Page 51 of Chaos

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She laughed. “Uh, pretty sure I would have remembered that. Nice try, though. You almost had me going for a second.”

“I’m serious. He was admitted there while you were a patient. He’s the one who found and freed us.”

“Wait.” She held up her palm. “You guys were at Blackwood too?”

If being magically kidnapped and caged in a subterranean bunker counted.

“In a manner of speaking.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about it? How come we never ran into each other?”

“It’s a long and, dare I say, irrelevant story.”

She continued to stare at me. “Uh-huh.”

“Believe me or not. It doesn’t change the fact that Hades was a patient at Blackwood. Same as you.”

“He was not. There was no one named Hades in residence. I would know. One of my super-secret spy tasks was snooping through the patient files for Auntie Lilith.”

Had that sneaky bastard been at Blackwood incognito? Oh, Hades. Always hiding in some shadow or another. “I assure you he was. But that’s neither here nor there?—”

My phone rang again, Hades’s name flashing on the screen once more, and another twist of dread gripped my gut.

“Are you sure you don’t need to answer that?”

Shaking my head, I silenced the phone permanently and set it off to the side. “What I need to do is focus on you and your lack of ability to protect yourself. Last night’s eruption is warning enough that they’ll make their next attempt sooner rather than later.”

Her expression soured. “I have been doing better.”

“Better isn’t going to keep you from being caught in a Knight’s thrall, Merri.”

She squirmed, letting out a heavy sigh. “Fine. Do your worst.”

I cocked a brow. “Be careful what you wish for, hellcat. You can barely handle me at my lowest setting. You don’t ever want to see me at my worst.”

Merri paled, the reminder of who and what I was more effective than I’d intended. But that was for the best. She needed to remember what was at stake here. I wasn’t doing this for shits and gigs, as they say.

“Do I need to close my eyes or something?” She stood, crossing her arms over her chest as she popped one hip. Bratty as ever.

“No. It’s not going to be helpful practice if you are prepared for an attack. They’ll come for you when you least expect it. Just like last time.”

Merri gave a small nod. “Chaos said so too.”

“Who better to listen to than the man who wrote the book on warfare?”

“Did he really?”

“May as well have,” I murmured with a shrug. Then I attacked.

She gasped—just a soft, surprised intake of air—and attempted to raise her walls, but it was too late. I was inside her mind, infiltrating the parts of her she held most secret. She couldn’t push me out if she tried at the moment, but I couldn’t wait for her to gather her strength enough to make the effort.

Her mind was a veritable open book, each memory teasing me like a preview to an upcoming movie. A flicker here, a glimpse there. Merri as a chubby toddler, running into her foster mother’s arms. Merri staring into the mirror backstage before a ballet recital, her gaze flicking to the other dancers, all willowy and lithe. Pretty waifs, certainly, but vastly different from Merri’s undeniably sensual hourglass shape. Her instructor looking her over, shaking her head while tutting and murmuring, “I told you to lose ten pounds. If you think I’ll allow you to audition for the company looking like this, think again.”

My eye twitched as rage suffused me. Better to leave that one alone.

Another memory took its place, this one seeming well-worn. Like she returned to it often. Curiosity instantly piqued, I decided that was the one I was most interested in witnessing.

“No.” Merri’s soft protest barely registered as the memory took hold around me.