The idea of someone inside her head, someone she couldn’t hide her worst thoughts from, someone she loved, made her feel a little queasy. “Yes. Reward or punishment, give him to me. I’ll be the Hierophant.”
* * *
When Vince came into the room, necklaces of onyx draped over his throat, and one attached to his arm like a leash, his eyes changed at the sight of her. He turned to Bellamy. “But where’s Adeline?”
“We sent her home,” Malik said.
“Then who—”
“Me,” Charlie said. “If you can make a stupid decision, then I can make one too.”
He shook his head. “This is supposed to be a punishment.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “You’re going to be stuck in my head, with all my secrets. Even I don’t know all my secrets. It’s going to be awful.”
He appeared to be seriously considering strangling her. “Char.”
“She’s volunteered,” Vicereine said. “And confessed to quite a few crimes just to convince us.”
The look he gave her was scathing. “Did she?”
“I’ll need your feet to be bare,” Vicereine said, all business now.
Charlie reached down to take off her boots. They were already untied, the laces loose from kicking them off in the tower.
Vince appeared to be belatedly wondering if he could break free of the onyx chains and escape. She saw him pull against the shining loop over his wrist. It must have held, because his expression set into grim lines. “You don’t know what I’ll be like, after. No one does,” he said under his breath.
“You’ll still be you,” Charlie whispered back.
Bellamy said something to Malik and both of them looked amused. Charlie didn’t think it was directed at her, but it ramped up her nerves. She reminded herself that she’d been through this before, cutting loose her own shadow as she sewed it to her sister’s feet. Posey had to finish the sewing, and neither of them was a great seamstress. Still, it seemed to be attached. And Posey seemed fine.
She reminded herself that she was stealing Vince right out from under their noses.
Vicereine directed Charlie to stand in front of him, which she did.
“Winnie wanted me to tell you hello,” she whispered. “Your boss is furious, but probably you don’t want your old job back anyway. Oh, and believe it or not, Posey might actually apologize.”
Vince looked down at her and sighed. But when she reached for his hand, he let her take it.
She squeezed once before he returned to shadow.
* * *
The front door of the watchtower closed heavily behind Charlie as she crossed the lawn, frost-rimed leaves crunching beneath her boots.
“Vince?” she said under her breath. “See, I told you we were going to leave together, and now we’re out of there.”
He didn’t reply, but when she glanced down, the shape of the shadow that followed her was his. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat. Listened to the wind whistle through the trees.
“I know you’re mad,” she said.
In the van, she pulled out the tactical knife attached to her keys. Pressed the point against the pad of her ring finger until a drop of blood welled up. “Vicereine said I was supposed to do this right away, so here we go.”
That seemed to get his attention. The shadow swirled around her in a dark cloud. She felt something against her skin that might have been a tongue, except that it wasn’t wet. The sensation made her shiver.
“Vince?” she said again, starting to get nervous. “Stop messing with me. Say something.”
A whisper came in her mind, making her sit up straight. “You’re not Remy.”
“I’m your girlfriend,” she said, voice unsteady. “And this joke isn’t even a little bit funny.”
Charlie stared at the shadow that spilled across the passenger seat, at the hectic light filtering through the trees. Watched as his shadow took shape without her control. A figure of darkness with same burning eyes and no recognition in them.
Triumph turned sour in her mouth.
His voice was soft with menace. “If that were true, I would know you. And I don’t.”
She thought of the story that Vince had told her, about running away from Salt’s, about waking up beneath that underpass without memory of how he got there. She’d taken that to mean he hadn’t remembered the time between Remy’s death and waking up. But maybe he’d lost more than that, and for longer.
Or maybe this was different. Maybe he’d never recall sitting with her under the stars. Never remember bringing ice to Barb’s party. Never remember eating buttered toast and drinking coffee in bed. She felt the burn of tears. Blinked them back. Tasted salt in the back of her throat.