Page 50 of Dance of Madness

I don’t hear what they're saying. I’m too busy staring at Nero’s hands.

The same hands that touched me and made me shake. That pulled me apart like I was something breakable.

Now they’re covered in blood.

I take one step back, then another.

Quietly. Cautiously. Like I’m afraid he’ll smell me if I'm not careful.

My heart’s hammering so loud I swear I can feel it in myteeth. My skin’s gone cold, and my legs are shaky.

Nero just folds the blade and slips it back into his coat like this was a routine chore.

For him, maybe it was.

But I can’t do this.

Whatever darkness I thought I was going to be playing with when I showed up here tonight—I wasn’t ready for this man.

Not even close.

I turn and start back the way I came, fast but silent, the way you instinctively move when you’re in the presence of a predator.

I don’t look back. All I want is distance.

By the time I’m scurrying back across the street from Greymoor, my breathing is ragged and my head a jumble of emotions and panicked thoughts.

I don’t stop until I’m four blocks away and my lungs are burning.

Then I press my back to a brick wall and slide down, my face buried in my hands.

11

MILENA

Four years ago:

This isa super fucked-up way to lose your virginity.

I’ve thought that from the second I agreed to meet him in this empty warehouse converted to an artist's loft that smells like old paint and sawdust.

At night, and…alone.

But here I am.

My shoes scuff against the hardwood floor as I move through the open space. It’s quiet—or would be, if my pulse would only stop pounding in my ears.

It's colder than I thought it would be. I’m dressed in black, as agreed, but despite the clothes I feelexposed. Hyperaware of every breath I take as it mists the inside of the plastic mask covering my face.

That was the plan: no identities. We’ve never had them, so why start now?

Just this meeting in the real world, face-to-face…so to speak. One night to explore everything we’ve talked about. Every sick fantasy. Every twisted desire. Everything I’ve told him, despite never telling anothersoulin my entire life.

I don’t even know his name. Or his voice.

Just the "voice" that comes out on paper. For almost a year now.

The first time I readThe Sorrows of Young Werther, I was fifteen.

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