Page 81 of The Oath We Give

No one commends what I turned into.

I am not a tulip you can pluck from the earth, sit in a vase, and admire until it wilts.

I became barren land. A desolate valley where no life could thrive. You could not scoop me into your hands without me eating away at whatever cage you tried to put me in.

They judge, they criticize me, they tell me I should be thankful and learn to heal. As if my anger isn’t the result of me trying to shed old skin and mending scars. As if my fucking anger isn’t me learning how to heal.

I deserve my anger, and it deserves me.

My phone’s ringtone blares loudly, and I scramble to answer, needing it to shut up before it gives up my hiding spot.

“Hello?” I whisper, not having time to check the caller ID before hitting the neon green button.

“Coraline.”

That fucking voice. His fucking voice.

It’s criminal.

The way he says my name is like sinners who plead hallelujah. It rolls off his tongue, a prayer that he savors, letting it linger on his lips. His voice reverberates around the room, clinging to the air as if he didn’t want to let it out of his mouth, wanting to keep me there.

“Cold,” I murmur, remembering the rules Lyra had spoken earlier.

He could only get temperature directions. Cold when he was far away, warm when he got close, hot when he was about to find me.

“You’re not cold, Hex,” he rasps through the speaker. “I felt you burning beneath my hands just the other day.”

My stomach drops, making me swallow nervously. This conversation takes me back to that night on the roof when Silas wasn’t Silas. He was only a voice.

A voice that heals, soothes, and makes my thighs tighten.

I find it ridiculous that a person who is known to not speak talks to me. That an outcast with mystery riddled throughout lets his voice be heard by someone like me.

The man who they said was a soundless void possesses a voice that turns me inside out.

Apparently, my pussy is voice activated.

It’s just worse now because I have a concrete image of what he looks like now.

Silas Hawthorne has been lethal in the looks department since high school, lean and toned, moving like he owned the ground beneath him. While my friends and I used to joke about their reign of terror, my breath always hitched when he came into a room.

Now? He’s a man.

Arms thick with muscle, tall and imposing in the biggest of rooms, everything about him twitches with power. He’s carved from granite, built for wars in the name of the Roman Empire, but carries the heart of a Greek poet, dripping tragic love with every split vein.

A door slams in the distance, making me gasp. The empty halls make everything sound closer than they appear, like he’s right next to me.

“Is your heart racing, knowing I’m going to find you?”

I scoff, lying through my teeth. “Colder.”

My ears pick up on the sound of him releasing an exhale, like he’s chuckling. A short, quick secret laugh.

“Did you just laugh?” I whisper, unable to help myself from asking.

“Scream for me, and you can find out.” His breath hisses out, mocking me.

Another door slams, ricocheting down the hall to the room I’m in. Fear prickles down my spine, but not the kind I’m afraid of. It feels more like the kind of fear people chase down. The kind adrenaline junkies want to bottle up and swallow when they are bored.