Page 50 of Shadow

I closed my eyes at hearing it, my heart swelling.

“Call me Shadow,” I answered back softly as I opened my eyes. “Please?”

“Shadow,” she repeated softly. “My Shadow.”

God, that sounded so good.

“Yours,” I murmured. “Yours, Sirena. I’m yours, baby. Tell me what you want from me, and I’ll give you everything.” I knew I probably sounded desperate, but damn, I was.

She didn’t say another word. Instead, she leaned in, her lips a fraction from mine.

Torture. Pure, fucking torture.

“You tease me so good,” I whispered, my hand still on her ass. “What do I have to do to end this torture, cupcake? Huh? What words do you need from me? What actions?”

“Truth,” she whispered back. “You.”

I knew what she was asking of me. She wanted to know my actual story. I hated telling it, but I would. For her, I’d do it.

“It’s ugly,” I said. “Are you sure? I-I don’t want you to hate me after hearing it.”

She shifted off my lap, deflating my heart, but moments later, she was taking my hand and pulling me down onto my mattress next to her and staring into my eyes.

She twined her fingers with mine and studied me, waiting for my words.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” I said softly. I blew out a steadying breath. “My name is Bryce Theodore Andrews. I was born in Chicago almost twenty years ago. A Thursday night, actually. A full moon. My mother cursed my father’s name as I came screaming into this world.”

I paused and brushed a strand of her dark hair away from her face before continuing.

“My mother tried to bottle feed me, but it hurt my stomach. I’d scream for hours from the pain,” I said. “I had no way to tell her that because I was only an infant.”

Her brows crinkled at me in confusion.

I gave her a sad smile. “We all have superpowers here. Dante with his knives and authority. Stitches with his violence and anger. Ashes with his flames. Sin with his devotion. Asylum and Mirage with the voices. You with the silence and beauty. The resilience. And me.” I licked my lips. “I have something called hyperthymesia. I can remember my life in great, vivid detail. Even my birth.”

She widened her eyes at me. Her lips parted. I longed to kiss her, but I restrained myself. She needed to hear my story.

“Some people refer to it as an eidetic memory. I’m an exceptionally rare case; in fact, I’m the only one in recorded human history with this specific type. With this much recall. There isn’t a single thing I can’t remember. I just need to see something, and every minute detail becomes embedded in my head for eternity.”

She gazed at me in awe. I grasped her hand once more and examined her slender fingers.

“I remember my first breath. I remember the way you smelled the day I met you. I remember the fear in your eyes. Exactly where the fucking sun was positioned in the sky as we walked through campus together. How you tightened your hands into fists. That it took you eighty-four steps to cross the small bridge over Pinecone Creek on campus. That at two oh six in the afternoon on August twenty-seventh, you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and smiled at me. That on October 12th, you were afraid of Dante. I remember the first time you brushed your hand against mine. I remember the butterflies dancing against the flowers outside the commons when you did it. Three of them. Late in the season, but there they were. I remember you were wearing cherry lip gloss. I’d watched you apply it by your locker. You tucked it into that tiny little black bag where you keep your art pencils. You also keep one in your backpack in the side pocket.” I exhaled again. “My point is, and I know I’m not doing a good job of it, that I remember everything. Not just the things I’ve told you. I know the temperature for any given day throughout my life. I know what my mother wore on November 6th, 2015.Gray dress pants, pink heels, and a black button-down. She had her hair in a bun.I can even tell you what she said at six-oh-nine PM.Bryce, don’t tell your father about your day. It upsets him when you recount every detail.Just be normal.” I winced at the memory.

She continued to watch me, her face filled with amazement. No one had ever looked at me that way, and it melted my heart. Everyone always thought I was a freak. I learned to keep that part of who I was hidden so I could get through life more easily.

I scooted closer to her.

“Everett Church learned about my abilities, if you want to call them that. He visited a few times, an old college friend of my father’s, but it was when my friend kissed me that it became too much for my father. He was already teetering on the edge, dealing with a freak for a son. You see, my brother was his pride and joy. While I love my brother, we are just so different. I was a disappointment to our father. It hurt at first, but I’m over it now. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

She reached out and gently traced my lips with her fingers. I closed my eyes, relishing her touch.

“My father sold me to Everett a few years ago. I assume he paid good money for me. In the summers, I don’t return home. I go to the Underground. I work for Everett. He sends me out to do things for him. It’s mostly just watching. Asylum has always known what I do. I don’t spend a lot of time down there. I’m mostly out doing Everett’s bidding. And when I’m not, he-he sells me to the highest bidder.” The words burned my tongue, and I squeezed my eyelids closed, wishing to hell I could tear the ugly memories from my head. “I remember everything, Sirena. The way they touched me. How they moaned as they came on my body. I fucking hate it. I hate that it’s lodged away inside my head for eternity. It’s the worst kind of torture. It’s the fucking sickest. And he knows that. Everett fucking knows, and he makes me do it anyway. I’m desperate to live. I want to be normal. Fall in love. Have a family. He knows that, too, and he uses that desire to keep me alive. He’s told me he’ll kill me if I don’t do what they want. So I do it. I let them do what they need to do to me to get off and leave me alone.” A tear dripped down my cheek.

Sirena reached out and gently wiped it away for me.

“Asylum isn’t lying. I am a virgin. I’ve never slept with anyone before,” I continued softly. “No one has fucked me. I’ve never fucked them. I think it’s just another form of torture. A way to break me down. Everett’s really good at psychological stuff. Look at Dante and Malachi.” I chewed my bottom lip for a moment. “But I’m grateful it’s the one part of me I still have. It’s a part I get to control. I’ve been waiting for someone I love to do it with.” I stared into her eyes. “I’m fucked up, Sirena. I don’t want to be, but I am.”

She shook her head. “No. No. You’re perfect.”

---