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She sat up, her body swathed in heavy shadows. I still made out the halo of her messy hair around her head as she stared at me. “It’s not funny, Kael,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Get out.”
Ignoring that inane command, I toe-heeled my shoes off and climbed onto the bed next to her. “Come here.”
“Kael,” she protested. “I mean it. I don’t want the interrogation right now.”
“I’m not interrogating,” I murmured, leaning back on the fluffy wall of pillows against her headboard and drawing her cold, shivering body into my arms. I positioned her against my side so her face lay on my chest. “I’m hugging you.”
“That’s weirdly human of you,” she croaked into my shirt. Despite her acerbic tone, she snuggled into me, and I tightened my arms around her.
“I have my moments. Usually around you,” I admitted.
Her ribs rose and fell under my arms as she sighed. Her hands clutched the jersey fabric of my T-shirt, and slowly, her tremors eased away. I reached down and pulled the blankets up around her bare arms because for whatever reason, she’d put on a tank top and short pajama set that was too cold for late October. She angled her head up to me. “This is weirding me out. Where are the hundred questions?”
I shrugged, leaning my head on her upholstered headboard. “I had an epiphany.”
“Which is?”
I flicked a look down at her, and even in the semi-darkness, I managed to snag her gaze. “I already caught you, Bunny. You’re not going anywhere, so whatever has hurt you, I’ll face it with you. If it’s not a problem, then I’ll hold you until the nightmares stop. If it’s a problem, then I’ll maim, threaten, or eliminate whatever it is.”
Her hold on me tightened. “You are a little scary, you know that?”
I smiled, closing my eyes and resting my head back again. “And you’re completely unhinged, babe. You need someone a little scary to handle that.”
I felt her nod against my chest. “True.” After a few quiet moments, she lifted her head again. “What if I don’t know whether it’s a problem or not?”
“Then you tell me just to be safe,” I replied, opening my eyes again and sitting up with her, “and we can decide together.”
“Is this another interrogation tactic?” she asked skeptically.
I pulled her into my lap. “It’s me caring about you.”
Mattie curled up in my lap like a cat, resting her head on my shoulder. She fit so perfectly against me, it was a wonder I’d lived this long without her. After a few beats of silence, Mattie whispered, “He wants me.”
I resisted the urge to go stiff. Three words, and it was like the code to the atomic bomb had been punched into my heart. I was two seconds away from smacking the red button and going nuclear. But I forced myself to remain calm as I asked, “Who does?”
“Jonathon,” she whispered. “I don’t—I don’t understand it. This world, the one my parents live in—it’s twisted. No one does things that make sense to the rational world, and he’s decided he wants to collect people. Me.”
Despite my best attempts to stay calm, my arms tightened around her. “What do you mean collect?”
“I don’t know,” she rasped brokenly. “Wh-when they first brought it up, it was after they’d forced me to drop out of med school. My parents were tired of keeping me locked up. They were scared of me, and I swear to God… I thought maybe they wanted me dead. But then we visited Jonathon, and they changed.”
Dread squeezed my throat so tightly, I could barely find the words to encourage her to go on. “You’re telling me, your parents instigated this thing with Cohen?”
“I think so. They took me to his house for a visit, and they kept talking like I’d be staying for a while. I thought they meant we would be staying, but then they left.” Her voice cut off, strangled with tears. I felt her shift and heard her swallow as she said, “It was the most scared I’ve ever been.”
“What did he do to you?” I asked roughly. This was so much worse than I’d imagined. She hadn’t ever hinted at something like this. She’d kept it buttoned up so tightly, it was like it had never happened at all.
“N-nothing. At first. He just watched me.” She inhaled brokenly, clearly fighting hard against her fear. “He said he was happy to ‘have’ me. He seemed content just to w-watch me. He didn’t even talk to me.”
“What the fuck?” I croaked. “Mattie are you—” I cut myself off. “I’m sorry. Keep going.”
“It wasn’t until I escaped the first time that he—that he brought out a knife.” She tensed in my arms, curling into herself tighter. “I think he just wanted to scare me.”
“So, he did what?” I asked a little too forcefully.
Mattie held up her forearm where I’d first noticed the silver scar running from her wrist to her elbow. “He threatened me. Told me if I left, he would bleed me and turn me into a mummy.” She shuddered. “He kept talking like I was just a—a thing. A collectible. He said he didn’t care whether I was alive or mummified.”
Rage, so potent it acted like a chemical reaction in my blood, burned through me. I shoved it down, determined to let Mattie finish before I found this piece of shit and skinned him alive. “Then what happened?”
