“Maybe it’s a curse,” I say, voice low, searching. “Maybe it’s my punishment. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s chaos theory, and nothing has any rhyme or reason at all. But whatever the purpose of this insanity, it’s the design for my life. And I have spent a lifetime reworking that design. Remastering the puzzle…and the only answer I’ve ever been given is you.” I step closer. “You’re the closest thing to freedom I’ve ever tasted.”
“You’ll never be free. You’re doomed to repeat this self-inflicted cycle forever. The madness won’t take you—these bars will. You keep putting yourself here again and again, trying to escape, but you’re still locked in that dark room.”
“Get the fuck out of my head, doc.”
She studies me, undeterred. “If you fear it enough, you’ll manifest it. You’re mind will make sure of that.” She takes her glasses off, letting me see her eyes. “And when that day comes, I’m not sure I can help you.”
“You have to.”
“Because you helped me?”
“Yes. It’s the price. The tradeoff.” I tilt my head. “Are you not grateful for everything I’ve shown you? If you could take it all back, would you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I wouldn’t, but I don’t know how—”
“You will.” My hands clench into fists. “If the day comes where you have to kill me, you will.”
A horrified expression crosses her face, but it’s gone just as quickly. She’s thought of this before. She’s had to. We’re as much of a threat to each other as we are each other’s sick salvation.
Even if my mother’s illness doesn’t claim me, my love for London might.
Love is madness.
“If you can’t help me, then you have no choice but to end me, London. Promise me that now.”
“Maybe I couldn’t…” She trails off, lost in thought. “But Lydia could.”
A slow smile curls my lips. “Then I guess we should keep her around, after all.”
“Lydia Prescott is just as important as the boy who’s still locked in that dark room under a greenhouse.” She swallows hard, wincing. “As your doctor, as the woman who loves you, I’m telling you to embrace him. He’s not your enemy. Stop trying to escape, Grayson.”
My nostrils flare. Heat creeps up my spine. Resentment singes the edges of my vision in vibrating waves of red. “Strip all the layers away,” I say. “I suppose it’s only fair. Seems these bars just brings out the honesty in us, baby.”
She nods, as if recalling her experience in the cage where I locked her up, forcing her to remember the past she tried to keep buried. “A lock and a key,” she says. “We are an inevitability.”
My smile stretches. “Till death?”
She answers by removing the scarf. I notice every nuance, slide of hand, and when she slips her hand under the material to free if from around her neck, she retrieves an object from the gaudy locket beneath.
The guard at the end of the hall missed the action, but I didn’t. Only I can’t focus on what she’s wrapping in the scarf. I can only see the welts, the bruises—the dark fingerprints marking her neck.
I grip the bars so hard my fingers ache.
I will kill him.
I know this as clearly as I know the sky is fucking blue.
London reads the tension thrumming through me and says, “No. We still need him.” She glances at the guard. He’s watching us. “It’s my choice. Mine.”
Rage lashes at my insides. “Then you better get to him first.”
Despite my attempts to be more than—better than—mortal, I’m no god. I’m blood and bone and London is steeped in my marrow. So deep I can feel her becoming a part of me. The pain won’t ever stop. The compulsions won’t ever stop. I’m human and I’m weak, and she’s still my only chance at freedom. My need for her won’t stop.
The guard stands.
I release the bars, my hands burning. “Give me the scarf.”
Her throat bruised and swollen, London takes a shallow breath. “Did you plan this?” she asks. “Back then. Before. Did you plan all this out in such meticulous detail that every possible outcome had its own contingency? Or are we that fated?”