“That’s fucked up, Lani.”
“I know.”
“Surely if you ever met your scent matches, your natural biology would trigger anyway?”
“I don’t think he planned on letting me go anywhere to meet anyone who could make that a possibility. I don’t know. Like I said, he’s a drunk. I don’t think he was ever thinking clearly all the times he was injecting god-knows-what into my body without my consent.”
“Jeez, Lani. That’s heavy.”
“Yeah. He did it from such a young age I never thought to question it. There was always some reason or other. An excuse. He made out like I was sick and he was trying to help me get better. I remember being so scared to end up like my mother that I trusted him, even though I neverfeltunwell. Sometimes I think he would inject me in my sleep too. I would always wake up groggy and feeling the tell-tale side effects. Even when I got older and tried to stand up to him, it never worked. He always got his way. That’s when I started to suspect that he might not let me leave and I started to squirrel money away when I could. I wanted to go to university. To get away from him, at least for a while.”
“Fuck, girl. That soundsinsane.But I have to ask…who bit you?” she asks quietly.
I take a deep breath before answering, more to push memories of my father away than to brace myself for my admission. “Sol.”
“And Sol biting you triggered your presentation?”
“Yes. Or the rejection sickness that came after did, maybe. I’m not sure.”
“And the others?”
I swallow. “I think it’s more than just Sol.”
Her nostrils flare again as the breathes in slowly. “Yes,” she says quietly. “I can see that.”
“I thought it was just rejection sickness,” I admit. “But it got worse when I left their house. Not just because of him. Because of all of them.”
Aisling leans back slightly, absorbing that.
“So,” she says carefully, “Scent aside…you like them?”
The simplicity of it catches me off guard.
“Yes.”
“All of them.”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s terrifying.”
“God, yes.”
She studies me for a long moment.
“Do you think you overreacted?” she asks gently.
The question lands softer than it should.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
“You heard a part of a conversation,” she continues. “You didn’t hear intention.”
“They still started it as a game.”
“Yes.”
“That matters.”