Page 93 of Petrify

“Why? Why haven’t you told me?”

He turns me so I have no choice but to stare up at his mask, gripping my jaw. “At first, to play with you. To torment you further. But then I saw it freed your mind and I thought maybe I could offer you some relief, despite everything.”

“Relief?” A sad laugh slips past my lips. I don’t even try to pull away from him.

“Yes. You arrived here so… blank, and sad, running from something. And it became clear thisstatereleased you from that.”

“Did you—” My throat catches. “What did you do to me while I—did you fuck me?”

I remember begging him. I remember falling to my knees and running my hands over his thighs. And not so long ago, he had woken me up with his cock between my legs.

“No,” he says, dark eyes flicking between mine. “Though I was tempted. You wanted it. ButIwanted you to remember when I fucked you.Everytime.”

I do remember. I remember it all. I can’tstopremembering—can’t stop thinking about his body moving against mine, his hands touching me, everywhere, my skin alight with a burning desire, only doused when the sun rises. Every day, every night, thinking about him.

He’s destroyed my mind, because no other thought lingers long enough anymore.

“You—” My voice fails me, and I think my knees will too, but Bastien holds me up, his grip tight on my jaw.

The nights I thought he left me alone—he hadn’t. I’d been waiting for him, waking disappointed and disoriented, thinking I hadn’t been enough. That he simply hadn’t wanted me enough.

But he was always there.

“You were my play thing, Mallary. You were brought here to bemine.”

His breath is hot on my face, my cheeks, even through the mask, but I’m so numb from the cold, so numb from the memories, and I don’t know if I’ll ever warm up again, my skin melding with the snow. My fingers tighten on his wrists, to push him away or hold him to me, I don’t know.

“Don’t act surprised now,” he says. “It’s been this way between us since the first night.”

“Bastien.”

“I’ve done nothing,” he says, “butfreeyou. That’s all I’ve been trying to do—help you see how good we could be together.”

The air is dry ice in my lungs, each breath sharp and painful. “What…?”

“You don’t have to lie to yourself anymore. It’s okay, Mal, I’ve got you.” Cradling my face, he presses his forehead to mine. “Isn’t it nice? You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“Pretendwhat?”

“Shh.” His fingers are soft on my cheekbones, reverent. “You and I don’t have to hide anymore.”

Something comes back to me the moment he says the words.

His plans—muttered out into the air one night beneath the stars. What he wants to do to the Beauchenes, toallof them. All of the things they’ve done.

How he needs his revenge.

I remember it all.

“Bastien, we can’t do this, you can’t—” I’m shaking my head, or trying to, but his grip is iron-solid, and I couldn’t pull away from him if I wanted.

“And why can’t I? Why can’t I kill them all?”

Every argument dies on my lips. Because there is no good argument, knowing what he’s had to endure. Knowing how fractured his mind has become, and how he’s pieced it back together himself.

Is it his fault? Falling to pieces because of the life he’s lived? Cracking under the pressure of his family, having just the right brain chemistry to give in to that darkness? Is it his fault that he turned out this way?

Is it mine?