Page 86 of Petrify

He doesn’t move, his chest rising and falling quicker, and I’m frozen, like winter has gripped me in its tendrils through the glass, holding me in place to receive my punishment.

“I hate you,” I whisper, shaking, tears blurring my vision.

Slowly, those dark eyes meet mine again. “No. No, you don’t. If you did, you would have accepted the money. But no, you decided to stay, Mallary. You want to stay withme.”

“Notwith you.” My nails scrape against the glass. “I’m here for Henri. I’m here for my fuckingresume.”

“You think they’ll give you a reference now?” I can hear his sharp smile. “After you’ve gone and pissed Mariane off? Sure, Leo will give you what you want if you givehimsomething in exchange?—”

“Fuck you,” I spit. My fingers shake against the glass.

“Yes,” he hisses through his teeth, and I realize I can see the whites of his eyes between the holes of the mask—he’s grinning, he’senjoyingthis. “Be angry. I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to snap.”

He looms closer again, like there are magnets in our hearts pulling us inevitably closer and closer.

He glances down at my lips. “Do you dream of me?”

“What?” I’m breathless from the whiplash.

He hums. “Interesting.”

“I don’t understand you.” I’m shaking my head, my nails scraping the glass pane of the window, trembling like a fawn.

“I’ve also been wondering when you’d finally stop pretending,” he says. “Youdoknow me.”

“I know nothing about you except that you’re a petulantmurderer.” My voice shakes too.

“You hate me because I am your mirror,” he purrs.

“I hate you because you are sick. You are afreak.”

He grabs me by the jaw, forcing my back flat against the window. A gasp stalls in my throat. “And yet here you are, throwing yourself at my feet.”

“I am not?—”

“Why are you here, Mallary? Why did you say no to the money, if you hate me so much? Why do you stay if you are so miserable?”

My lips fall open to reply, but there are so many things racing through my head that I can’t make sense of them. Adrenaline urging me to run again, but I know I’ll get nowhere.

“Because you want this,” he murmurs. He leans closer, his knee spreading mine apart. “You wantthis.”

His masked face nuzzles into my neck, and I’m not fighting him, I’m relishing in the contact. He inhales deeply as though to smell my misery, my arousal.

And just when I think he may plunge his fingers into me again, spin my pleasure to his liking, he pulls away, leaving me cold andempty.

“So go look after the boy. Go be friends with the staff. Because at night, you’re mine.” He backs away slowly, and it’snot out of defeat. He’s taunting me, daring me to come to him again. “Your music, yourmind—all mine.”

I flee, feeling worse than when I sought him out. There’s a sob building in my throat that I can only expel once I’m alone in my room. Hot, frustrated tears threaten to blind me.

But even in my room, I’m not truly alone. He could be watching.

So I don’t let the tears fall. I shove the sob down. Sitting atop my bedspread with my fists in the sheets, counting my breaths, weighed down by an exhaustion that I haven’t felt since—since?—

I never should have come here. This world isn’t mine. I wasn’t made for this, for the snide comments and threats always looming over me, the impossible expectations.

I came here formusic.

There’s less than an hour before I have to watch over Henri again. An hour to get myself together.