The current of my emotions and who I really was boiled inside me, the waves getting larger, and I had to fight to keep the two sections of my mind separate. One quiet and calm for the handler, the other wild with apprehension.
Each passing second brought me closer to being found out, to being caught. Getting out of here would not be easy, but the moment was now. The Magelore, Peter, had shown me that. But maybe the three of us . . .
Sixteen attempts, sixteen, and he was in a hole in the ground so deep, I wasn’t sure even I could get him out of it.
I gritted my teeth and fought to get my head back on straight. The handler was quiet again, not fully in my head which gave me a little breathing room. But that other person who’d been in my head—I was sure it was a woman—had only been in my head for a moment, but she’d cut through the walls I’d put up. What if I’d been with her from the beginning?
I stopped in my tracks, the realization hitting me like a baseball bat to the head. “I’d be like Easter if I’d been with her.” Fuck, I’d slipped up and used her real name.
“I would never do that to you.”
The voice was soft. I’d never heard it before with my ears, but I recognized it as surely as if he’d spoken to me every day. I turned and found myself looking at a man who barely stood above my belly button. He was just under five feet tall with completely white hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I’d even call them purple in a different light. Round face, round eyes, chubby body with limbs that seemed screwed on. Beautiful, though, like the beauty of a child untouched by the world.
Part of me wondered if I was seeing things. Part of me had thought my handler would look like a troll, a monster in the flesh who’d been willing to destroy a mind for their own purposes.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about this beautiful child in front of me.
He pursed perfectly plump lips. “I’ve turned the cameras off. I’d like to speak to you.”
I did a quick glance at the camera to my left, anchored above my head in the hall. No blinking red light. Hot damn, my call to him had worked.
“Why?”
“Because . . . I need to see if the others are right about you. Are you cagey? I see your thoughts every day and they are always about helping people. Keeping them from suffering. A noble cause, and you shine forth a noble light.”
“A noble light?” I repeated the words back to him because I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Was I asleep? Was this some sort of fever dream from all the sedatives in the food?
His pale face turned a light shade of green. “They’re sedating you still?”
I tipped my head to the side and frowned. There was something under his arm that was . . . moving, wiggling. “Do you think that any of us would be trusted? Even with you in our heads? We are monsters to you, I know that. Do you trust me?”
He blinked and smiled up at me as if that would make what he said next okay. “Oh, not just me. There are many of us that helped to ease you through this transition. You, Peter, and Easter are special. Strong.”
I blinked, not sure I’d heard him right. He’d said Easter, not Esther. Something akin to hope flared in my chest. Would he help me? I’d called him to me, but I hadn’t been sure it would work.
The touch of his fingers in my mind was light, and he was only picking up what I wanted him to. This was better than I could have hoped.
“I would help you with anything. You are a good person.” He smiled. “I would know. There is no darkness in you.”
The thing under his arm squirmed and he put a hand on it, the black butt of it as familiar to me as my own skin. But I asked anyway. Shocked that he would bring it here, down to where the patients were. “What is that?”
“This? It’s a token. It belongs to Easter. It helped us connect with her. To help her the way we helped you. I am taking over helping her. Susan has been far too cruel to her.” He frowned and shook his head
I had never met anyone like him and his powers of mind control were beyond even that of a Magelore, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t beat him at his own game.
He touched something around his neck and I caught a flash of silver.
The wings that Bear gave you.
The thought was there and gone so fast I tried to block him from it, but my guard had dropped and he was quick. Far too quick.
“Who is Bear?” he asked softly, and those fingers in my mind tugged at the memories that wanted to surface. Not hard like the other one. There was no cruelty in him, and for that alone, I would let him . . . help.
I had no doubt he knew who Bear was, but he wanted me to talk. He wanted me to show him that I trusted him.
“Can we talk in my room? I feel exposed here,” I said. It was a risk to trust him, but I had to do it. I needed a friend.
He smiled. “I am your friend. You can trust me. I turned the cameras off in your hallway and room, so we would have privacy.”
He walked at my side, all the way to my room. I sat on my bed and he sat beside me and my thoughts were perfectly schooled. “I would like to meditate with you,” I said softly.
“Of course, that is an excellent idea!” He beamed at me as if I’d told him I was about
