want to die. Want this torment to be over. I’ve never been in such a pathetic state before. Never let the withdrawal get this bad. Yet this is all self-inflicted. The only person I can blame for this is myself. I carry on shouting obscenities to my uncle anyway even though he can’t hear them.
Maybe if I take one more hit I can get through this? Just something to take the edge off, then I’ll never use again. I catch myself shaking my head at the unspoken question.
Unconsciousness comes in bursts. With no windows down here, I can’t tell if it’s night or day. No one comes to check on me. I’m left in my own wretched filth. Exactly how I’d treated Nightmares for years. How the hell can he stand to even look at me after what I’ve done to him?
“Morpheus?” A sweet familiar voice rings out.
Eyes straining in the pitch black, I try to make out anything in the dark. “Robin?”
Wisps of light emerge out of thin air. Before my eyes, they take shape into a pearl-white translucent form. It’s as if she’s made of moonbeams.
“It’s ok. I’m here,” she whispers reassuringly.
She’s not.
It’s a lie.
Either a hallucination from delirium or one of Illusions creations he’s sent to comfort me in my misery. I know by now they must be sensing what I’m going through. Not that I care if she’s real or not. I want to weep just having someone there to talk to.
“Don’t leave me,” I command. “You promised you’d fucking stay and see me through this.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she vows vehemently kneeling before me.
I cling to that with what will power my addiction hasn’t yet shredded. The belief in her eyes I saw mirrored in the real woman before I set her free.
I’ll change for her.
For my lost girl.
15
Robin
“Well? Do you see or feel anything?”
“If you mean is there a ghost, no not at the moment. I can sense something, but it’s faint.” I inform Leo, still shaken, that the killer left me a calling card on the body of his latest victim. How does he know my name? The thought is chilling. Five days of light duty doing paperwork and this is my first venture out since waking up. Staring at the dried, dark stain on the carpet, I can’t help but shiver. The image of the dead woman in the photograph is still clear in my mind. How she’d been posed, half dressed, and my name macabrely carved into her flesh.
“Christ, you’re useless,” our not so fearless leader criticizes. “I thought you were supposed to see dead people all the time.”
“Sorry I don’t have a heart of ice and homicidal tendency,” I bitch back. “Let me just go kill some people for you like your previous teammate is known for.”
Falling silent, I glower out the window at the view of the empty park below. I hide the unhappy emotions his accusation brings. From day one, all he’s done is put me down and point out my flaws. Releasing a few slow breaths, I keep my temper in check. It would only take one slip up loosing it, and I don’t need the havoc it brings.
Snatch turns from his inspection of the overflowing bookcase. “Leo.”
Tugging out a silver flask, Leo unscrews the lid and takes a long swig of the contents. “If Mavi were here, she would have something figured out by now.”
“Well she’s not. With everything going on and Cass still missing, she has her hands full.”
Leo continues to complain. “We should be helping. Not stuck on this bloody assignment out of the way babysitting newbies. It’s trial by fire anyway. If this girl is stupid enough to get herself killed it’s not our fault and Gabriel will have to accept that.”
Mavi StClair. Assassin, badass, and the missing member of their team I’m supposed to live up to. Filling her shoes is an impossible task. Consort to the Devil, she’s a legend around Ceasefire.
“Not all of us are immortal,” Snatch points out with a huff. “Mavi is trying to protect us.”
“Well it’s bullshit!” Leo argues back, stuffing the flask away in the inside pocket of his dark pink coat. “We should be with her kicking arse!”
“Stop being a hysterical queen!”
The blond sniffs, flicking a strand of hair out of his eyes, lips curved in a pout. “Anything?”
Realizing the stiff enquiry has been thrown my way, I shake my head. “Maybe if I had a moment alone, it might coax something out. People who