One …
Her distressed scream is fabulously intoxicating as she tries to sidestep me, but realizes she has nowhere left to run, her eyes widening in terror, her breathing turning panicked. I give her a playful frown just to further antagonize her.
She makes one last attempt to escape, but I’m faster, grabbing her wrist and twisting her around. Wrapping my arms around her torso, I pin her hands to her sides as I push her back to my chest. I get a lungful of her shampoo as she strugglesagainst me. Luckily, she doesn’t smell like the fish market, but of sweet, ripe mangoes.
She shrieks, and I laugh.
Her legs thrash up in the air like a savage alley cat, which causes my laughter to swell. I attempt to press her to the wall to temper her violent objections, but she plants her feet flat against the bricks and pushes off with all the force she has in her thighs.
“Let me go!” she shrieks again as I stumble backward while trying to keep her tight to my chest, her legs still flailing this way and that.
When my back hits the brick wall behind me, I keep us pinned there, shushing into her ear as she continues to scream.
I can feel that strange absence, even now.
Her words stripped naked, so similar to?—
A thunderous boom wrenches me out of my thoughts; it startles me enough that I almost let Veil slip out of my grip. I hear distant screams, some fast approaching, like a mob is running toward us. I cock my ear, trying to pick up more clues. Was that an explosion? The disturbance sounded like it came from the city square. My mind flashes to my friends and family onstage. Shocked by the noise, Veil bellows with renewed vengeance, still fighting me.
“Please,” she says, her tone turning mournful, then chokes on a sob. “I don’t want to die.”
She continues to struggle, but she’s losing momentum, her feet finally making contact with the ground.
Unmoved by her small show of weakness, I still take a few moments to deliberate.
I could let her go, assuage my worry, and find out if my loved ones are safe.
Or …
Making up my mind, I tighten my grip around her chest. “Die?” I rasp into the shell of her ear. “Why would Ieverkill my new favorite pet?”
8
GEMINI
My new doll fought me all the way home. Luckily for me, she’s underfed and underweight, and my dragging her to the dock was a facile feat, if not slightly grating with her constant flailing of limbs.
We zipped across the harbor on a speedboat to reach the other side, where my house is perched atop a cliff facing Pandaemonium.
My driver didn’t bat an eye—didn’t dare question why I was abducting a little twig-like thief—even when I tried to silence her protest with a hand over her mouth. She bit down into my palm and broke the skin.
I must say, I rather enjoyed that.
My delighted laugh seemed to unnerve her more than the actual kidnapping. She grew quiet for the second half of the ride, but I didn’t risk letting her go, even after she calmed down. She seemed like the type who would fling herself off the boat in an attempt to escape.
Now here we are, in my living room, staring at one another as she sits on my red leather couch and I stand in front of her. Her long, wavy hair is wild from the windy boat ride. She’s wrappedher arms around her waist, her fingers nervously toying with the sleeve of her ratty sweatshirt.
No, no, no, that won’t do.
I’ll need to rectify her hideous wardrobe immediately.
She hasn’t made a peep since we stepped onto my property. The sun has had time to set somewhere in the distance, the shadows gradually crawling up the living room walls like vines.
Finally having had enough of our silly staring game, I let out a bored sigh and break eye contact. I turn to the wet bar, next to my vinyl collection near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“In the mood for a drink, love?” I ask over my shoulder as I lean down and open a small wine fridge, stocked with my favorite champagne. I pull out a bottle and uncork it while I wait for an answer, but I’m met with icy silence instead.
Unbothered by her lack of participation, I pour us two glasses and set hers on the coffee table before sitting on the couch a few seats away, sitting diagonally from her on the sectional. Her coupe is left untouched in front of her.
