Page 50 of Visions of Darkness

Unbidden, a tremor rolled through me. I bit back the panic.

“And this Pax is important to you?” she pressed.

My nerves edged in anxiety, I rushed my hand through my hair. I decided to use it to my advantage. Play the troubled teenager. I chose my words carefully. “Yes. He was always there for me when no one else understood.”

Leather creaked when she shifted in her seat, and her voice grew deep. “What does he think about what you do to yourself, Aria? Does he tell you it’s okay?”

She wanted to know if I heard voices.

If only she really knew the voices that I heard.

“No.” I whispered it, allowing the tears to well up and fall free.

Appropriate for this act.

While inside, I was panicking. My spirit revolting. Telling me to get up and run. To squeeze my eyes closed and pray for sleep.

To go to Tearsith.

To find him.

Because I hated denying him.

Denying how much he really meant to me.

But there was no other way.

“I used to talk to him when I was little.” The faked confession was thin and wispy. “It was just hard to let him go when I realized he wasn’t real.”

Frustration colored her features. “Please don’t play me, Aria. I ask for your respect within these walls, the same as I will give to you. I know very well you still believe he’s real. And I need to know if he’s the reason you harm yourself. If he convinces you this will somehow make you feel better.”

She turned her laptop around to reveal the pictures emblazoned like proof on the screen. Burns in varying degrees of healing captured in each shot.

Some old and faded.

Some puckered and inflamed.

The one they’d taken yesterday when I was admitted was still caked with dried blood.

I did my best not to flinch at the sight of them.

Sympathy might have filled her expression, but her words were enough to snuff out hope. “These are the worst injuries I’ve ever seen anyone inflict on themselves, Aria, and I am not going to let you go until we find a way to help you.”

Chapter Twelve

Aria

By that night, despair had settled in. Each footstep was hard to take, every moment torment as I waited for the man to return.

I’d searched for anything to use as a weapon, but considering I was in a mental facility, they were hard to come by.

The only thing I possessed was my voice ... and my touch.

Could I use this new power? Use it against him?

I swallowed around the barbed knot of uncertainty lodged in my throat as I trudged into the cafeteria for dinner.

The evening shift change had come and gone. The night counselors were back on duty, the same as the kitchen staff, plus I saw Jill, the nurse from last night.

---