4. Alters

4. Alters

Dessin

I want to gut someone.

Watching Skylenna walk into her cage without a proper meal today punctured a hole in my chest. She tried not to rub her stomach. Hell, she even tried to cover the gurgling sound of her hunger with a pathetic little cough.

It’s my job to provide for this family. I don’t know when I elected myself to this position; the exact moment isn’t clear. I suppose it happened the moment I met Skylenna in that asylum. I watched her from the inner world, paid attention as she and Kane grew up, had fights, played in the rain, cried about Jack, swam in the lagoon. I knew her in a way, or at least I felt like I did.

But that moment when she walked into the thirteenth room, my eyes scaled the length of her smooth legs, and my heart beat like a war drum in my chest as she locked those beautiful emerald eyes on me.

I expected her to tremble. To avoid eye contact. I was fully aware of the reputation I had. Proud of it, actually. I worked damn hard to make each person fear my presence. Careful not to let them get too close so Demechnef wouldn’t target them for information. But my girl didn’t recoil. She reached out and shook my hand and didn’t shy away from my stare. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I mean, I remember her being a sweet, cute, little girl. I remember Kane’s childish dreams of marrying her one day. But my God, she was devastating.

It’s not in my nature as an avenging alter to bow to anyone’s needs but my system. To protect the other alters. To harm those who have hurt us. Therefore, it took me by complete surprise when, at that exact moment, I would do anything to protect her, do anything to make her happy.

Sure, I would have protected her for Kane. She was all he could think about. But I was fucked, because I was the alter that was supposed to carry out her insane plan with ease. I was the one who was not expected to let feelings for her get in the way. That’s one of the reasons Kane had to retreat to the inner world. He couldn’t bear lying to her, keeping her in the dark, even if she was the one who orchestrated the damn thing.

It makes this situation so much worse.

I have this rot growing in my core, this aching desire to escape this prison and keep us all safe.

This isn’t your fault, man,Kane whispers. But he isn’t fooling me. The heart-wrenching guilt is pouring from him to me in a slow, poisonous trickle.

I usually have time to work out an escape plan, I tell him angrily. But now, I feel like each moment that passes increases the odds of one of them dying. That blood is on my hands.

Kane sighs but doesn’t respond.

Losing us to death or fake death left an irreversible mark on her soul. I can’t let her lose anyone else she loves.

Kane hums his agreement. But he can’t stop the endless flow of remorse pouring off him. I’m suddenly shown a memory of him telling Skylenna he had a bad feeling about the warship. The mission. He wishes he would have tried harder to convince us to stay put.

Go rest in the Ambrose Oasis,I say to him with a layer of calm. I need a clear head if I’m going to pull off the best escape to date. Your guilt is going to eat me alive, brother.

Kane’s quiet for a long time, but I know he’s still lingering.

Tell her I love her, okay? I love her so much.The pain in his words is enough to paralyze me. I nod, and in a single moment, I’m drained of the heavy surplus of guilt and back to being pissed.

“Get out of your head.” A charming, delicate voice flutters through my cage. I turn my head to look at her, forehead pressed against the crooked black bars between us. “Pay attention to me.” Skylenna smiles sweetly, sending a rush of pleasure straight to my cock.

“My attention is always on you, baby.”

“Who were you with just now?” she asks quietly, a level just above a whisper, like she wants to keep details about what goes on in my head private. Between us.

“Kane.” I blow out a breath.

Her brow wrinkles. I resist the urge to rub my thumb across her worry lines.

“He wants me to tell you that he loves you.”

Her green eyes shine with tears as she smiles, looking away with a blush touching her cheeks. “And what about you?” she asks without meeting my eyes. “Do you love me?”

She knows the answer to this. I can see it as clear as the morning sky across her softened expression. Yet she still asks, wanting that affirmation. I wait until she glances over at me, then nod once.

Skylenna smirks to herself, rubbing her hands up and down the backs of her arms, subconsciously trying to gather heat.

“Are you hungry?” I ask. Not sure why I’m even bringing it up. I have no food to offer her. An angry, stretching pain swells under my chest. The clamoring need to kill the prisoners that run that kitchen. The pricks that decided to starve us out.

She shakes her head. “No.” Lie. “I am cold, though.”

