Page 16 of A Touch of Dark
Out of morbid curiosity, I try it on, and I’m unsettled by the results. My hair spills across the scalloped top like blood, unseemly against such a blinding shade of white. Surround me with flowers and I could be one of Sampson’s paintings.
Dress me in blue and I’d be the perfect doll for Simon.
Seal my eyes shut with glue and I’d be Leslie.
The thought forces me to remember my third present. I find it in the bathroom, lying on a bed of glass shards. I gingerly remove the ribbon and wrap it around my wrist: a glowing reminder. The rose, I tuck behind my ear.
My reflection greets me from the destroyed mirror, but I don’t recognize the person I find. Someone stupid enough to visit one monster in her spare time before another comes calling.
I grab my coat from the hall closet and find the business card inside the pocket. A minute-long call is all it takes to have my usual town car service send a driver around. Ten minutes later, I’m stepping out from the shelter of the Lariat and heading across town.
Damien likes his privacy. His haunt is a tall building near the waterfront. Dark brick and sleek glass form an impressive structure that I assume is privately owned when I reach the entrance and find both glass doors locked. There’s no sign. Merely an intercom affixed on the outside wall. When I press the button markedcall, a gruff voice comes from the speaker, laced with static.
“What do you want?”
That’s a damn good question.
“Name?”
I jump as the voice comes from the speaker again. Clearing my throat, I answer, “J-Juliana Thorne.”
Silence. I’m left standing there with my thumb poised over the silver button while the rest of my body is angled toward the car. I should leave. I will. My hand falls just as an electric buzz comes from the door, followed by the click of a lock disengaging.
“Come in.” The speaker crackles. “Take the elevator to the third floor.”
With one last glance at the car waiting behind me, I enter the building, fighting a sense of trepidation with every step. It’s surprisingly clinical for the lair of a madman. The entrance opens onto a small hallway, which branches off in two directions. One leads to a dead end, while the other stops before a set of silver elevator doors.
I strike the button for the third—and topmost—floor, and seconds later, the doors part, revealing another hallway, this one carpeted in a dark shade of gray and lined with black walls. The only illumination is cast by lit sconces glowing a dim, fiery orange.
How melancholic. Did he decorate with the intention to intimidate in mind?
It’s only as my heels sink into the plush flooring that I remember his blindness.Supposedblindness. I close my eyes, imagining how this view might “appear” to someone like him. Even behind my eyelids, the muted color scheme makes the darkness feel heavier. Thicker. My skin heats when I near a sconce. I pass it, the world cools again. Hot. Cold. The dueling sensations go to war over my flesh with every step I take. My fingers graze the smooth surface of the wall, only to suddenly meet air. A doorway?
I open my eyes.
Damien likes his workspace dark. Few lights illuminate what the daylight filtering in through sparse windows doesn’t. Wooden floors pick up my footsteps and broadcast them loudly to the man at work in the center of the room, hunched over a wooden table.
Behind him, arched windows display swaths of the waterfront and little else. The room itself is massive, with vaulted ceilings that amplify the slightest disturbance. Like my thready breathing and his heavy sigh.
Though he’s wearing jeans, there’s nothing at all casual conveyed by the ensemble. Tension enhances the muscle revealed by the short sleeves of his gray shirt. Every piece is tailored to perfection, impressive even from this distance. The man treats his body like his art, no stitch placed without intent.
“You came.” He pushes back from the table and inclines his head in my direction. “Though I expected you to contact me by other means. I shall have to remind Carla as to the importance of my privacy.”
My heart lurches. Charming Carla. Have I unknowingly gotten her into trouble?
“I insisted,” I lie, disguising it behind a forced laugh.Haha.“She thought I’d appreciate your art.”
“Now that is interesting,” Damien muses. He strokes his thumb along his chin. The fingers of that hand are black at the tips. From sketching, judging from the materials spread out before him. He’s working on a large piece of paper using only sticks of charcoal placed at strategic positions. “I’ve never questioned Carla’s judgment before.”
He’s unreadable behind the blindfold, and his neutral tone obscures whether he means the statement as a threat. Left to decipher him blindly, my nerves dance with indecision. To tense or not? Fight or flight?
I settle on neither. For now.
“Anyway,” he continues, waving his hand through the air before grabbing a piece of charcoal with it. “All that matters is you’ve changed your mind. I’ll make the arrangements to return my painting and you may have your doll—”
“No. I haven’t changed my mind… What are you doing?” I draw closer to him when I shouldn’t.
He started sketching again while he spoke, and the rough contours catch my eye. A woman. She’s outstretched over white paper, her limbs formed of inky black. Unseeing eyes stare out as her lips contort around a final, gasping breath.
