Page 17 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“Not erasing anything of yours, actually. Burying them. Along with all your other wonderful, winning memories of me.”
I’d kill him.Killhim. I wondered if Dyonisia would fault me for bringing back a beaten, bloodied carcass instead of a living hostage.
“I see you’re a monster through and through,” I managed to say. “No wonder my head’s been getting worse and worse with you constantly meddling with it. Screwing with me once wasn’t enough, huh?”
When his eyes flared open—in shock, it looked like—I hummed.
The ivy on the opposite wall sprung toward us like vipers.
Steeler moved again. There wasn’t even a blur of motion, just him pinning me to the wall one second, slashing the vines with my crescent knife miraculously in his hand the next, and returning to pin me again before I could so much as twitch.
The remaining halves of the chopped vines slunk back to their climbing position on the wall, looking wilted. Defeated.
“How did you do that so fast?” I didn’t dare look up at my knife, now clutched in his pill-free hand above my head.
Steeler didn’t answer. He was panting, at least. Good. Thatshouldhave winded him, however he’d done it. He returned his focus to my face, and all hints of that smug humor was gone.
“What do you mean your head is getting worse and worse?”
If he didn’t want to answer my question, Idefinitelywasn’t going to answer his.
But I felt him sink into my mind anyway, a deadly, murderous presence, to taste the answer for himself. To taste the way my head had been pulsing with pain more and more over the past few months.
He actually closed his eyes then. Just for a moment, but long enough for me to chance a glance upward at my knife poised above me.
When he reopened his eyes, I snapped my own away from the knife, to his moving mouth. “I’ll make you a deal, little hurricane.”
There it was again, that nickname. I hadn’t thought much of it the first time he’d said it, too focused on his sudden appearance in the alleyway to care. Now, though, I tucked away the information for later. Assuming therewouldbe a later.
“Take this pill,” Steeler continued, “and I won’t bury this memory of us. You can show it to the Good Council—how you nicked me.”
He angled his face to bare his jaw for me again, and I almost bristled at the crusted blood. A scratch. That’s all I’d given him. Just a stupid little scratch.
“How thoughtful,” I crooned, and the venom dripping from my voice wasn’t a lie. There was no mask in this bubble with Steeler and me. Just him and my unfiltered hatred. “But I’d rather you kill me than make a deal with you. You have the knife. Go on.”
Maybe if he moved to slice my throat, he’d hesitate long enough for me to grab the handle and turn it against him.That lover of yours, the octopus had said. Surely, even if Steeler had mistreated me during our twisted relationship, he’d hesitate before spilling my guts out, right?
Steeler sighed through his nose.
“Please don’t make me force you, Rayna.”
Rayna. How dare he call me by my first name, the name myfriendsused. Hurricane was better. It matched the raging of my blood.
“Why?” I asked, giving my arms a yank. His hold didn’t budge. “I thought you love forcing yourself upon me? Or do you deny that?”
For a shuddering moment, I almost hoped hewoulddeny it. I couldn’t get that memory Kitterfol had shown me out ofmy head, but perhaps the chains had been… consensual. The thought felt wrong, but what if…?
Steeler didn’t answer, though—and that was answer enough.
Now my very bones seemed to quiver from the restraint, begging me to move, to get my arms around his strong column of a throat and squeeze. But there was no way out of this… not with his abnormal strength and speed.
“Did you make me do things other than have sex with you?” I asked now. The back of my nose stung as I felt the words form in my mouth, the fear I’d been holding back from even myself after Dazmine had confronted me in our doorway. “Did you make me… kill Fergus Bilderas? Or hurt Jenia Leake in some way?”
Pain. For a moment, all I saw was pain rippling in Steeler’s eyes, a perfect mirror of my own. Maybe we were both monsters, if I’d murdered a fellow classmate—even as a Manipulated puppet.
But Steeler yanked a smirk onto his face the next moment, as if the pain truly had been just my reflection, and not his own.
“Oh, no. I didn’t make you do anything back then. Killing that kid was all me. Now, open up.”