I shift closer to the bars that separate us, reaching my hands to pull her closer, wrapping my arms around her lean frame as much as I can manage.

Fuck, she feels good against me. My hands trail up and down her soft curves.

She inhales through her nose slowly, letting out an audible sigh against my bare chest. A little noise I’ve come to recognize as her enjoying my scent. I can relate. She always smells so sweet and pretty. Raindrops, jasmine, and lilies. And it’s always most robust on the top of her head. My cock twitches as she lets out a happy, sleepy, quiet moan.

“If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the primal need to run my fingers up her warm center and push them into my mouth just so I can taste her again.

“Easy. Under the stars. In the Red Oaks.”

Classic. I remember lighting a fire for us that night she told me how Scarlett died. It felt so damn good to have my own special moment with her. After getting to know her, I grew jealous of the history Kane shared with her. I became hungry to make my own history with her. And that night, she let me comfort her, let me in on the darkest part of her…it was our moment. It was mine to keep.

And it meant the world to me.

“With a fire,” I add, and she shivers.

“And DaiSzek to cuddle with.”

“You don’t want to cuddle with Knightingale?” I smirk.

She gives me a pointed look. “Uh, not really, no.”

I laugh.

“She’s so prickly,” she muses. “Kind of like you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.”

She snickers, adjusting herself against the bars.

“She doesn’t really seem like the cuddling type,” she says.

“Neither does DaiSzek.”

“Nah, he’s a big baby.”

My heart thumps in my chest. Fuck, he’s the biggest baby. I miss him like crazy right now. He’s my good boy. My fire-breathing dragon. I want to fight alongside him again. Tear this Vexamen Breed to shreds. We have such a bond when we go into battle; it’s like this silent communication that no one else can hear or understand. This promise that he has my back, that he’d cover any weak spots I might overlook, that he’d cut through a forest, run through a hurricane, fly over a mountain, just to eliminate any threats I face.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Skylenna asks with worry weakening her tone.

I shake my head. “No, I don’t. He’s bonded to us, baby. He’s probably going out of his mind trying to cross that ocean.”

She shudders in my arms. “We have to get back to him. To Knightingale. To Chekiss.”

“I know.”

Skylenna clears her throat, forcing away the tears that must be gathering in her eyes.

“If Skylenna is giving Dessin a blow job right now, I’m going to hurl,” Niles states in a hushed tone. “Or get turned on. Not sure which yet.”

Skylenna stiffens in my arms.

“We can hear you, you little monster!” I bark, shooting him a glare that could slice through that stupid, finely coiffed hair of his.

“Whoops. Am I really that loud?”

Ruth chuckles.

“No one is getting blown tonight,” Warrose says with a hand draped over his eyes.

“Exactly,” Ruth adds. “So, at least Warrose’s nightly routine is perfectly intact.”

Skylenna and I burst out laughing, her shoulders shaking against my arms.

Warrose pops up from his relaxed position on the cold floor.

“Is that going to help you sleep at night, little queen?” His husky voice is taunting, daring her to travel through this topic with him.

“Not if you’re obnoxiously loud putting that right hand to work,” she retorts.

We all laugh again, louder this time.

Damn. Get him, Ruth.

“I’d like to retract my little queen nickname. You’re a little rebel talking to me like that.” Warrose cracks a smile. “I guess I’ll keep us both awake with this right hand. Every. Night.”

Ruth loses her tickled expression, and her olive cheeks blossom with color.

“You’re disgusting,” she seethes, yet she shakes her head, biting back a smile.

“How about we have a no masturbation rule while we’re here,” I offer.

Niles groans dramatically. “Who invited the prude?”

At this, Skylenna giggles. And I want to bottle up that sound. Play it over and over again in my mind. She’s so pretty when she laughs. In the asylum, she seemed so drained of life, so heartbroken. It took so long to hear that cute little noise.

She turns into me, her pink lips grazing my ear as much as she can with the bars keeping us apart. “I don’t get to touch myself tonight?”

My cock takes notice, filling with heat at her question, her sultry tone, and her warm breath. “Did you want to touch yourself?” I whisper back.

She nods slowly. “My clit is throbbing, and I’m so wet.”

“Fuck, baby,” I growl.

