Page 44 of Kill for a Kiss

There are mirrors all around us, and I see a tear spill down the cheek of a woman in a reflection I don’t recognize. Thatcan’tbe me. I have brown eyes, not blue. And I don’t belong here. I want to go home. I want to see my family. I want my life back.

***

Time bends. The silk sheets beneath me feel impossibly soft, the kind that invite you to linger, to forget, to stay. I love the feel of them, the way they slip against my skin like a second breath. It makes time irrelevant.

Clo watches us—Stan and I—with that same smile, while she pours tea and offers pills.

“Sweet girl,” she murmurs as her hand glides through my hair. “You’re doing so well. Slowing down.”

The words seep into me. I feel them in my chest, deep and warm. I sip the tea, and another pill slips past my lips. It’s bitter and chalky. Then my eyes track the fingers in front of me. I realize the fingers that lifted the pill into my mouth are my own. Behind my hand, Clo’s smile stays, looking proud.

I smile back. How could I not? She’s been taking such good care of me.

But then her smile twists into a snarl. The world around me blurs. I blink and blink to fight it, feeling dizzy and faint. I blink really hard, and in a second, the silk sheets vanish.

I’m in a different room now. White, too white, and too bright. The type of white that makes my eyes burn. And there are mirrors everywhere. I feel like I should remember this place, but I don’t.

I sit in a chair, spine straight, body so still. Stan sits across from me, perfectly mirrored. His usual grin is gone. His eyes are blank. It’s wrong,so wrong.

Clo’s voice slices through the silence, soft but soaked in command. “You trust me, don’t you?”

I try to shake my head. Try to speak. But my lips move on their own. “Yes,” I say as my heart pounds.

Stan echoes it. “Yes.”

“How wonderful.” Clo smiles. “You are safe. You are happy.”

The words settle in my chest. Something inside me lurches, unsettled. But I can’t hold on to it. The thought drifts before I can understand what it was. The erratic beat of my own heart feels less and less like it belongs to me.

“You will obey,” Clo says. “You will follow my words.”

Stan’s hand clenches, then loosens. His gaze stays unfocused and detached, as if he isn’t really here. I wonder…is that what I look like too?

There’s a pressure in my chest now, heavy like a scream that can’t quite reach the surface.

“Yes,” I whisper shakily. And Stan says it too, sounding rehearsed.

Clo leans in. Her fingers brush my cheek, cool to the touch. “Sweet girl,” she coos. “You’re exactly where you need to be. You’re safe, and you’re home, where you belong. So slow down your thinking.”

Slow down. I want to recoil. But I can’t remember how to be afraid. My fingers reach for Stan’s hand. I don’t remember moving. But I feel the roughness of his skin beneath mine. He leans in. His lips graze my temple. The heat lingers. I should pull away. I don’t—

I blink. Now we’re somewhere else. The roomis mostly dark, candlelit dimly. My fists are tangled in the fabric of sheets.

Stan’s warm breath grazes my throat. His arm’s around my waist, his hand pressing behind me. I realize I’m bare under him. We both are, under a thin blanket covering his back.

Heat coils deep inside me, slow and rising. I try to speak, but I whimper instead. The sound bursts out of me, raw and hoarse.

I hear Clo’s voice too, commanding, “Slow down.” And I hear Stan’s, husky and rough, groaning something close to praise right into my ear.

Something hurts. Something churns. Like my insides are being rearranged.Is this what I think this is? Is this really happening?

I blink away the tears building, blurring my view of Stan on top of me.

A few more blinks, and I’m still in silk sheets. They’re tangled around my bare legs, marred by old burn marks and pink skin grafts. I can barely remember what happened to me. All I know is the marks mean I survived the fire that tore through my legs.

I feel my body move with someone else’s breath. I raise my chin, finding Stan under me. We’re in a bed. I can’t tell whose. But my head rests on his chest. His eyes land on mine. There’s no gleam in it the way my mind remembers Stan. Then he speaks, sounding intimate, caring, yet confusing to my ears. “Elle.” He breathes out my name in a sigh, while his fingers draw a swift line up my spine. “I knew you’d feel this good.”

***