Page 84 of Shadebound
“You’re supposed to be a seer,” I told her as I pretended I hadn’t checked out her ass like a sleaze. “You’re supposed to feel it when someone’s standing two feet away from you, watching you soap up with this god-awful excuse for skincare.”
Nothing. Not a flicker.
I moved closer, letting the cold of me spread over her. The steam shifted as I passed through it, thinning in streaks. The water running over her arms cooled, and her pale skin prickledwith goosebumps. She rubbed at them, but didn’t open her eyes. Not even a glance around.
The drip in the far corner had been steady all along. I pulled at it until it was louder, until each drop hit the tiles with a heavier sound. It echoed in the space between us, cutting through the hiss of the water. She tensed slightly. I waited for her to turn. She didn’t. She just adjusted her stance and kept humming.
I was getting even more annoyed, and not at myself this time. At the ridiculous girl who ought to have seen me by now.
I shifted to her other side, just within her peripheral vision. Nothing. She didn’t flick her eyes open, didn’t pause the movement of her hands through her hair. I waved once, sharply. No reaction.
Then I leant over the next shower stall and twisted the handle just enough to make the pipes groan. The spray sputtered and spat against the tiles before I shut it off again. Her head tilted a fraction toward the noise but then went right back under her own water, humming like the sound meant nothing.
I was going to kill her. Not yet. I needed her alive. And also I had the wholedead and can’t murder peoplething going on. But one day, I would kill her. Because I was not built to be annoyed. Or stressed. Or useless. And she was forcing me to be all three.
On my way past the sinks, I swiped at the condensation on one of the mirrors until her reflection came through in a hazy oval. Then I dragged my hand across the surface again, distorting the image so her head stretched and her features warped. In the steam it looked wrong—eyes too far apart, mouth in the wrong place. From where she stood, she could see the movement in the glass if she looked.
She didn’t. She just reached for her soap and kept going.
Jaw tensing, I dragged my fingers along the tiles as I walked past her stall, nails catching faintly on the grout. It made a sharp scratch. She rubbed at her arm again but didn’t move.
I huffed. “That’s all you’ve got for me? A twitch?”
Fine, bigger it was then.
A towel sat folded on the bench beside a row of bottles. I slid my hand under the nearest one and tipped it off the edge. It hit the tiles hard, bounced once, and stopped near her feet. The sound cracked through the room, loud enough that anyone with sense would have noticed it didn’t happen by accident.
She opened her big onyx eyes, glanced down, and bent to pick it up. “Damn bottle,” she muttered. She put it back exactly where it had been, even nudging it into place like the symmetry mattered.
“It’s not the bottle. It’s me. The ghost who’s trying to speak to your useless, gorgeous self.”
I crossed back to the mirrors. The steam was thick again, coating every surface. I cleared a small circle with my hand, then traced her name into the glass—ERIS—slowly, making each letter sharp so it wouldn’t blur too fast. The warmth of the surface bit at my skin, and the effort made my fingers ache. But from the stalls, she could see the movement if she looked.
She didn’t. She didn’t fucking do anything.
By the time she glanced over, I’d already swiped my hand through it, smearing the letters into nothing out of sheer frustration. She gave the mirrors a single, distracted glance and went right back to rinsing her hair.
The light above her stuttered once when I moved to it next. I pushed it again, harder this time, until it flickered fast enough to throw her shadow up the wall in jagged shapes. She looked up at it with a frown, then shook her head.
“Maintenance here’s a joke,” she said, and tipped her face back into the spray.
I could have torn the whole bench over. But that would burn through what little I had left, and I still hadn’t told her what mattered. So instead of having a tantrum, I stepped in front of her, close enough that her outline warped in the steam. I waved my hand in front of her face.
No reaction.
She wasn’t even blinking differently.
“I’m going to haunt you until you die.” I warned. “And I mean it. I’ll be Casper the bitchy ghost forever until you do what I need you to do.”
She didn’t hear me. Even if her eyebrows twitched.
I took the nearest towel instead of screaming at her. Pulled it off the bench, dragged it across the tiles, and let the edge dip into the spray from the next showerhead until it darkened with water. The damp spread quickly, creeping up the fabric.
That made her pause. Her humming stopped. She turned her head, stepped out from under her shower, and picked the towel up. Then she muttered something about a draft and threw it back onto the bench, water-darkened edge and all.
“You are unbelievable,” I said. “You’re like when I see a man’s red flags, and honey, that isnota compliment.”
The mirrors by the sinks were coated in steam after another minute or two of my thinking. I moved to the middle one, pressed my palm flat against it, and cleared a circle. The warmth bit at my skin. I pressed my finger into the glass and wrote slowly, making the letters large so she couldn’t miss them.