The sexual energy races through my veins. It’s enough to give me the strength to rip these bars apart like they’re made of cardboard. I want her in my lap so fucking bad.

Greystone’s dark, ravenous presence closes in on the front. My vision blurs slightly, the first sign I can feel myself start to dissociate.

Get back,I warn him. We’re in the Vexamen Prison.

I’m beginning to not care about dangerous surroundings when it comes to Skylenna,he replies casually.

I ignore him and focus on how her long fingers travel through my hair, tracing the nape of my neck. “When this is all over, can we move far away from here?”

“Where would you like to go?” I’d follow you through hell, baby.

“Maybe there’s a nice country out there? Somewhere that doesn’t have a fucked-up government. Somewhere no one knows our names.”

I nod, breathing in the scent of rain and lilies from her hair. Where no one knows our names. Wouldn’t that be nice? But would our system of alters still have a need for me? Or would I simply disappear?

Is there life for me outside of this chaos?

I want that to be true.

“We could build our own house,” she mutters, looking up at me with childlike hope blooming in her eyes.

“I’ll build you your own castle.”

Her smile widens. And that fucking settles it. To see that smile again, I’ll do just that. One day, I’ll build my girl a castle.

“And you’ll build a special door for DaiSzek, where he can go in and out as he pleases?”

“Of course.”

“And a big room in the castle for Chekiss. So, we can take care of him when he gets really old?”

I sigh. Her heart is so big. “Yes.”

“And—”

“If you say a room for Niles, I’m taking it all back.”

She laughs as I tickle her sides.

Now that I think about it, this could all be so much worse. I could be on the other side of the prison, somewhere far from her cage. Somewhere I can’t touch, see, or comfort her in the night.

For this, I’m grateful.

“Would you like to live near the forest or the ocean?” I ask. Hearing the ocean waves at night might be nice and peaceful. It would be quite the change to—

Skylenna’s eyes darken. A cold, stormy, seafoam green. And they flicker like she’s watching a single, terrifying moment play out that no one else can see. A moment that seems to alter every small detail on her beautiful face. And then, with a few blinks, she’s back, wincing in my arms. Visibly aching, trembling, retreating inwardly.

“Where did you go?”

I regret asking the moment she meets my eyes. I see the woman who created her own puppets out of orderlies. The same woman who chewed off Meridei’s arm. She’s quickly so cold, so detached, so withdrawn. It reminds me of myself. Back in Demechnef training, I’d look at myself in the mirror, feeling no connection to the reflection looking back at me.

It suddenly clicks—the ocean.

“I’m a fool,” I say with a clenched jaw. “That was thoughtless.”

I’ve known a trigger of hers is a basement. Confined, dark spaces. But I’ve now doomed her with another trigger. The beach. The sand. The ocean. The sound of the waves crashing on top of each other. That fact alone clenches my stomach in a tight fist. If only I could take away that memory, absorb it into myself.

I would.

She shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deflection. I invented that, Skylenna.

“I can’t apologize enough.”

She waves me off. A quick dismissal and nearly a command for me to stop talking about it. Now.

“Can you tell me more about your system? The other alters? How it all works?” she asks, changing the subject in a seamless transition.

“Your idea of a bedtime story?”

She nods with a happy little yawn.

I stroke the back of her soft arm, savoring the sensation of goose bumps rising under my fingertips.

I’ve told her about a few of the others. About the different reasons they split. But we’re not exactly fond of explaining what goes on in our heads. No one really understands. At least, no one that we’ve met.

“Prompt me,” I say quietly, low enough for only her ears. “What would you like to know?”

She’s quiet for a moment, biting her bottom lip in thought. An intense urge to pull that lip with my teeth sends a burst of fire through my gut.

“Will I eventually meet all of the alters?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrug. “There are some that were split to stay in the inner world.”

“For what reason?”

“To hold certain memories. Both good and bad. To act as a caretaker for those that can’t cope or care for themselves.”

“Like children?” She sits up straighter. A note of concern thickening her voice.

“We call them littles.”

She turns to look at me, face pinched with sadness. “There are child alters in the inner world?”

I nod.

“What are their names?”

“Arthur and Little Kane.” I don’t see them often, but Kane does.

