Page 62 of Ash and Poison

“Eloquent,” I said with a snort. “But you and I both know I’m not that easy to kill. You tried twice, and I… I don’t think you want to kill me.”

He laughed. “Oh, trust me. I dream about gutting you, I dream about hanging you up to dry.”

“That sounds so messy, but anyway, can we just talk without trying to kill each other? For old-time’s sake. After all—”

“Talk?” His voice hitched. “No. I only want one thing from you now, Diya. To permanently stop you from talking. Bye then. Until next time.”

Dear A,

When I cry in pain, he tells me a story. Over and over again.

He tells me a story I barely remember, but it’s my story. I live in that, I laugh in that.

You and me… and Vincent. We live in those stories.

I no longer laugh. I no longer fight. I have lost my will to do both.

He tells me… a girl’s laughter brings her nightmares, her tears bring her sweet dreams. He tells me if I stop fighting, I’ll stop dreaming this dream. I’ll finally get out of this place.

But the dream never stops. It goes on and on and on.

On and on and on.

And he smiles in my tears, he drinks my blood and heals himself.

He says… I am his salvation. He says… he is my angel.

Both are true, only for him.

He is mad, but he says I’m madder to live, still… to hold on.

Riley.

16

BENEATH THE MASKS

ASHER

Ispent the morning slipping in and out of rooms, moving through the dim corridors, picking up snippets of conversations and stories. I’d become almost invisible—just another lost soul wandering the halls, forgotten, unimportant. The orderlies and nurses barely glanced at me anymore, and the other patients were too caught up in their own problems to notice mine.

It was the perfect cover.

“Hi, Asher. You seemed to have gotten up early today.” I nodded when Nurse Shelly sat in the chair opposite mine. “How are you feeling?”

How am I feeling?

I was tired, exhausted. I was always running, but I was stuck. I was suffocating within these walls, but I couldn’t leave. The rage in me was growing, twisting, taking shape, and I was afraid I’d lose myself to this seething creature slowly forming within me.

“Fine.” NOT.

She smiled before she walked toward Millie.

Nurse Shelly asked something, and Millie looked up from her sketchbook, gave her an empty look, and went back to her picture, her fingers steadily drawing more spiders.

I stared at the clock. It was five past eleven. I had a therapy session with the pretty and insane as fuck therapist at eleven thirty.

I wondered how she was now, after the kind of morning she had.