Page 118 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

He squeezes his eyes shut, the only change in the expression on the human face, but the second face is a sudden spasm of terror.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Chloe says, softening her words despite her want to know, because she can’t exist without a little gentleness for those around her. “I’ve been around enough of my friends…the Terese projects…to know that they were all affected differently. That their abilities changed, that they were left completely unfamiliar with what they can do. If her father,” Chloe throws a nod towards the kitchen, past the rune, “experimented on demons, there’s only one type of experimentation I know going on right now.”

His jaw flexes, and he stares at her for a long second.

And Chloe stares right back, not backing down, despite her innate want to gentle this conversation.

“They didn’t succeed,” he says, finally, after too long of a moment.

“I can tell that,” Chloe replies, with just a small enough nod that his shoulders relax, just a bit. “Believe me, I can.”

His hand slips away from the tentative touch on her elbow, and he backs up, sitting heavily on the bed.

“Her father tried for years,” he starts, voice heavy, before he runs his hands through his curls, an almost idle motion of anxiety. “He knew there was some key to it, before it was called the Terese project. Before the mad doctor smashed all expectations of what was possible. He saw the theorem around Terese, tried to duplicate it, but it didn't work. He worked with others on…your Ambra…and that worked, but he had to share the control.”

Chloe sucks in a breath, but he forges on.

“Ambra was a unique case, couldn’t duplicate it on me or any other demon, just like how Terese didn’t work. His rival succeeded another time, that one’s still out there, haven’t heard of him in six months, but that was yet another technique.” He opens his arms wide, as if showing off the dead body, showing off the fullness of his power, and the demon magic swirls through the small room, spiraling up her throat. “The last three years he kept me in stasis, then in a cage, waiting until he could figure me out.”

It’s about as much as she could glean from the breadcrumbs dropped all over, but she nods. She can’t say anything that would help, not truly, but she nods.

“And now there’s one other out there, in more pain than you can imagine, completely untraceable, wishing for death,” he says, then rubs his handsome face. “No, they didn’t succeed. Yes, there are tendrils of magic and ties in me that I don’t fully know about. Yes, I still have all my power.” He swallows. “To my knowledge.”

It’s a bit more honest than she anticipated, so she takes a deep breath, deliberately calming herself down.

“Thank you,” she says, and her voice cracks a bit, unexpected. “I just need…”

“What do you need?” he asks, quick, and her heart sticks in her throat at the eagerness of his voice. “Tell me what you need.”

It’s some sort of dangerous precipice, one that she can only tell she’s teetering on the lip of now that she’s there, balancing without any warning.

It’s the sort of moment where she can feel in her bones that she will someday look back on in either fond memory or dread.

Her lips part, at the sudden uncertainty, at her heart pounding in her throat.

“I don’t ever want to be their prisoner again,” she breathes, and it’s not where she thought she was going with that sentence when she started it.

“I won’t let it,” he answers immediately. A vow.

“Yes, I know, but I can’t let it happen,” she says, stumbling over her words and the thrumming in her heart. “All of these secrets, of these half-truths, they’re variables. They’re things that could tip it in one way, things that can surprise me. I can’t…I can’t go into these things without knowing them.”

His lips part, ever so slightly, behind the mask. Where his human face is intently listening, but his true self is reacting.

“I would’ve planned differently if I knew you had a prison cell there,” she continues, and his true self blanches. “I would’ve planned around it, had it in mind as somewhere to run. I would’ve planned differently if…”

If she knew he’d have to take another body.

“If I knew what made demons pick new bodies,” she forges on, and he stands, drawing close to her with a suddenness that made her heart jump. At the reflection of dim sunlight from the snow through the aged curtains on his lips, at the studious way he surveys her, at the sudden sensation that her head is under water and she’s been attempting to tread like she could still breathe.

“That’s a far more complex question than we share with humans,” he warns, which is fair. “Every abomination has shared that in some way.”

Hence why none of them can switch bodies. Hence why they’re all stuck in a living one. Hence the pain.

“I know,” Chloe whispers, and there’s something a bit close to disappointment leeching into her tone, despite her efforts. “That’s just…the things I mean. Not knowing…it places me in danger of getting captured. And that’s…”

That’s the thing she would fear the most.

And by the look on his face as he gazes down at her, it’s the same.

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