know my answer.” I thought it was obvious after the weeks that have passed. “You want me to say it aloud?”
He inclines his head in a nod.
Bastard. “I’m staying. I won’t leave my Aron.”
“Very well.” He reaches out and pinches my thread, tearing it away from the Earth web. Something small and fragile feels as if it’s tearing away inside me, too, and I choke on a gasp.
He just did that. He just fucking did that.
He didn’t have to. He could have left it for however long it needed to be up and he fucking pulled me free. I stare at him in horror and then turn and leave the room, too furious to speak.
“You are angry, Faithful?” he calls after me. “Why?”
I don’t answer. I storm down the hall, determined to never look at those bastards again. Forever will be too soon. I hate that as I head away, I know he’s following me. I can hear his light footsteps on the spiderweb-covered ground. Is he following so he can twist the knife? Or is there more to this story?
If there’s more, I don’t want to hear. It’s clear I’m not dealing with stable entities. He might think it’s no big deal, but I can’t stop seeing his hand twisting and plucking at my thread, tearing it away from the web.
Tearing it away from my past.
Now I have no choice but to go forward, and that’s completely tied to Aron, who’s currently full of apathy.
“Faith?” Yulenna appears in a doorway, startling me. “Is everything all right? I thought I heard…” Her voice dies and her eyes go wide as she sees the Spidae and shrinks back ever so slightly.
I immediately step in front of her, feeling protective. I turn and face the Spidae who followed me, a curious look on his normally blank face. “Can’t you just fuck off, already?”
He just blinks at me. “You are angry. I wish to understand why.”
“Because you’re playing with us. We’re not people to you. We’re strings to be pulled and manipulated.” I shake my head, unable to articulate just how unsettled and angry I am at his actions. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You don’t snip someone right in front of their eyes, okay?”
“Because you came in to see if Aron had been affected,” he murmurs, and for a moment, I get that his robot brain is trying to understand why I’m upset. “You were not asking about yourself so you should not have been…tampered with?”
“All I’m saying is try to think like a real person, all right? We’re not puppets. We’re not strings. We’re flesh and blood people and when we’re having a bad day, maybe you don’t fucking snip our strings in front of our eyes.”
Yulenna quivers behind me and I realize I’ve raised my voice.
“I see.” He nods slowly. “So I wait for…a good day to do such things?”
“Or not do it at all!”
“I must. It is my job.”
I frown at him, thinking. He said there were three of them in this tower. He’s clearly not lies, apathy, or arrogance. He doesn’t seem to strike me as any of those, just so bizarrely out of touch that he doesn’t grasp how the mind works. “You’re…you’re not split like Aron is, are you?”
He inclines his head, his eerie pale eyes locked on mine. “I am not part of the Anticipation. This is how I have always been.”
As we talk, another Spidae arrives, this one exactly the same as the other Aspect, but his eyes are pale gray and so colorless they look like ice. He stands next to his other-self and watches us, his head tilting to the side like a curious bird…or a spider.
I can feel Yulenna’s fists in the back of my gown. She’s not leaving, but she’s clearly afraid. I don’t back down from the two of them. I’m not afraid of them, strangely enough. Sure, they can snip my string, but there’s a reason they’re helping Aron—my Aron—and that makes me safe. Whatever it is that’s going on in their strange minds, I think they want him to succeed.
I also wonder if that’s why they push with so many weird questions.
So I lift my chin, staring at the newcomer. “Which one are you? Past, present or future?”
“Is that how we are designated, then?” He smiles, and the expression is more creepy than reassuring.