Page 53 of Patrick’s Seduction

Fallon took a deep breath.

Something was wrong with her, seriously wrong. No, not just something, everything.

She’d never felt so out of place in her own body. Her mind was racing, trying to explain what was happening to her, but she found herself in an endless closed loop that was maddening.

Her conversation with Cameron had riled her up, igniting an unspeakable fury in her that made her want to kill somebody, preferably Cameron. Hate and pain collided inside her at the mere thought of him. She’d never thought that she would be capable of such deep negative emotions. That she was capable of hurting somebody. That she was capable of violence. Yet she knew instinctively that she was.

She’d always seen herself as a good person, a gentle soul who wanted to help others. That’s why she’d chosen to become a doctor, to do research to find something that might slow down the process that time exerted on a human body, ravaging it until all there was left was death. She’d seen herself as benevolent, when now, all she could feel inside her heart was hate and pain.

She was ready to lash out at anyone who came too close. That’s why she’d locked herself in the bathroom, to avoid antagonizing Lydia, who was there to protect her, and surely only had her best interest in mind. But it didn’t matter that Lydia wasn’t her enemy. Her feelings were still the same: she wanted to hurt somebody to drown out the pain that she felt take over her body.

As if she was on drugs that were altering her personality. As if she was descending into madness. As if her entire past was gone, no longer influencing her decisions, her morals, and her principles. She felt as if only her base instincts were guiding her now. Her needs were unbridled, which made her feel uncivilized. In the mood she was in, she couldn’t trust herself, because she had no idea what she was about to do. She felt a new sensation grow inside her: power. Physical power that was foreign to her. And with it came the need to use that power to make it clear to everybody that she wouldn’t allow anybody to hurt her ever again.

“Fallon, please come out,” Lydia coaxed her from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Go away!”

In her ear, her voice sounded strange. The pitch was lower, and the volume much louder than before.

She was losing control. Trying to calm herself, she braced herself on the vanity and stared into the mirror above the sink.

Her reflection made her rear back in shock.

Bloodshot eyes stared back at her. Her eyebrows were bushier, her cheekbones more pronounced, her lips peeling back from her teeth, revealing white teeth that looked as if they couldn’t all fit into her mouth. She felt a tension in her jaw as if she sat on a dentist’s chair, clamps in her mouth to widen it, so a tooth could be extracted. She tried to close her mouth, but her body didn’t follow her brain’s command. Instead, her teeth seemed to grow, to lengthen as she watched helplessly.

She pressed her hands to her cheeks, trying to exert pressure to close her mouth, only to gape at her hands. They weren’t the gentle hands that handled delicate materials in the lab all day. No, these hands looked calloused and rough, with dark hair on their backs, and sharp fingernails. She’d had a manicure only a week earlier, but none of that was evident right now, because her fingernails were like sharp little barbs that looked capable of slicing through flesh like the sharpest surgeon’s scalpel.

Panic elevated her heart rate. With it, more of her body seemed to change in front of her eyes. She fought it, but she knew instinctively that she didn’t have a chance. Everything became clear in that moment. She knew what had happened to her the night she’d gone to her lab to check on the refrigerator. Every single second of that incident came back in vivid colors, and she realized that she’d pushed it out of her mind, too afraid of what it meant. But there was no denying it any longer. She knew what would happen. She knew what Cameron had done. And with all her might, she hated him for it. Hated herself for letting it happen, for being too naive not to see it coming. She felt like the stupid heroine in a B-movie: too stupid to live. Too bone-headed to recognize the signs, while everybody else could probably already see it.

Now, she saw it too. With that realization, her entire world collapsed around her, sending her reeling. She wanted to scream, to cry, to bemoan her fate, but what was the point?

“Fallon!”

The voice was Patrick’s, and it came from the other side of the door.

She clamped her hand over her mouth, choking back a cry. She couldn’t let him see her like this. He would recoil from her. And what would she do? Hurt him for rejecting her?

“Please, Fallon, come out,” he begged, his voice beseeching.

“No!” The word burst from her lips without her doing.

“Fallon, baby, please, talk to me.”

She shook her head to herself, when she heard Lydia addressing him.

“Patrick, it’s Buffy. She needs to talk to you.”

“Not now!”

“It’s important.”

“Fuck!” Patrick cursed, but then she heard his impatient next words, “Yeah, Buffy, what’s so important? I’m in the middle of something.”

To Fallon’s utter surprise, she could hear Buffy’s reply. Had Patrick put the call on speaker mode?

“I got the results from Fallon’s blood test back. There’s a problem.”

“What problem?’ Patrick asked.