Page 105 of Shadowface

I reach over to my nightstand and pull out a pill bottle. Her hand immediately reaches for my stomach, running her fingers over my abdomen like she doesn’t want me to move. I slip a little pill into her mouth, and she tenses. “It’s ibuprofen, Summer. Relax.”

I reopen my computer and start typing again. I can’t help it…when I get into a flow state, it consumes my brain.

She stares at my computer screen, then up at me, then back to the computer screen as trying to read my work.

This section is titled Moral Code. Something she clearly lacks—because we stole it from her in her sleep when she was a teenager.

I can sense the confusion etched into her face. “You have questions,” I say, typing away. “Feel free to ask me one.”

“Can you see when you’re not wearing your glasses?”

I wrap my arm around her and wipe my thumb across her hairline. “Out of all the things you could ask me, you choose that?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen glasses so thick.”

Another handicap he gave me—he made me blind. I think it’s because he didn’t want me seeing her when he was watching her.

“I’m blind as a bat without them.”

She reaches over and pulls the glasses off and runs a hand over my face. She looks at me inquisitively, her blurry face studying me. She closes her eyes for a moment as the ibuprofen kicks in. Her breath grows heavy again.

I place my glasses back on and click away. After a few minutes, her body is tense.

“Instead of staring at me for the next hour, why don’t you ask me what’s really on your mind?”

She sits up. “I can’t express my thoughts in words.”

“Say the first thing that comes to mind. Usually, it’s the most unfiltered and interesting.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason. Patience is not a virtue of mine.”

She presses her lips together. “How old are you, Lincoln?”

I give her a sly smile. “I’m ageless.”

Her brows furrow. “So you’re old?”

“I’m timeless, baby. In my mind, it’s as if I’ve always existed.” I wrap my arm around her and she nestles in close, running her hand along my stomach.

“How many of you are inside your head?”

I take a deep breath as that darkness ripples beneath my skin. “Just the two of us,” I lie. “And trust me, that’s plenty.” I don’t bother trying to explain the split. Partly because I don’t truly understand it myself, but I also don’t want to frighten her.

Fragments, like this one, aren’t sentient. You can’t reason with them, and I don’t seem to have the ability to stop this one.

Her fingers dance lower on my abdomen until she’s playing with the line of my sweats. “How does that all work? I mean, with you and him… Aren’t there sometimes more? I thought DID patients had hundreds of alters.”

I place my computer down, pull her on top of me, run my fingers up her shirt and play with her, running my fingers down her back.

“That’s how powerful I am. Usually the various alters in DID patients make up what’s called the system. I am the system, or at least I used to be. The few times in my existence when a fragment emerged, I would control it and stifle it before it could grow into a sentient being. I’m all this body needs, Summer. And when I take what’s left of Mikael, he will be gone, too.”

Her lips part as if she wants to say something but doesn’t.

Her knees squeeze my torso and her pupils flare. “How do you silence them? The other alters, I mean.”

I chew on my bottom lip. “I tear out their tongues.” I smile at her while I say this, of course.