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No, the shadow is something I wear like a cloak, and like a cloak it grows heavier with each step until it’s unbearable. That’s when I kill. I kill. Me. Not the shadow. Still, if it were gone, I wouldn’t need the release that killing gives me.

Wendy was able to sew Peter’s shadow back on using only a needle and thread. Is it so impossible to think that she could cut it away from me with a razor?



Kat

When I woke up, it was dim in the room. The sky outside of the bedroom window was gray, the curtains glowing white at the edges. I longed to look outside, to see the trees now in the half-darkness. Half-turned on my side, I tugged slightly at the rope before realizing that I was still captive. The knot was still tight around my wrist.

Next to me, Gavriel kicked out. He’d fallen asleep on his back, leaving me to stare at the ceiling for hours before I finally was able to drift off into restless sleep. Now he was the restless one. He kicked again and moaned, the blanket yanked down around his waist, his body twisted.

Sweat soaked the front of his shirt, a half-circle of transparent wet fabric clinging to his sculpted chest. His brows were clenched together tightly on his forehead, an expression so painful it hurt me to watch him writhe. Both sides of his mouth turned down in a grimace. The corners of his eyes leaked tears that mixed with the sweat trickling down his temples.

Killer. Kidnapper. Torturer. But as he tossed beside me, moaning again in his sleep, he looked like a child scared of the dark.

He turned over again, a whimper escaping his lips. He murmured half-words I could not understand. Then one I could, a whisper so sorrowful it nearly broke my heart.

“Kitten,” he whispered, and moaned again.

My arm was tied tight, but I could reach with my fingers as he moved his head. I touched the top of his hair, my fingertips stretching to caress him.

He stopped moaning. Stuck in an awkward stretch, I continued to pet him on top of his head with only my fingertips. My nails ran through his hair, pushing back the black mess. His lips moved but now there were no words, just silent intonations.

Then he rolled over, his arm swinging across my body, and he clutched me tightly, as though I were a pillow or a stuffed animal from his childhood. His head rested on my shoulder, damp with sweat. His knee rested on my thigh. The weight of him was so real, so impossibly human.

Was he a monster? And was I a monster for caring for him? Even now, tied up to bedposts, I could not help but think that I was less of a prisoner than he was.

I tilted my head down and kissed him softly on the forehead. Hot skin, still moist with sweat.

“Sleep,” I whispered, and he obeyed.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Gav

The next morning I brought her breakfast in bed. Her eyes were bleary; she must not have slept well. Pity.

“Why don’t you untie me?” she asked, as I offered her a piece of buttered biscuit.

“I have to go,” I said. “I can’t leave you untied when I leave the house.”

“Where are you going?” She wasn’t eating; I was slightly irritated.

“Out.”

The shadow was back. It had come back in the night, after so many days of being chased away. I knew I had to find a new victim. Not to kill right away, but soon.

There had been a man I’d been researching. A politician, one who enjoyed whoring around and beating on his wife. He’d slept with his intern, too, a fourteen year old girl. She’d come out of the building once while I was there, her hair mussed, her eyes rimmed red with tears. I watched him as he spoke with her in the parking lot, threatening her, bending her against the hood of his Lexus. The thought made me shiver with dread.

Yes. That would do it. That would drive the shadow back. An indulgence, to kill twice in a month, but I deserved it for dealing with such a hassle. That’s all she was, my pet, a small hassle. I pushed the biscuit into her mouth and she chewed. Chewed, chewed and swallowed.

“What were you dreaming about last night?” she asked.

Her shoulders were relaxed, even tied up. Her lips were pink and tempting.

“I didn’t dream,” I said.

“You did. You were talking in your sleep.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Were they nightmares?”

My eyes snapped back to hers. Clever one, she thought she was. And she was clever, but not clever enough. I didn’t know what she’d heard last night. The screams of the man I’d been killing in my dream? The cries of my mother?

“No,” I said.

“What happened to your mother?”

It was a guess, nothing more. I could tell. She was pushing, trying to figure me out. There was nothing to figure out, little kitten. Push too far, and you’ll see the darkness. I tossed the last piece of biscuit back onto the plate.