“Whatever. How is it today? Did you sleep well last night?” When she didn’t answer, he tilted his head to the side slightly. “Well? Don’t believe me all you want, but…how about your own body?”
She should be a wreck right now. Tugging on the box as she had been, she had run the risk of pulling something out of place. Running away from him and the two women should have left her knees a sore mess.
But she felt no pain. No bruises from yesterday. She had actually slept well for the first time in…she couldn’t remember. She sat on the edge of the box. “If I drag this over to the fence and try to climb over, what happens?”
“You’ll hit the same invisible wall. If you crash a car into it, you’ll wreck the car and yourself in the process. You’ll die temporarily, and then you will wake up a little while later back in one piece. I’d prefer you didn’t do that.” He wrinkled his nose. “I apparently feel when you’re in physical or emotional pain, and I don’t terribly look forward to finding out what it’s like when you’re a twisted heap of mutilated flesh.” He scratched at his chest under his tie.
“You…what?” She furrowed her brow.
He groaned in frustration and took off his glasses to rub his hand over his closed eyes before replacing them. “Are you just dense? Please tell me you’re not an idiot.”
“Don’t call me names, you overdressed crimson pimp. I’m well past my limit, and I’m done taking shit from somebody who looks like they fell out of the bargain bin at a Halloween outlet.”
He cackled at her insult. “I love it when you get mouthy! Good. I was hoping you weren’t an utter wet noodle.” He sat on the edge of the box next to her. She fought the urge to jump up, but she was sick of running away from him. It was clear he enjoyed it, and it didn’t do much good when he could snatch her with his strings.
So she gritted her teeth and just glared at him. He held the bag of popcorn out to her. When she ignored it to continue trying to set him on fire with her mind, he shrugged and went back to eating it.
He talked through a mouthful of popcorn. “You’re cured of your disease. And anything else you could catch. And aging. And dying. You’ll weaken over time and fade like a spent candle just like everyone else, but that’s the only way you’re getting out of this mess. Unless you can’t handle it anymore and ask for a way out like your predecessor.” He paused and furrowed his brow. “I’m not even sure how that would work now that you have a piece of me. Maybe I could consume it back? Or maybe it’d be gone forever. I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.”
She ran her hand through her hair. She didn’t know why she was entertaining any sort of conversation with him. She should try to find a shovel to bash his face in. But with his size and strength advantage, and the weird freaky string thing he could do on command, trying to attack him wasn’t going to do her any good.
And something…felt weird, sitting next to him. Like she was supposed to be there. She had always been strangely drawn to him—he was beautiful, even with his wickedness. There was a sultry sinfulness to him, even if he was a murderous psychopath. But something had changed. It felt…like there was a pull.
Like I have a piece of him in me, and it’s drawn to the rest of him. No! No. No, she was not one of them. She was not stuck here!
Simon was oblivious to her internal debate. “I can’t very well hurt you now, can I? Not with the piece Ringmaster tore out of me and stuck inside you. You can feel it, can’t you? Sitting here with me. You wanted me before, even if only just a little bit. But you were too afraid of me to give in. Now…” He traced his fingers through her hair, tucking a strand of it behind her ear. “I feel it too.” She yanked her head away from him. It didn’t bother him. “I don’t see terror. You know I’m safe.” He hummed and grinned. His voice lowered, and he purred out the next words in his thick British accent like the syllables were coated in hot wax. “As safe as I can be.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged a shoulder and ate another piece of popcorn. “What’s the plan, then, Cora dear? Crash a car into the edge of the Faire? Burn it all down? Find a knife and go on a killing spree? Try to find your friend who no longer knows you and try again? I fear it’s all been tried before.”
“What do you expect me to do? Sit here and just accept all this bullshit?”
“What would it take to convince you? I could kill you—stab you or break your neck—and you could come back from the dead. Would that do it? Or why don’t we go get Juggler, and I’ll rip his arm off, and you can watch it grow back? What kind of impossible feat would it require? Say it, and I’ll go get the bone saw.”
“Why do you even care?”
“Because you have a piece of me, buried inside you, and this is a travesty! And the last thing I’m going to stand for is to have some little simpering, weeping, broken thing cowering in the corner when at the very least she could be a useful, functional facet of this admittedly small society. I have my dignity to uphold. If I’m going to have you foisted upon me, then I insist you not be a burden.”
She stood, cracked her neck, then turned to face him. She slapped him. Hard. Right across the face. The impact turned his head to the side and knocked his stupid vintage sunglasses off his face.
He chuckled and stroked a hand over his cheek where she’d hit him. He might feel her pain, but she didn’t feel his. That was a bonus. When he turned to look up at her, his strange and freakish eyes were filled with everything except the anger she would have expected. “Ow.”
“This is your fault, Simon. All of it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Here we go.” He bent down and picked up his sunglasses from the grass and, plucking his pocket square out of his breast pocket, began to clean them off. “You were given a choice whether or not you wished to explore the Dark Path. Barker is a conman and a worthless turd of a human being, but he told you the cost. You chose to ignore it. The Faire gave you a choice to come and save your friend, and you came knowing you would likely never leave. Ringmaster ripped my seity from me and forced me to Sponsor you.” Simon stood, moving gracefully for someone his size. He slipped his glasses back on. “Explain to me how any inch of that is my fault.”
His shadow—that freakish, disembodied thing of his—was cast high up on the wall behind him, despite the fact that it was nine in the morning. His shadow grinned at her sadistically.
“You should have left me alone.”
“The Faire still wanted you. I tried to turn you into one of my dolls, yes.” He sighed sadly, like someone mourning a missed opportunity. “You would have been a masterpiece.” He lifted a hand to trail the backs of his knuckles down her cheek. She yanked her head away from his touch. “But that would have been a kinder fate than what you are now. You are one of us. And you can never leave. Even when you finally give up the ghost and fade away, you will never set foot outside the Faire again.”
“No! You’re wrong. There has to be a way out of this. I’m going to find out how. Screw you, and screw that stupid-ass shadow of yours. I’m not going to let this happen.” She whirled to storm away from him to the tune of Simon’s peal of hysterical laughter.