you should go to the⁠—”

“I’m not going to the fucking doctor, Lara,” I snap. Last thing I want right now is to be told all the things that are wrong with me and get pumped full of pills that won’t do shit. I’ve tried it all before. I don’t think any kind of medication will even make a dent in what’s going on.

A pang of guilt hits me at the sight of her face. “M’sorry,” I mutter, but it doesn’t sound sincere.

“You’re being a fucking dick, dude,” she huffs, knocking her foot into mine, a gentle gesture that tells me she’s mad, but not as mad as she could be.

I blow out another breath, scrubbing a hand down my face as I stand and pull her into a halfhearted hug. I murmur another round of apologies into her hair, telling her I have some personal things going on that I can’t talk about right now.

I turn her attention to Séverin, who has his feet tucked up on his chair, passed out with his head against the wall. “Maybe you should be more concerned about him. At least I can stay awake at work.” And all night. For several nights, apparently.

She lets out an exasperated laugh. “Yeah. He’s a good kid, though. Always gets his work done.”

We both watch him for a second, then she slaps her hands on her thighs and tells me to stay in the office and work on admin. Feeling calmer, I settle back to do just that.