Page 23 of Wicked Dove
I turn back around, looking down at my lap as I trace my finger over the ribbed texture of my shorts. I don’t know why everything has to be white. It’s what Kael is wearing, too, and it feels even more clinical than the room I’m in.
“I can hear you thinking from here.” His voice cuts through the silence, stiffening my spine as irritation ripples through me.
I ignore him. It feels refreshing to do it back to him. The desire to hum tickles my lips, but I refrain, knowing I’ll only frustrate myself too.
“I didn’t know the cat could catch your tongue,” he goads, and I turn to him with a glowering gaze.
I tilt my head, trying to hide the fact that I’m shocked to find his eyes open and trained on me. “Why are you here, Kael?” He ignores me, turning to face the ceiling, but his gaze remains wide. “You know why I’m here,” I push, suddenly eager to get under his skin. I want to push his temper to the limit. I want to leave the cat catchinghistongue, whatever the hell that means. It beats thinking about what’s coming for me.
“I also know what your pussy feels like, but that doesn’t mean I care.”
His words do as he hopes, sending a sharp pang through my chest, but I refuse to back down now. I’ll go down with this ship; my stubbornness knows no bounds.
“Is it because you’re a vampire?” I ask, and he scoffs, so I try again. “Because you’re a douchebag?”
“Definitely,” he confirms, his gaze snapping to mine.
“Whatever, I don’t care anyway,” I say, waving a hand dismissively as I turn away from him.
When I feel this worked up and stressed, I usually have the promise of letting some steam off with Walker on the horizon, but not now, not this time. Worry floods my veins.
“Where did your head go?” Kael asks, interrupting my thoughts, but I don’t offer him a response.
Thankfully, he takes the hint and silence settles over the room again, but it doesn’t last long before he clears his throat.
“Have you ever felt pain, Elodie?”
There’s something different in his tone this time and my pulse quickens. A flash reminder of my father’s heavy hand plays through my thoughts, but I don’t speak a word.
“Have you ever felt suffocated?” he pushes, making my heart race as I recall hands around my throat, pressing so tight my vision blurred, and the promise of death felt like a release. I still keep my mouth shut, refusing to share another vulnerable piece of myself with him.
“The reality is, Elodie. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done because someone’s always going to hate you for it. Someone’s always going to want you dead. Maybe death is a gift to silence the noise. Maybe it’s a place to just go and be yourself, where you don’t have to give a fuck about the rest of the world.”
His words threaten to suffocate me as I glance back at him, but his gaze is still fixed on the ceiling.
Clearing my throat, I part my lips. “Or maybe it’s the blunt end to a life that was truly worth living.”
It almost looks as though he’s smiling. I can’t guarantee it from this angle, and it’s over before it’s even begun. “Death almost always comes at the hands of others; we just have to choose who those hands belong to,” he replies, his gaze finding mine, and I gulp at the darkness that resides in his eyes.
Before I can find a single word to say, the door swings open and Miss Torture walks in, clipboard in hand, with her gaze set on me.
“Miss Elodie Blackwood, your summoning has come,” she declares, and I slowly rise to my feet, my heart pulsing in my chest, but before I can take a single step toward her, she spins her attention to my cellmate. “Kael Forrester, yours too.”
“Miss Elodie Blackwood.”
My name rings out through the room like a lashing from one of my father’s worn leather belts. I brace for the impact, but it does nothing to calm the sting.
My face pulses with every breath I take as I try to force every inch of the room into my memory. If this is the last place I’ll ever see, then I want to memorize every piece of it.
Running my tongue over my bottom lip, I hold on to the podium positioned in front of me. I’m standing dead center in a windowless room, the ceiling reaching up for miles and the entire perimeter lined with dark oak benches. Each row is littered with people I don’t recognize, but the ones who seem to matter most sit straight ahead of me.
Kael remains closer to the door we entered through, awaiting his fate.
I don’t turn to him, though. I’m too focused on the leading members of The Sanctum.
At the far left is a sharp woman with slicked-back red hair that’s twisted into a bun. Her blazer looks like it costs more than any amount of money I’ve ever had the privilege of touching, and God knows what her silk shirt retails at. You don’t get stuff like that in a thrift store.
Beside her is a man with black hair pushed back off his face and gelled into place. His distaste for me is evident in the disdain that radiates from him and the glare that turns his eyes into slits.