Her hand shakes as she covers her mouth in surprise. “There’s an alter for Kane’s brother and his younger self?”

“Mm-hmm. I call them introjects. An alter based on an outside person.” I adjust my legs to stretch out, trying to relax. “Little Kane is kind of frozen in time at the age of six. Unable to accept that anything has changed past the moment he lost Sophia and Arthur. He has it rough. Kind of stuck in this endless flashback of his trauma.”

Skylenna gasps. “He’s stuck in his own personal hell?”

I give her a soft smile. “He’s taken care of, though, and so is Arthur. By a caretaker alter.”

“What’s their name?”

“Sophia.”

“Wow, an alter for his mom.” Her eyes turn round and glossy. I try to rein it in, not wanting to upset my girl tonight.

“Kane sees them every once in a while. It’s good for him.”

“And they never come to the front? Never join the outside world?”

I shake my head. “Once. But it was upsetting for Little Kane to see himself in an adult body. He was deeply disturbed and retreated further into the inner world. But every now and then, Sophia will come close to the front, offering advice and emotional support in moments of heartache.” I pull Skylenna’s hand to my lips and kiss softly. “The way a mother would.”

“Do you have any other—introjects?” She melts as my lips peck her hand a few more times.

“Absinthe.” The name unfurls an unsettling rage in the pit of my stomach. I was so angry with myself for not killing Absinthe before she could ever get her hands on Skylenna.

Fuck, even now, the urge to do unspeakable acts to torture that old woman rings in my ears and makes my fingers twitch.

“Why would you want that crazy bitch to be an alter?” Skylenna questions in horror.

“We don’t get to choose how alters are split or who they become. They manifest into their own person. And at the time, she was abusing us. She’s what we call a persecutor. An alter that was split to hurt our system.”

“I’m sorry,” Skylenna fusses, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to make stupid assumptions of how everything works.”

“The fact that you’re taking the time to learn about us is very kind, Skylenna. Most people would be too scared to ask or think it was a hoax.”

“Why would an alter harm your system?” She jumps right back into it. I fight the urge to smile at her endless curiosity.

“A persecuting alter holds self-hatred and internalized abuse. They abuse the rest of the alters to teach everyone how to behave in order to prevent more abuse—especially from the real Absinthe.”

“Oh my god. That’s awful.”

“She would reenact abuse to make sure future abuse wasn’t harder on us. It’s fucked up, I know. But she never comes to the front. We’ve found a way to keep her hidden and locked away so she can’t hurt us anymore.” I really need to talk about a lighter topic. I can tell by how her brow furrows and her fingers curl into her palms that this is upsetting her too much.

“There is a female alter that stays hidden from everyone,” I say, searching for a lighter topic. “Her name is Bloom.”

“Bloom.” Skylenna smiles. “What kind of alter is she?”

“A memory holder. She keeps bad memories from the other alters. Occasionally works with other trauma holders, like me.”

“What’s she like?”

“Honestly? Soulless. Inhuman. She has to be, though, in order to cope with the memories she bears alone.”

“Does she hold the worst of all the traumatic memories?”

I shake my head. We’re supposed to keep this light. But now that the truth is out, I’ll never keep her in the dark again.

“There are deeper alters. I’ve never met them. None of us have, actually. They reside so deep in the inner world, so far away from all of us, that I’m not sure if we could even find them. They hold the most severe, devastating memories that would likely kill us if we ever knew about them.”

It’s dark. I know.

“How horrible could something be that they can’t come anywhere near you?” she asks, voice trembling.

I shrug. “Memories can sometimes bleed from one alter to another. Not intentionally. The ones the deeper alters cope with are too horrible ever to risk coming to light.”

Skylenna holds me closer, pressing our bodies painfully against the bars.

“Is this why you never talk about it? Because of how heavy the topic is?”

I nod. “It isn’t a happy story.”

At that, her stomach gurgles loudly.

I close my eyes, letting my head fall back to the bars in silent hatred for this place. Our situation. The fact that they’re all probably starving right now.

“When we fall asleep, maybe I’ll join you in the inner world,” Skylenna breathes, sleep draping over her eyes. “Maybe we can stay there a while.”

I kiss the top of her head.

“It’s a date.”