Page 80 of Shadowface

My eyes drift to those scissors on Lincoln’s desk. The perfect tool to carve out an iris.

I lean my hands back on the desk. “Don’t worry, Doctor Garcia, I’ve never really left.”

She takes a careful step back but rakes her gaze over my body. She watches me stoically, like a guardian of the Order should.

“It was you who marked Summer, wasn’t it?” she asks. “It was you at the ceremony, not Lincoln.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “I had every right to be there. She was my mother, not his. He has nothing to do with the Order. It’s my birthright, and it’s what she died for.”

She waves her hand and lets out a deep breath. “That may be so, but you can’t stay in control, Mikael. We’ve been through this; you can’t control yourself. You will kill again, and you will continue killing until the day you die. That missing girl… You took her, didn’t you?”

I curl my lip at her. “You don’t know anything about me, Doctor Garcia.”

She shakes her head. “You’re angsty and anxious. You only call me Doctor Garcia when you’re upset.”

“I’m sorry, Talia. Is that better? Or does Mom work for you?”

She flicks a piece of dust off her red suit jacket, completely composed now that she believes I won’t kill her with so many witnesses just outside the door.

She takes a deep breath. “No child should witness what you saw. You were not supposed to see that. Your mother was chosen for a greater purpose. Her soul is at rest; she’s with Him. You need to put yourself to peace.”

A snarl rips from my lips, and she jolts back. “I didn’t come back to talk about my mother.”

Her eyes narrow. “So why did you come back? Why are you here, Mikael?”

I gently touch my lips. Her flavor lingers. My skin tingles from the brief moment when I was in control, when I regained ownership of my body. “I want Summer. She’s mine, and she is the one I want to kill.”

I can’t lie. She is the only reason I haven’t completely let go of myself.

Revenge, love, hate, obsession.

I don’t know which one is which anymore. My reality is defined by her. No one else in this world matters the way she does.

Talia blinks and stares blankly at me for a few seconds. She is ignorant of what we did. The late-night visits, Lincoln’s years of manipulating her mind, and my obsession with her are all unknown to her. She doesn’t know her star student, her son, at all.

“Then you shall have her,” she says. “But only when the time is right. But under no circumstances are you to kill her yet. Do you understand? This campus cannot deal with another Shadowface. I won’t let you be like Kevin. I’ll tear your soul apart before I let you destroy what I’ve protected since I was a girl. And you won’t like the new methods I’ve been using to control my patients.”

My jaw ticks and I smile, looking down at that paper. “It’s too late, Talia. I already am Him. You made me Him when you sent me those pretty girls.”

She’s responsible for this. I was compelled by her. She tempted me with bait, testing my resolve. I have no idea where she got them from. All blonde and all pretty. All of them looked like my mother. She created the circumstances and placed them in a maze with a mouse only hunting for bait.

I was so young, so I barely remember the specifics. Just that it satisfied a need.

I tried not to do it. Each time I saw them tied up on my bed, I curled up as far away from them as I could. A few moments into it, she played music, and I blacked out. When I came to, Dr. Garcia was writing on a clipboard, a smile tugging on her lips like I was her little pet. They were dead—more than dead, actually; they looked like grated cheese.

Then she made me clean up the mess.

I was thirteen the first time I killed.

She walks up to me and presses her lips against my forehead. “Do not think I won’t make the call to put you away. I love you, Mikael, like you’re my son, but this is for the best.”

She reaches into her bag, grabs a piece of paper and writes something on it, then slides it on the desk. “Tell Lincoln, if he can hear me, to take this medicine. Bring him back and put yourself back in your cage. He has a thesis to defend soon.”

She sighs as my fingers curl around the paper. Her eyes flit up to meet mine. “You created Lincoln for a reason. He is on the cusp of greatness, and the world is a better place with him in it. All you will do is create chaos; you will get him thrown into an asylum. You’re not well, Mikael. You do not know how to function properly in society.”

I marvel at her. The hypocrisy of everything she is and stands for. The hypocrisy of the world in which we live…the world I’ll never understand.

I draw my eyebrows in. “I thought you liked chaos, Talia Garcia. Guardian of the Order.”