Page 44 of Ashes

Iknew the plan. The treatment. The fucking cure.

And it wasn’t anything Sully had in mind.

Not really.

He may have given us the ability to get close to her, but it was us with the fucking power here. He just didn’t know it yet.

I watched as they brought her into the room in a wheelchair. Her black hair was limp and needed to be brushed. Dark circles rimmed her mesmerizing eyes. Her skin was paler than I remembered.

And my heart… It surged in my chest at the sight of her.

My Rinny.

“I want you to get into her head. You made her scream before. I know you can do it again. You’ll be given a new task each day to complete with her. Get it right and you get to play another day. Get it wrong and I get to,” Sully said, his voice was soft and dangerous. “I expect you to not succeed in all of them.”

The way he said that made my skin crawl.

His time is coming. . .

Keep him alive until we bury ourselves in her mind so deeply she’ll never be able to escape us.

Break her. Break her and make her mind your new home.

Save her. She needs you to save her, you fucking monster.

So much fucking noise!

I breathed in deeply and cracked my neck, allowing the voices to fade away.

Sully handed me a slip of paper.

The wards lifted Sirena from her wheelchair and sat her in the overstuffed, red velvet chair in the lavishly decorated room. Definitely no hospital vibes in here. No asylum look with padded walls and dim lights. I surveyed the space. It was . . . a red and black room. The colors were dark and warm. Bookcases filled with books lined an entire wall. There was a fireplace and a couch, an ensuite bathroom. A table and two chairs. A sitting area where they’d put Sirena. Plush, thick rugs.

And no windows.

Interesting.

I’d never seen this room before. While it seemed comfortable, I knew it was anything but. It was meant to relax a patient. But this wasn’t a place to feel comfort. It was a place to scream without being heard.

A bigger tomb for me and Rinny.

I looked down at the paper Sully had handed me. The task was typed onto it.

Make her remember your childhood. Start from the beginning.

How would they know if I made her remember?

My second thought was that I didn’t like the idea of anyone listening in on our special memories because I knew Sully would be listening. Probably watching too.

I said nothing, not wanting to give him any ideas about my feelings.

“You’ll spend the day with her,” Sully said softly. “You have until this evening with her. Do not fail me. If you do, you fail her. We don’t want that, do we?”

I remained silent until he left the room with the wards, locking the door behind him.

Slowly, I approached her, wondering if she’d respond to me.

Her eyes continued to stay fixed on a point straight ahead as I kneeled in front of her.

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