Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

P ersephone

My ears are still ringing from the last scream of my name in his familiar voice. Never, not ever in my life has it ever sounded so loud as it did only minutes ago. The grief. The rage-infused anguish. It's so close I feel I might reach out and touch it. Him . I fear I might walk into it with every step I take as I put distance between me and the girls.

My vision bursts between sharp and blurred images as I move, disoriented and panicked. Maybe I really am losing my mind. Maybe I do have something deeply, inherently wrong with me. I'm hearing voices. No, not voices. A single, specific voice. But does it matter how many there are when it's a constant in my mind?

With a shaking hand, I reach out to steady myself against the wall. I've found myself in a big, hexagonal shaped, windowless room. There is only a single arched entrance from which I came. I'm not sure how I ended up here. If it was a hall I took or stairs.

I'd been fleeing, I realize. Fleeing that which I have no hope of escaping. My own mind is a treacherous place. A prison I was born to, and I fear it's a prison I'll die within.

People chatter as they roam the room, pausing to consider the art that has been hung on the walls. My skin feels dewy, either from the escape I attempted to make or the nerves that thrash inside with the quick violence of a whip.

My knees wobble as my gaze shifts from the people in the room, to the painting closest to me. Something about it has my pulse quickening. It pulls me closer, as though the talons in the painting have stretched from the canvas to claw at the threads of my ravaged soul, tugging me nearer. It's a gory piece, there's no denying it.

It's not the style that usually grips me, for I am typically drawn to the heartsore pain of a lost love. A tragic end to a beauty that never got the chance to be . My heart is a glutton for the worst kind of punishment within the strokes that caress a canvas. Always seeking the romance that never blooms. The love that never flies. The passion that, tragically, dies.

This painting is not that. It is raw, however. Upon a more intimate inspection, I see that it's not just talons that reach out from the painting, as though to snare the viewer. But it's the leafless limbs of a starved tree, billowing in a violent wind. Behind the curled talons is a thing of darkness. It is faceless, boneless, and yet, somehow, humanoid. Beyond the disembodied darkness, torn pieces of flesh and shattered bone burst outward to shimmer in the vastness of a deep ebony streaked with depthless blue, that I realize in horror, depicts an endless night of suffering. The stars are the flesh and bone that have been torn from—what? A dark soul? And holding it all together, imprisoning a galaxy of torment, is the taloned tree that roots to nothing, swimming in a lifeless, endless eternity.

It's tragic. Utterly, completely, painfully tragic.

Something slashes inside me. It's quick and unsettlingly not mine . Or maybe it is. I don't know. I only know that it feels like grief. Like I'm looking into the core of a living thing I know. A living thing that is of me…even though that can't be. It's just a painting.

Still, the dark shadows seem to swim in the twisting wind, impossibly sentient. Watching me .

"What do you think?"

I blink, startled by the deep warmth within the man's voice. It's like being enveloped by sin and flame and the kind of darkness that makes you want to close your eyes and settle in for a long, dreamless sleep.

What the hell, Annie?

"About what?" I ask disjointedly. I can't seem to tear my gaze from the painting to look at him. I'm held captive by the horror. A prisoner of paint.

"The painting." I think I hear amusement, and it's the thing that draws my gaze to him.

I'm struck. He's—well, he's—I—I'm speechless.

A hot blush climbs from the deep of my belly. An inferno of dormant hormones suddenly bursting like a pin-pricked balloon in the depths of me. It paints my too-pale skin a deep shade of pink. My mouth goes bone dry.

God, save me.

As though he heard my mental plea, the corner of his full mouth twitches. He tips his head ever so slightly toward the painting, prompting in his deep timbre, "The painting."

I blink. My mind is blank. I parrot weakly, "Th-the painting?"

The twitch of his lips tugs into a half grin. The knock I feel against my heart is physical. "What do you think of the painting?"

"Ohhh." I cover my burning cheeks with cool hands. I can't even blame my obliviousness on having a drink, because I didn't have a single one.

The man slides his big hands into the pockets of his fitted suit as he waits. I can't help but give him a quick once-over before I force my gaze back to the painting. He's that handsome. And that's saying something, considering I can't recall ever having a crush on anyone. In fact, I'd been so unmoved by attraction, for either girl or boy, that I thought I might be asexual .

If I'm taking into consideration the tingling heat I feel between my legs right now, I'm going to say I'm not asexual at all. Apparently, all I needed to get me going was a man twice my age. Okay, maybe I'm being just a tad dramatic, but the guy has to be touching thirty-five. Maybe even thirty-seven.

I can't believe I'm entertaining these thoughts.

Things are wrong with me. Big things. Dad would lose his mind if he knew I was getting all tingly for a man in his thirties.

I do my best to banish the tingles as I consider the painting again. What do I think of it?

I steal a breath that tastes oddly of woodsmoke, earth, and something else. Something unknown. Thoughts of epic tragedy fill my mind, but instead of forming an eloquent reply, I blurt, "I think the artist is crazy." There's a deep chuckle beside me, but I hurry to explain, "I mean, I'm not the best judge of sanity. I'm pretty sure I'm mad, too."

What in the heck is wrong with me? Shut up, Annie. Shut. Up!

"And, might I ask, what has your sanity in question?"

I can literally feel myself attempt to swallow the words, but when I open my mouth, they tumble out in a blast of truth that has the blood draining from my face in one quick whoosh. "I hear a voice in my head."

I'll never recover from this .

He arches a single brow. I decide I've already blown apart whatever interest called him over to me in the first place. I may as well continue trudging full speed down the damning tracks of truth.

This train has left the station, and there's no going back.

Grammy always said there's no point in being embarrassed about what has already transpired. You can't change the past, and as long as you're moving forward, you're going in the right direction.

I forge ahead, lifting a single finger between us. "Just one voice. I'm not a complete lunatic. I've heard him since I was little." His eyes drift over my face when I scrunch my nose. Quietly, I admit, "I can't recall a time when I didn't hear him."

"What does he say to you?"

"Nothing. He doesn't ever say anything to me."

His head tips, and there is curiosity in his dark eyes. "Then what do you hear?"

"He calls my name. That's it."

His eyes are so impossibly dark as they search mine. When his lips part, I wet my own. His eyes drop to chase the movement, flickering with something that snares the breath in my chest. It looks an awful lot like hunger. A ravenous, starved, dangerous hunger.

I excuse it away with innocent ignorance. I'm not experienced enough to know what hunger looks like. Much less hunger on a man like him.

"What is your name?" Am I wrong, or has his voice dropped in pitch? And why does it suddenly ring with the familiar undercurrents of the voice I've only ever heard in my head?

My name falls between us on a breathless breath. "Persephone."