“You passed out, and I brought you home.” Julian released a heavy breath and tilted his head. “I can tell the difference, and your fear seemed more like a memory. How did you end up in that place? Is that why you are afraid of the dark?”
My brows snapped together. “The dark?” There was an unintentional bite in my words, and I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I shook my head. “It’s not the dark I’m afraid of.”
“Then what is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” he snapped.
“Why?”
Julian sat beside me at the edge of the mattress and dropped his elbows to his knees, hanging his head between his shoulders. A heavy exhale left him as I held mine, waiting for a response.
When he lifted his head, his gaze slid to mine from the corners of his eyes. “You’re the only person who’s looked into my face that I haven’t killed. You survived, and it doesn’t make sense. No one has survived me before.”
For some reason, I trusted the stranger in my room who had the power to pull me back into my fears. I had no reason to trust him, but I did. If all this was true, Julian had experienced that terrible night from when I was a kid right along with me less than twenty-four hours ago, and he was the only one who could understand it.
We were connected in some kind of way.
My entire body shifted on the mattress to face him.
“Confinement,” I spilled, my fingers fidgeting in my lap. I’d never told anyone before, and it felt as if a burden lifted with my confession. “Small places, walls, confinement, my freedom taken away … being trapped. All of it. If I can’t escape …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t think more about it, so I let it die off there, and it was as if the world had gone silent with my declaration. Even the cold wind blowing in seemed to calm.
Julian turned too, giving me all of his attention. “Tell me what happened.”
And his hand came over my naked thigh. It felt so new and familiar at the same time, and a shudder ripped up the ladder of my spine. He was here, making places tingle that had never been touched, gazing at me with a fierce tenderness. He was here, making me feel things I’d never felt before.
I scanned the room, questioning if I was even awake. Maybe I’d never woken up at all.
Reality bends here. “Is this real?” I think I asked aloud, the sound of the clock sitting on my nightstand ticking, playing behind the silence.
Julian tilted his head, catching my eyes with his. “Do you want it to be?”
“Yes.” I’d said it so quickly, not having to think. Yes, I did.
“Tell me what happened,” he insisted.
Casper meowed from the armoire, watching our exchange closely, and Julian removed his hand and leaned back against the bed, bracing himself up with his palms on each side of him. The man was gentle and intense. How was it possible? The moonlight dragged a shadow across him, and his light eyes punched through the layer of darkness, probing for me to continue. So, I did, but not without a shaken breath.
“I was only seven. The kids on my street constantly teased and harassed me, followed me all the way home from the bus stop. They used to call me the spawn of Satan, an evil witch ... freakshow. Whatever evil thing you could imagine, that’s what they called me. ‘Don’t look into her eyes,’ they’d say,” and my words broke at the seams of my childhood.
I paused to contain my emotions, to keep them at bay. Julian’s posture turned rigid, but his eyes never left me, even when I had to look away.
“One day we were walking home from the bus stop, and they wouldn’t stop. They pushed me around. They stole my backpack. They pulled my hair. They mocked me. They taunted me. Then they pushed me inside the well because that’s where witches belong. In Hell. And at first, I couldn’t get up. My whole side hurt so bad … but at some point, I did. And all night long, I tried to get out. I tried so hard that my nails ripped from my fingers. I was bleeding and hurt and alone and convinced I was going to die. It was the longest night of my life.”
I shuddered at the mere thought of going back there. And I knew for certain, if I’d ever see Julian’s face, I would be back there in that well, and my chest tightened. I continued so he wouldn’t notice, “My nanny, Marietta, she found me. For thirteen hours, I was in there,” I shook my head, “Jaxon Jenkins lost his sight the next day. Brady Matthews went mute a week later … and … after that, no one would come near me or touch me or talk to me. They were nice,” the word tasted bitter on my tongue, “because they were scared of me and the things I could possibly do.”
“The Order was right. Nothing’s changed,” Julian mumbled to himself, his brows pinched together in deep thought. “The world is still the same after all these years.” He tilted his head and peered over at me. “But you didn’t do those things to those kids? After everything they did to you?”
“No. Even if I could, I wouldn’t,” I shook my head and pinched the edge of the mattress. “But, now I’m thinking it really was Marietta, and if she could do those things, she’d only do something like that to protect me. She wasn’t evil.” I looked up to Julian. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Not even my dad.”
Julian’s glazed and tormented eyes dwelled on me with all their madness; I noticed the wrinkle between his brows deepen, an understanding or a sorrow. I noticed these things, and it did something crazy to my own heart.
The silence between us was comfortable yet loud. I couldn’t understand what he was thinking, so I shredded the silence with my voice. “But then I get here, and it’s as if everyone wants to be my friend. Usually, I’m the girl everyone is scared of, the one who everyone avoided, but not here. It’s different here.”
“Because they all want something from you,” he answered. “They want you in their coven.”
“Except you,” I pointed out, focusing on keeping my voice steady. “You don’t care. In fact, if memory serves me correctly,” I started, remembering what he’d said at the Town Hall meeting, “You have a certain taste. Wanting someone like me would be absurd.”
His gaze froze on me. “I was—”
“’Cause I’m a freakshow, right?”
Julian’s eyes turned to slits. “Fallon—”
“No, I heard you guys in the woods. I heard what you all said about me. I’ve heard it my entire life. I always hear what they say about me as if I’m not there, as if it doesn’t hurt. But it does hurt! You said so yourself, you saw my memory. Do you think I enjoyed what they did to me? What I had to listen to from your friends? You think being no one’s taste doesn’t hurt? God forbid anyone took the time to actually get to know me.”
Julian’s posture stiffened, his gaze ran cold. A growl thundered inside him, holding back the same turmoil he released at Voodoos. He snapped up, snatched my arm, and yanked me across the room toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the dim room until I was confronted with my reflection. My heart hammered as he stood behind me. His chest slammed against my back. He looked down at my confused expression. My eyes fell to the girl in the mirror with no makeup, bright white skin, and even whiter hair. Colorless, the scary glass blue eyes in the mirror stared back, and I turned my head away.