Page 39 of The Darkest Half

“Then how can you have feelings for me?”

“I…don’t know.”

It’s all she says. And the moment fades into the darkness of the late night and then early morning.

When I open my eyes, Lysandra is standing over me.

18

Fredrik

Two or Three Weeks Later…

I don’t remember when I last saw or spoke to Izabel or Victor. I don’t remember a lot of things. Even my memories of Seraphina have begun to wither away, slipping into the darkest corners of my mind.

I’m still strapped to a dentist’s chair. How have I relieved myself all this time?

Wait a fucking second…

I blink away the haze in my eyes and look down at my bound hands and ankles. I’m still strapped down. But my clothes aren’t soiled; I don’t reek of shit or piss, but Willa has kept me fed and hydrated all the time she’s had me here. I recall the soup…eggs another day…a breakfast sandwich with bacon another day…water given to me through a straw…beans and rice…more water…meatloaf and mashed potatoes…milk.

Wait…I remember sitting upright at a table. I look across the room. At that table. I was unbound. Ah, yes, I now recall using a urinal. Willa had helped me into the restroom; she stood behind me and even held my cock with me when I took a piss.

Willa has been keeping me drugged.

I remember now. The needle. I squeeze my fists and stretch the muscle in my forearm, and sure enough, I feel a twinge of pain there, somewhere. And in my bicep.

She has been drugging me all this time.

How long have I really been here?

I hear the creaking of rusty hinges as a door opens and then closes again softly. Light blinks on and off. Footsteps, small and dainty and dangerous, move across the hardwood floor like the pattering of children’s feet.

I try to better look at the room where I’m being held and the things within it in search of anything I might be able to use. If I could somehow get my hands free, of course.

“You are awake,” I hear Willa’s voice. “Vould you like breakfast?”

I look down the length of my bare legs as her form grows larger, coming toward me through the shadow. She’s carrying a restaurant bag in one hand, a fountain drink in the other with a straw poking from the top.

“You know,” I say, “It’s bad for digestion to eat lying down.”

Willa places the drink beside me, shuffles open the bag and reaches inside to retrieve an egg biscuit. She removes it from the paper wrapping; a little coil of steam rises from the top, so I know we can’t be very far from civilization, at least.

She ignores my comment and pinches off a bite-sized piece with her fingers, and places it into my mouth.

I chew quickly, swallow, and try to get another word in before she does it again.

“Willa, why don’t you let me out of these restraints? I’m not going anywhere. I want to stay with you,” I lie.

“But I can’t see your face yet,” she says. “I need to see your face before I let you go.”

“My face?” I look at her, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

Willa sets the sandwich down on the chair beside her. She goes over to the table that I vaguely recall eating from in a drug-induced stupor, and she reaches inside a tote bag atop it. She comes back to me carrying a hand mirror with an elongated handle. She holds the mirror over my face.

“Look,” she says.

I look into the mirror at myself.

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