Not even the courtesy of using his own phone. Of course, Ezra would have burner numbers ready, the mark of a man who understands both power and discretion. My thumb hovers over the screen as a battle between curiosity and self-preservation rages beneath my skin.
Curiosity wins. It always does.
The message appears, simple text without a greeting or a signature
Unknown Number
Did you cut yourself?
My neck throbs in response, the small wound a beacon broadcasting my distress across whatever distance separates us.
How does he know?
The question rises like bile in my throat before the obvious answer presents itself. The collar. It must have sensors monitoring my pulse, my temperature, perhaps even detecting the blood that slips beneath its edge.
Another buzz.
Unknown Number
Don’t bleed too much. I still need you.
The presumption in those six words sends heat rushing to my face, anger flaring white-hot. Need me? Like one needs a possession, a thing to be kept and displayed.
The phone buzzes a third time in my hand, not with a text but an image. Ezra, lounging in what appears to be his office at Sanctum, golden-hazel eyes staring into the camera as if he can see me through it. He holds up a small metal device, unmistakably the key to the collar around my throat. Behind the image comes a text.
Unknown Number
Come home, Ren.
Home. As if I belong to him, as if my place is at his side, collared and compliant.
A raw, primal scream tears from my throat as I hurl the phone across the bathroom. It hits the wall with a satisfying crack, the screen splintering into a spider’s web of fractures before the device tumbles to the floor.
My chest heaves with each ragged breath, heart hammering so hard it throbs in my fingertips, in my temples, in the cut on my neck that pulses in time with my fury. Blood and sweat mingle on my skin, salt and copper on my tongue when I lick my lips.
I turn back to the shattered mirror, facing my fractured reflection in the remaining shards. My face is divided into pieces, each segment showing a different aspect of the man I’ve become, wild hair, bloodshot eyes, the gleam of titanium at my throat.
With the back of my uninjured hand, I wipe at the blood on my neck, the red streak smearing across my skin.
I turn my head to stare toward the remains of my phone, its screen still illuminated with Ezra’s message despite the cracks spreading across its surface.
Unknown Number
Come home, Ren.
As if he knows where my true home is, as if he understands the man beneath all the personas I’ve worn.
But how can he when I don’t understand myself?
17
Icome back to myself hours later, the sting of dried blood pulling at my skin, my knuckles crusted and flaking when I flex my fingers.
Evening light filters in through my bathroom window, illuminating the aftermath of this morning’s rage. Glass shards wink in the sink, and my damaged cell blinks weakly amid more glass shards on the floor.
I stumble to my feet, and water sputters from the faucet when I turn it on, spattering on the broken pieces of the mirror in the basin. Careful of all the mess, I clean my wounds, kicking myself for injuring myself in the first place.
My hands are my career. What if I had cut through muscle or tendon? Then what would I have left?
