AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I raged at them, screamed and tore at the straps. I cursed them all. And when that didn’t work, I begged and pleaded and promised. With each outburst, they tightened my straps and administered more drugs. Nurse Couper said in hushed tones how I was worse than she’d ever seen. Russo came and smiled, wrote notes, gave instructions, and left as his brutes drugged me. One day, they finally released me, but I quickly learned it was to shave my hair and hose me down, stripping layers of self-worth until I became a hollow thing. A wraith. No longer a man. My heart beat, so I lived. But what was the point of it? I missed Devere. I missed his shop. I even missed Minerva’s endless snow.
I didn’t dream, but every time I closed my eyes, I hoped to. Just a glimpse of Devere would give me hope that not everything was lost. But he did not come. And every day I woke to bleak white walls in a cold iron bed.
This couldn’t be right. This couldn’t be my life. But each passing day and night took me further from the truth.
I was Valentine Anzio, a respectable and self-made gentleman with a new business, consulting on the criminal mind, and I’d been invited to Minerva to solve the riddle of the dead toymaker.
If I could just get out of the straps, if I could go back to Minerva, they’d all see how they were wrong, and how it was all true.
But as the days wore on, the truth seemed more like a dream, and the dream more like the truth.
I didn’t know what to believe, and so I didn’t believe at all. I existed. One second ticked over like a heartbeat, turning into a minute, into an hour, then a day, a week, a month.
The restraints had gone. I didn’t recall when they’d removed them, just that my hands were free, and I sat up in a chair, in an office with peculiar posters of the human body and its various parts on the wall.
“Now then, Valentine, tell me about the toymaker.”
How had I gotten here? I looked Doctor Russo in the eye. “Who?”
“Do you not recall?” he inquired calmly. “The toymaker owns the toy shop in your hometown. You always liked it there. You said it made you feel safe. How do you feel now?”
Empty. Nothing. As though, if I close my eyes, I’ll cease to exist.“I’m all right.” Fighting them had gotten me nowhere. I had to surrender and show them the man they wanted me to be. Perhaps then they’d let me go.
He scribbled on his notepad. “That’s good, Valentine. Very good. And this Adair, what about him?”
It’s all a trick!I screamed against the bars in my mind. “I don’t know. A dream, I suppose.”
“Do you still have those dreams?”
“No.” I did not dream anymore. When I closed my eyes, there was only darkness.
“And what of the toymaker’s son, Devere?”
I smiled. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“And what is that?”
“You want to know if I believe my own ramblings, but I know now it was all a lie I told myself—a waking dream to protect myself from… well, from this place.”
“Then you no longer believe that a fae has trapped Minerva in a bubble for the sole reason of manipulating a whole village of people?”
“It was never about the people. It was always about Devere,” I said. As his eyebrows lifted, I hurried on. “But no, I do not believe anymore. I was quite… damaged, but I’m feeling much better.”
He scribbled some more. Was he going to let me go?
“You have made remarkable progress, Valentine. Well done. Especially considering your breakdown. But it is because of that breakdown that I’m recommending you remain in the high-security wing. We’ll reevaluate you again in three months.”
“Three months?”
I couldn’t stay here for another three months. I had to get back to Minerva, to Devere. He needed me.
“Yes. I’ll be honest, I remain unconvinced—”
I lunged across the desk and had his neck in my hands before he could finish his sentence. Would killing him end this horrible nightmare? Would it all reset again? There was only one way to discover if this was real or not: kill Russo and see if he stayed dead.
Guards burst in and their reaching hands grabbed my arms. People yelled, chairs toppled, and then something sharp stung my neck. It didn’t matter. I stared into Russo’s terrified eyes, deep into his soul, and knew the truth hid deep within him, but I also saw myself reflected back—a horrible, raving lunatic of a monster. No longer a man. A broken thing.
If that was the truth, I was lost.
