Chapter 38

38

MINA

Sylas was actually sorry, which was a novelty in my current existence.

It didn't erase all of my disappointment in him, especially because he'd only needed to apologize because he thought I couldn't take a little derision— after all that I'd been through already? —but I guessed it didn't matter anymore, because nothing did, really, and I'd been an idiot to think that anything in my life would ever, ever change.

I wrapped the towel around myself and went over to look in my nightstand. This time I was going to find the Xanax, because fuck this noise—fuck everything.

"What are you doing?" Sylas asked, looking over my shoulder.

"Pretending I'm a pharmacist. You?" I asked sarcastically as I rummaged around.

"I don't want you to take any more pills."

"I don't think you fucking get a vote," I muttered, finding the bottle I'd been looking for. It only had one more pill in it—guaranteeing probably only four to six hours of quiet time in my head, which was, proportionally, probably a sixteenth of the time I had left on this planet to enjoy the company of my Nightmare and assorted fucking rapist fools.

"Don't," Sylas said, wrapping his hand around my wrist.

"You can't stop me," I said, yanking it back. He spun me around to face him, and the towel fell free—good thing he'd put me into the tub with my underwear and bra on.

"You have such little time left. Why would you want to spend it this way?"

"You weren't there tonight, Sylas," I said, opening the bottle.

"I know. I will regret that for the rest of my days—and when I say that, know that I mean literally, until time stops."

I tossed the pill into my mouth without swallowing. "No," I said, pocketing it against my cheek, letting its bitterness burst across my tongue. " I mean inside my head. I don't want to be there anymore. I don't want to remember things anymore. I'm so tired of being me."

"And what about Ella?"

"I bet she's tired of me being me, too," I said—and his hand snaked out and grabbed my jaw, forcing it open. I gasped in shock—and before I could stop him, he'd swiped the pill out of my mouth and crushed it.

"Fuck you!" I shouted when he released me. "You just want me to hurt so you can feed!"

"I haven't fed off of you once!" he shouted right back. "And I just killed twenty men to save your life—and I didn't feed off of a single one of them!" He took a step forward, pushing his clawed fingers into my wet hair. "But I won't lie, Mina. I am tired of watching you give your tears to those ingrates, who I will be murdering shortly in painfully imaginative ways—because I want all your tears for me, the same as I want the rest of you , until I pull your heart inside myself, to beat beside mine for an eternity."

He was so close to me now, and whether or not he needed to he was breathing hard, as though he'd just exerted himself.

"You're frightening," I said. Not currently to me, in particular—it was just a statement of fact.

Sylas bowed his head in my direction. "Says the woman who fed an unseen ravenous horde a man's hand."

I snorted. "And Nolan's . . . really still alive?"

"I could take you to him, if you wanted. Let you watch me torture him, preferably after I pull his tongue out."

I swallowed, and pretended to pout. "But what if I wanted to hear him scream?"

"Men don't need tongues for that." His hand was still bound in my hair, the cotton over my nipples was drying, and I was righteously fucked in the head.

I was never going to manage to be normal.

I shouldn't have ever tried.

"Sit down on my bed, Sylas."

His brows pinched with confusion, but then he released me, to do as he was told, and I moved to kneel in front of him, pushing his knees open and taking his wrists in my hands. "Do that again," I said, bringing them up to the sides of my face. "In my hair."

He hesitated though. "What are you doing?"

"You killed those men for me. I heard you. And you're right—you are going to kill everyone else—and I think that deserves a reward." I glared up at him, then smirked. "It seems you can be surprised, after all."

One of his eyebrows arched. "And perhaps callbacks are indeed attractive."

I sat back on my heels and bit my lips. "I don't entirely know what you're working with, Sylas—but I'm willing to find out."

His dark eyes searched mine before he answered. "Continue."