Page 27 of Cracked Doll

I want to say we aren't. That this isn't what it is. But on what ground, exactly, when he had his mouth on me not an hour ago and I barely fought him for it?

I look out the window instead. "You can drop me here," I say. "I can walk the rest."

"Absolutely not," Succubus says, warm but immovable. "Walking alone at this hour, love? Whitby's full of things far scarier than me — and that's saying something, given present company. Rhys himself, for one. Those six women we keep, for another. You'd do well not to wander that carnival's shadow alone, not until you understand exactly what you've stepped into."

I don't answer. I turn the thought over privately instead — how strange it is that a place should feel this frightening and this magnetic all at once, especially after tonight, after he showed me my own reflection upside-down without letting me scream myself apart, after I didn't even notice the moment it finally came back to me.

We ride the rest of the way in silence.

The car stops outside The Tin Heart. A man steps up to the window, murmurs something to the Succubus — "all clear" — and she reaches into her seat and produces my own keys, the ones I dropped in the street when I first ran from Rhys and never once thought to retrieve.

"Yours, I believe."

"Thank you," I manage, and step out.

I want to look back at the car, but the windows are tinted glass, and I won't risk it — not tonight, not after everything. I go straight to the door, let myself in, lock it behind me, and hurry through the dark, powerless house to my room, feeling my way by memory alone.

At my window, I watch the black car sit there a long while before it finally pulls away.

I take off my boots. The candles have burned down to stubs. I lie on my side atop the covers and stare at the necklace still curled in my palm — I never dropped it once tonight, and I never once used it either, not that it seemed to matter.

I think of his mouth. His hands. Everything he did to me in that room of glass.

Is this a good idea? I should stop this. I should never let this happen again.

But then — how else am I meant to heal? Is there truly another way, one that doesn't run straight through the very thing that terrifies me?

I don't have an answer before sleep finally claims me.

I wake to a black rose resting on the pillow beside my head.

I sit up fast, scanning the room — empty, of course, though the window stands wide open, curtains flaring gently on the morning breeze. I lift the rose to my nose and breathe it in, and my heart kicks hard enough that I have to steady myself with a sharp breath.

He was here tonight watching me sleep. Just as he said he would.

I set it carefully aside, shower, and dress for the day — deep charcoal grey today, a Victorian mourning dress in all but name, high collar, jet buttons marching down the bodice, black lace gloves I rarely bother with but feel, this morning, like armor. My boots lace to the ankle, low-heeled, practical.

Downstairs, I put the kettle on and start a proper fry-up — eggs, a rasher of bacon I've been saving, toast scraped thin with the last of the butter — the kind of breakfast that takes just enough concentration to keep my hands from shaking.

My father shuffles in mid-way through, holding his head like it might come loose from his shoulders. "Anything for a hangover?" he mutters.

I don't answer. I keep cooking.

"Ophelia." Nothing.

"Ophelia." I still say nothing.

"Bloody hell, that's disrespectful, that is. I'm your father."

I set the pan down harder than I mean to. "Disrespectful?" The word comes out sharper than I've ever let myself sound in this kitchen. "Are you having a fucking laugh? You call that disrespectful — after you left me last night? Ran off and left me with a man you don't even know, begging you to help me, and you just — you just left."

He blinks at me, startled, then his face hardens into something uglier. "You expect me to fight that man? Do you have any idea who that is? That's Rhys Castellan. The most feared man in this entire town. People round here reckon he's Dracula walked straight out of the old stories — men who cross him just vanish, Ophelia. Gone. Nobody ever finds them, nobody ever asks twice, because everybody knows better than to ask."

I stare at him. "I've never heard anyone say that. Not once.”

Not even Amara, and she sounded half in love with the man. If there is a man who is like a ripper in this town, wouldn't I have heard people whisper about it at the very least?

"'Course you haven't." He scoffs. "You're a woman. You're safe from him — from what he does to men, anyway." Something bitter twists his mouth. "For all I know, you called him yourself. Had him come deal with me, the way those women do." He snatches the folded poster off the counter — I'd left it there, forgotten — and slaps it down hard in front of me. "Don't think I don't know what that carnival's for. All it'd take is one word from you about how I get when I've had a drink, and I'm a dead man. I'm not stupid, Ophelia. You probably skipped whatever proper channel and went straight to the devil himself."