I puttered around West Lakes Rehab Center the whole day, trying my best to look pathetic. It wasn't difficult. The walls were steeped with misery, and only a fraction of it was the Skavis' doing. Trauma had a way of saturating places, leaving behind a sticky psychic residue in its wake. Detoxing was agony on its own, without all the extra baggage that drove some people to take up a drug habit in the first place. The talk therapy rooms were the worst. Painful confessions hung in the air, vibrating like dissonant notes as I passed through them.
No, I didn't have to fake tears when Dr. Roman was nearby. The real trick was not to shed them the rest of the time. It took concentration to weave a building-wide sleep spell and hide the evidence from a certain vampire, but by the time lights out rolled around, I was ready.
The hall was dark and quiet, but for the hush of the air conditioner and the far-off chatter of the night staff. I moved on the balls of my feet, drawing on years of practice to skulk through the shadows unnoticed until I reached the nurse's station. The plump redhead was slumped forward, head pillowed on her arms, snoring lightly. The spell was subtle, a nudge toward rest rather than a compulsion. It wasn't shocking that the overworked and underpaid ARN had dozed off.
I was poised over the keypad of the automated pill dispenser when a firm hand wrapped around my wrist and yanked me back into the hall. My heart catapulted into my throat, even though I'd expected something like this to happen. When my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I found Dr. Roman glowering down at me. Beneath the surface though, he was torn between anticipation and amusement. He'd rolled the sleeves of his sweater up, baring more of his skin, and pressed every inch of it against mine as he backed me toward the wall.
"What are you doing out of bed, Ms. Davis?" he said in a deadly whisper.
His grip on my wrist tightened, and a sense of overwhelming weariness settled over my shoulders like a blanket. What was I doing here? What did I think I was going to accomplish by doing this? It didn't bring Rosie back from the dead. It didn't change our last encounter. She was gone, and I was still the same person. Still a scared, pathetic little girl. No friends, and a family that would be better off without me.
That's bullshit and you know it, a fierce little voice that sounded very like my id whispered. Get it together. You knew he'd do this. Like hell are we going to be a meal for this son of a bitch.
I wrenched my hand away. "You know exactly what I was doing, Doctor."
Roman blinked in shock before recovering himself. His mouth curled into a small smile as he stepped away from me. "You know I can't let you wander, Ollie. It's against house rules, and I'd hate to throw you out. Who'd take care of you out there?"
No one, the demon's voice crooned to me. You have no one. Poor, broken little thing. Don't you want to close your eyes and sleep for a little while? Just a few pills, a fall, or a cut and it'll all be over.
"No one," I echoed, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.
The problem was that it felt true most of the time. Aside from my family, who would mourn me when I was gone? I was already dead, just a ghost. A rerun on true crime shows, the static victim of a lesser-known serial killer.
Dr. Roman beckoned me forward with a saintly smile. "Follow me, Ollie. I think I know exactly what you need."
I followed, drifting like a plastic bag in his wake, insignificant and empty of meaning. He guided me to the patio and gestured for me to sit.
"I'm not sure we should be out here," I said, glancing up at the cameras that dotted the overhang. They normally surveilled the tables and the yard but were utterly still at the moment.
"They're off. We can talk without being overheard," he said.
"What are we talking about?"
Roman smiled, a gleam of shiny teeth in the dark. It was an unmistakably predatory expression. He reached for my hand again, flipping it palm up before toying with my bandages.
"I like you, little doe," he whispered. "I wish I could have met you on the street. I'd have spirited you away and kept you, sipped you like a fine wine. You're a treat to be savored over time. You're a broken little thing. So much suffering. But we met here. I can't keep you in the clinic forever, but I can't let you go either. You understand, don't you?"
Roman leaned in close, nuzzling my hair, smirking when I shivered at the contact. He drew me into his side, lips questing along the side of my jaw, tasting my skin. I whimpered, which only seemed to excite him more. I clung to him as he unwound my bandages, nails biting into his forearms, drawing beads of too-pale blood.
"How would you like it to happen?" he whispered in a tone most men reserved for the bedroom.
I struggled to suck in enough air to answer him, finally stammering a weak, "W-what?"
"How does it end, Ollie? A fall? A mouthful of Oxy with a chaser? The sweet slide of a razor through your skin? As I said, I enjoy you. I'll give you the choice. What do you see when you imagine your final moments?"
Tears poured down my cheeks, scalding in the cool night air. His fingers continued to work at my bandages with the fumbling eagerness of a young man on prom night. I could feel his need so acutely it hurt. I tugged my hands away from him, hugging myself tightly with my free arm.
"Hanging," I said finally.
"Excellent choice," he purred. "There's an extension cord in the front closet that will do nicely."
"Oh, I don't picture me up there," I whispered, wiping his blood onto one of my bandages. I tugged them free, exposing the largely unmarred skin of my forearms. He stared at them blankly. "I picture you swinging from the rafters, Skavis."
I'd give Roman credit—he was fast. He only had a second to sense the trap before it closed around him, and he almost escaped. If I hadn't laid the groundwork for this little tableau, he would have. Then he would have turned right around and literally hoisted me by my own petard. Thankfully, I'd had all day to scope out the location, lay down the relevant spell work, and plant a whispered idea into the back of Roman's mind. He was already half-mad with the desire to have me, so pushing him toward the inevitable conclusion had been child's play.
I flicked a hand at Roman's throat and hissed, "Musubime!"
My will congealed around him, and the gauze reared off the table, moving toward him like a cloth snake. It wound around his throat, choking off whatever he'd been about to say in reply to this sudden reversal. I flicked another finger in his direction and the threads I'd taped to the deck railing one floor above drew the gauzy noose upward, drawing the line taut. As above, so below. Thaumaturgy at its finest.
Romans' eyes flew open wide, hands scrabbling to free his throat as the gauze bit into his skin. Any time he came close to finding purchase, his fingers slipped. I could have done more with the blood on the bandages than manipulate how he moved. He deserved to die screaming. I contented myself with watching him struggle.
"It's made of unicorn hair," I said mildly, watching him wriggle on the line. "It came off in a bramble in Wyldfae territory. The Little Folk always know where to find the good stuff. I had to fashion it into something you'd overlook. That was the hardest part of this whole farce, really. You were so damn eager to eat me. Kind of pathetic really."
Roman's legs kicked, trying desperately to find something to support his weight. Light poured from his skin, eyes rolling to white as his demon shrieked at me. It was easier than I could have dreamed to bat the sending away long enough to draw a chalk circle to blot him out. I laughed, and the scornful sound echoed back to us through the trees, almost drowning the steady wheeze easing from his throat.
"I had a fallen fucking angel try to obliterate my psyche, Roman. Your petty little demon is nothing but an insect. Now do me a favor and die like one."
It took an hour. The demon kept trying to revive the body, contorting into unnatural shapes in an effort to try to rip the noose away. And every time it tried, the gauze dug in deeper. In the end, his head was barely on. I waited another hour to be sure he wasn't playing possum, then went inside to clean up the evidence.
His body came down just before dawn. I found a nice tree in the back acre to string him up with the extension cord and then left, my falsified files under one arm, and every trace of my presence erased. Any memory of me would be a blur, easily subsumed by the shock of Dr. Roman's apparent suicide.
I scaled the walls of the rehab center and dropped down onto the sidewalk, humming tunelessly to myself. No one paid me any mind.
"Got him, Rosie. He won't be hurting anyone else." I cast a disdainful glance back the way I'd come and muttered, "Who's broken now, bitch?"