Page 120 of Obsession

“Most of you wish to know why she still lives, why I brought her here. You hope for punishment, retribution—some would like to act on my behalf. I understand these urges, and I have thought long and hard on how to deal with her.”

“Aris,” I say aloud. I thought that putting me in the hallway was my punishment—showing me my mother, telling me that story about my creation. Was that not enough?

Finally, Aris looks back at me, and my heart cracks at the detached expression on his face. It’s like he’s looking at a bug—one he’s already crushed into a greasy smear and needs only wipe and throw away.

He told me he wasn’t angry anymore, and he isn’t. This is something different: a man seeking vengeance.

“I see it now: there is only one way for you to understand your misdeed,” he tells me. “There is only one way to be punished—for your mind to be altered just as mine was. Nora?”

Altered?

Nora?

My eyes go huge as the woman steps forward with an expectant look on her face. The memory of the person she wiped rushes through me, the man with the American flag. When Nora was done with him, drool was dripping down his chin.

Yes, I used a spell to change Aris’ memories, but he was still himself. What Nora does is completely different.

There are worse things than death.

My eyes flit to Silva, who watches me with a faint smile. His eyes dance.

I look back at Aris, then Nora, and I bolt.

Try to.

To their credit, the crowd parts as I sprint past, but I realize that it’s not in respect of my escape but to get out of Ryan’s way. In my panic, I hardly register his thundering footsteps, not until gravity switches out from under me.

Ryan hauls me up, single-handedly holding both of my ankles, and carries me back to the dais. I start to instinctively struggle, before freezing as my bones tremble under his tightening grip. It would take the slightest pressure, the littlest of effort, to pulverize bone. To liquify me. I doubt I’d ever be able to walk again.

Ryan suddenly releases me and I fall to the ground before Aris in an unceremonious heap.

“Please,” I say, staring at Aris’ impassive face from the floor. I must look frantic and desperate—that’s how I feel as I think of Nora touching my mind.

Changing me.

I am the last thing that I have. This world has taken everything, but I have had myself. He wants to remove that.

Aris looks at me in a way he has never looked at me before. Removed, indifferent. Unkind.

A flare of hatred rushes through me—how dare he look at me like that! After everything, he stares at me like I am nothing.

“If you want to punish me, then kill me,” I say. I have to hope that his indifference is an act; I have to hope that he feels something and has enough respect for me not to do this. If not respect, then for the beauty of endings, which he has always so adored.

Give me my end, Aris.

He shakes his head. “No death,” he says. “No end, Mary. This is how we move forward.”

“It won’t be moving forward; it’s moving back!” I shout, uncaring of our audience.

Doesn’t he understand? If he changes my memories, it’s proof that whatever we had, whatever we were together, is gone. It’s proof that whoever he was has been thoroughly circumvented, replaced.

He said that he never wanted me to hate him again.

If you do this, Aris…

His jaw sets. Finally, some emotion, but I’d been hoping for regret, not anger. “You did this,” he says. “Not me. And once you experience it, you will understand the effects of your actions.”

I didn’t enjoy it, I think in a rush. Read my mind. Read it! I didn’t want to touch you because it felt like I was taking advantage of you. And I told you the truth when you asked for it! I didn’t keep it a secret, and I didn’t want to do it! You know that it hurt me to take your memory.

---