A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Two (Part 2)

Before I can argue, Connor is back on his feet, and out of the room. I look at the disassembled sandwich. No thanks. Connor's gone for longer this time, and the more time I spend in silence, the heavier the darkness around me becomes. How am I going to get out of here? It's impossible. I'm stuck to this goddamn radiator, and there's no way I can even get to that window, let alone rip the boards off it. Why am I even bothering to think about it? It's too late. I know this place is making me feel even worse, but that doesn't mean I'm not right. Curse or no curse, I'm trapped. Why doesn't he just kill me?

Connor returns, this time with a roll of toilet paper, and a bowl of something clear. He sits back down in front of me, pulls some paper from the roll, and dips it in the liquid. When he lifts his hand and nears my face, I pull away.

"It's just water," he insists.

I don't care enough about whether he's lying to resist a second time. With any luck, it's actually hydrofluoric acid.

Connor carefully rubs the damp tissue across my cheek, and when he moves it to my nose, I flinch. It is just water, but my nose must be sore from where he hit me back at his flat. Connor keeps cleaning my face as he starts speaking again.

"The first Tracker found you, what, almost a year ago now?"

He sent those. Of course he did. It was more like eight months ago, but I don't bother correcting him. Connor throws the tissue he's using onto the floor. It's red all over. He pulls another reel of crumpled tissue from the roll, and dips it in the water.

"Those things are useless. No sense of geographic location whatsoever, I swear," he continues. "But without them we wouldn't be here right now, so I can't complain. I had to figure out who you were, what you were doing, the kind of life you had. I couldn't just barge in, could I?" He lifts the tissue to my face, and starts cleaning again. I almost want to laugh at how gentle he is. "When one touched you, that was it. It was perfect. From there, your visions were completely bendable, so it was just a case--"

"What? What do you mean?" I ask, then flinch when Connor presses a little too hard on my forehead.

"Sorry, just say if I'm being too rough," he apologises. "I couldn't create new memories, not really. I had to stretch a bit with the one of me in the forest, but we got there. I had to take fragments of things that happened, and twist them a bit. Easy enough when you know how. I couldn't alter your visions myself, obviously, I had to rely on the Trackers for that. We're not all as privileged with our abilities as you are."

It's impossible not to detect the bitterness in his voice as he utters the last sentence. He presses down harder on my forehead as he cleans, and it makes me wince. He apologises. That's why I saw Connor in the car before the crash, not Annabel. Why Annabel sounded so agitated when she was protecting me. How could I be so stupid?

"You were a bloody pain in the arse though, by God. You have the most erratic energy I've ever come across, I mean, holy hell, I lost count of how many times one of my dark spirits locked onto you, only for it to lose track completely."

Ha. See. To think everyone complained about me being a constantly fluctuating mess. Turned out it saved our arses. My elation is short-lived. It saved us until now. Stupid. You're stupid. My own voice rings in my head, and I try to force it out. Ignore it. It's just this house, this flat, this... whatever it is. This place.

"Oh, and of course--Hey!" Connor pulls away from me, and turns his head towards the doorway. "Hey, come here!"

What the hell is he doing? He drops his used tissue to the floor, and pulls more from the roll. He calls to the door again. I'm fed up of this now. I want him to go away. I don't want to speak to him, I don't want to speak to anyone. The heaviness is lurking again, and there's no point fighting it anymore.