I keep my head down, power walking through the empty hallways.
The sharp hunger pains that once filled my empty stomach are manifesting into gurgling waves of nausea. The kind of hunger that denies you the relief of eating.
I blame this on Aurick for enforcing the lady-doll regimen. He didn’t have to. It would have stayed between the two of us. But now, my limbs are trembling, and my insides are twisting. My body might be suffering from a lack of nutrition.
Heat rushes to my face, burning my cheeks. My hands tingle as I open the thirteenth door, and to my surprise, Dessin greets me before my feet pass the threshold. He relieves me of the heavy tray of food I’m holding, taking it to his bed.
I don’t have the slightest clue why, but I’m prevented from taking another step. The same heat that touches my cheeks like a hard hand slapping me across the face is now spreading over my chest and back. It prickles over my skin as if my follicles are growing tiny needles. A dull throb unravels in my stomach—foreign to the hunger pains—an illness creeping up the walls of my esophagus, pressurizing in my throat.
I look up at Dessin, who is facing me now, completely still, examining me like I’m the patient. He steps away from the food, approaching me like a wounded animal about to attack. He reaches his hand over my face, hovering like I might bite.
“May I?” he asks.
I don’t know what he’s asking permission for, but the sweltering sharpness in my gut is putting me in a state of shock, and I don’t care what he’s asking for—my mind is too busy trying to understand. I nod.
He places his thumb over my bottom lip, lightly tugging it downward to open my mouth. A drop of sweat trickles down between my breasts, and the small space on my mouth where his thumb rests scorches with nerve endings dancing at his touch. And he leans in—as if to kiss me—his mouth levitating over my parted lips.
What is he doing? My stomach lurches as if its thin lining has melted away.
“Licorice and almonds,” he says slowly, leaning away with his hand cradling my chin. My stomach cramps again, this time forcing me to hunch over, wincing in pain.
“Who—did—it.” The words come seeping out of his lips like smoke pouring off of a cigarette. I freeze, the hairs rising on the back of my neck.
“Did what?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Before you came back, did someone offer you something to eat? Or drink?”
I drop my eyes to the ground. The tea. Another sharp blade runs down my abdomen. This time, I moan, reaching my hand out for him to stabilize my balance. He latches on to my sides.
“They asked me to sit down for tea,” I finally answer. I know where he’s going with this. He smelled my breath for the remnants of poison. They tricked me.
“Am I going to die?” I ask, unable to look up at him.
“No,” he says. “But you need to let it run its course.” I’m guided to his bathroom floor, shivering, with a new chill wrapping itself around my sweaty body. He lowers me to the toilet, positioning my arms around the bowl.
“You should go,” I beg, panting as the saliva and lump in my throat drastically intensify. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
He kneels down beside me, running his fingers through my damp hair, moving loose strands away from my face. He doesn’t respond, only looks into my watering eyes, a tilt in his neck saying, I’m not leaving until it’s over.
Oh no, he’s going to see me vom—
And the bile is plunged from my throat like a heavy stream of hot broth. And suddenly, I don’t care that he’s here. The periphery of my vision disappears, and all that matters is the poison being forcibly removed from my digestive tract. My entire body locks up, the muscles in my abdomen hardening like cinder blocks as I contract like an accordion.
The more that flushes from my system, the more the sharp stretching pains are relieved. It isn’t until I have a fleeting moment to gasp for breath that I realize Dessin’s hand has been on my back, stroking in a circular motion, remaining at my side with my hair bunched up in his other hand.
When I come to a stopping point, he stands to exit the room, leaving me to collapse on my side after I flush the toilet. The corners of my mouth sting from the stomach acid, and I’m sore. Deathly, feverishly sore. The same brittleness to my bones one would feel after climbing a mountain or plowing a field by hand. I never want to leave this cold tile floor.
I wish I could say that it’s over. But my stomach gurgles once more, like a pot of chili coming to a boil. The violent, razor-edged cramp in my gut flares up, and my whimpers become muffled by my face as I roll on the floor.
Oh God, please make it stop.
Dessin walks back into the room with a glass of water in each hand. His expression is calm yet deeply concentrated.
I groan and turn my body over so that I’m lying flat on my stomach.
“I need you to attempt to drink both of these glasses,” he says.
I open my eyes, blink away the blurriness, and watch him pour a black powder, then a white powder into the glasses.
“Are you ensuring the job gets done?” A hoarse moan.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Death by poison is for cowards. I, myself, enjoy the theatrics of a blade.”
Hell. That is not helping. Now the thought of a bloody knife stomps around in my mind, and the nausea seems all the worse.
“You got everything out of your stomach, but the poison still lingers. You need water, or you’re going to start heaving.”
“What did you put in there?” He’s right. My muscles are beginning to buckle down again, waiting for a second launch.
“Charcoal, magnesium, fendacia root, and lemondrak leaf,” he says, handing me a glass. “It will protect your organs, expel any remaining doses of the satan root they poisoned you with.”
Satan root. What the hell were they trying to prove?
“How did you get all of that?” Saliva pools in my mouth.
“Do you really think I’d trust the proper nutrition of my body with these disgusting human beings?” He helps me off the floor. I sit up against the toilet so I can drink his concoctions.
I take a sip, and even though there is seemingly no taste, it feels wrong to keep going. Like jumping into a volcano that is scheduled to blow any moment.
“I can’t.” I shake my head.
“Skylenna.” His voice is now low and alarming. He’s kneeling in front of me, eyes embracing mine with a fire, an urgency for me to listen. “By giving you satan root, they’re expecting you to end up hospitalized for a while. They probably weren’t anticipating you’d make it back to this room. I’m certain they imagined you collapsing in the hallway where others would find you.”
I groan again. Why are the women here so insane? How could they knowingly harm me in this way?
“You’re going to drink this. We’re going to fight through it together. And you’re going to leave this room without a scratch. They’ll think you’re an untouchable demon from hell.”
I smile at that. A weak, sleepy-eyed smile.
“Maybe then we’ll have something in common, hmm?” I say, bringing the glass back to my lips to guzzle down.
After making it three-fourths of the way through the first glass, it all comes back out like a burst pipe, tasting like sour licorice.
He nudges the second glass to me. I grunt, smacking my hand down on the bathroom floor. “I want this to be over!”
“One more,” he says.
No. I can’t do one more. If I have to swallow another drop, I’ll explode. I’ll—
But it hits me—did Scarlett have to suffer their evil intentions? Did she go through this torture? The blazing thought of these women hurting my sister sparks an indestructible determination in me to make it through this without harm. Don’t they know her entire childhood consisted of enduring the cruelty of adults? My wounded, sad Scarlett must have taken the beatings, then went home, shielding me from the knowledge of her scars.
I hate them.
I want them to burn.
Dessin is watching me, paying close attention as if he can see the trail my thoughts are running on. I hold out my hand, accepting the second glass.
While I recover on the bathroom floor, Dessin sits in the doorway, picking at his steamed broccoli.
“Why do you treat me differently than you do the other conformists? From what I’ve heard, you’re far beyond ruthless and can instill fear within anyone. Why not me?”
There’s caution in his eyes. He knows the answer and doesn’t have to pay it a second thought. But it’s as if telling me would be breaking unspoken vows.
“I’ll tell you what”— he sets down his plate, running his hand over the lining of his jaw—“when this game is finally over. I promise you will know everything I know.”
“That’s a big promise.”
“Fortunately for you, I don’t break promises.”
“Says the murderer… having an identity crisis.” I smile.
He glares at me and then smiles back. “Let’s begin.”
