“Good girl. Repeat after me… I bleed for you.” Daddy stops in front of my hanging body, looking down at the bowl of blood on the floor with a strange hunger in his eyes.
“I bleed for you,” I respond.
Daddy smiles.
“You bleed for me,” he echoes with a slight nod and a clap of his hands. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
CHAPTER 1
FAE
AGE 21
Iam running out of time.
I think I have always known that I was on a clock, but the last three years gave me a false sense of security. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the taste of freedom. Maybe it was being around Robyn for so long. Maybe it was plain ignorance. Either way, I am running out of time.
And Robyn already has.
God, thinking about her sends a sharp pain through my chest. Nothing is the same anymore. Our whole friendship group was destroyed the day she disappeared. Felix, my twin brother, is permanently angry. I don’t know how to help him when I’m drowning too so instead, I isolated myself.
She was my best friend. No, she was more than that. She was my soulmate. Not in a romantic way, but in that kind of connection you only get once in a lifetime. I mean, who wants a man to be a soulmate anyway? Not me.
No. I refuse to believe one of those monsters from The Company is meant to be mine. Five-foot-one Essex girls withblonde hair and the attitude of a drunken sailor are far more my vibe.
God, I hate her.
I hate that she made me see what was going on in my home. I hate that she made me feel safe. I hate that she made me feel loved. But what I hate most is that she left me when she promised she wouldn’t.
I didn’t know how it would work. I knew my duties to my family and I knew she wasn’t part of that world, but I would have done anything for her. We could have made it work…right? I mean the more I think about it, the more I realise Felix probably would have too.
I keep racking my brain, trying to process what has happened in the last few weeks. Was it us? Was it her friendship with Felix and me, or the other recruits, that made her vanish? Did she run? Did something spook her? Was she… God forbid… taken?
None of it makes sense. One day she was here. The next she was gone without a trace.
I am paralysed by what to do. On one hand, I am not connected enough to try and find her on my own. On the other, can I trust that anyone I bring in won’t take it straight back to The Company? Would the guys genuinely help? I mean, yes. I can say that with certainty. I trust them completely, but just because they could help, would they risk everything for me?
A tear slips down my face as the reality of the situation settles in. I cannot fucking breathe without her. For so long it was just Felix and me. Sure, Felix had other friends and they always tried to include me, but I never liked feeling like a charity case and my Father was too strict to let me form proper relationships. That was, until I was no longer useful to him and was shipped off to Earl’s Court University.
Life started for me there. Actually, no. Life really started when a girl from care came stumbling into my dorm room on a free scholarship and demanded that I become her best friend.
‘Dancing With Your Ghost by Sasha Sloan’starts playing through the surround sound of the flat Robyn and I have called home for the last two years as I slump down against the wall of her room.
I haven’t been in here until today. The pain was too raw. Every corner of this place holds memories of happier times. Now it just feels like the crypt.
Forgotten.
Haunted.
Broken.
The pink blanket I knitted for her is still on her king-size bed in the same place she left it the morning she never returned. It is, of course, unmade.
“I’ll never understand why people make their bed just to get into it again the same night,”she said to me once.“Work smarter, girly pop, not harder.”
My breath catches. If I close my eyes, I can almost hear her voice. How long will it be before I stop hearing it? How long will it take to forget her scent? How long will her laugh echo in my head? I look up at the wall where Felix threw Thomas after he made her cry. The sage-green paint is chipped in places and each mark tells a story of our time together.
A loud knock comes from the front door and I groan. I should get it, but I won’t. Whoever it is clearly hasn’t grieved the loss of a friend, or they would leave me the fuck alone.