From somewhere I can’t see, I hear Nurse Schmidt speaking to someone else in German. I shut it out, determined to understand why she would show me this. There must be a reason. If I can figure it out, I can stop her and Cutter from doing whatever they have planned for me. Or for Estelle.
“Celeste,” I call uncertainly.
But Past Celeste doesn’t respond. Head down, she snicks the door shut and crosses the space in quick, determined strides, dropping her keys and purse on the floor. She passes right through me, and I startle to realize I am not corporeal. She cannot hear me.
Maybe I’m not really here after all.
It’s an illusion, I remind myself. Nurse Schmidt is using it to torture me.
But it’s already working as I follow Past Celeste into the bathroom and watch as she carefully sets her red coat aside then bends to turn on the tub faucet, still sniffling as she works.
My heart squeezes.
I know what happens next, and no matter how much I scream or jump around there is no stopping it.
An illusion, I tell myself as I kneel beside the tub where Past Celeste soaks in water turning red with the blood she’s losing.
Not real.
Not real.
Not real.
But it was real. Once.
It’s still part of who I am.
I choke on my sobs as my past self’s head tips back, eyelids drooping.
“No, please,” I say, and in my own veins, I begin to feel a stirring of power. A warmth. Underneath my skin, a thread of silver glows.
Past Celeste murmurs something and there’s a loud pop that sends something bright and sharp darting into the ceiling overhead. Sparks fly, crackling with an energy that shakes the floor and then the walls until I’m clinging to the sink for balance.
Flames erupt, swallowing the ceiling whole and spreading as if the entire flat has been soaked in gasoline.
I scream, throwing my hands up in front of my face to shield it.
But Past Celeste doesn’t stir from where she’s passed out.
I stumble out of the bathroom and into the living room just as the front door slams open. Through the haze of smoke, I recognize Dr. Livingstone. He hurries past me, unaware, and lifts Past Celeste into his arms. He whispers something in her ear before darting out again. He moves fast, and I get no farther than the hallway when I realize he’s already long gone.
I am safe.
He truly did save me like he claimed.
But illusion or not, current me—ethereal me—still feels the heat of the fire. Smoke clogs my throat, filling my lungs, and I am struck with the urge to evacuate before it’s too late. But then I remember.
Helen.
I shove aside my own sense of self-preservation and rush to the door across the hall.
“Helen,” I yell, banging on the door.
No answer.
A moment later, I blink and find myself inside her flat.
She’s crawling on hands and knees towards a window. At her back, flames chase quick on her heels. My heart breaks for what I know comes next. I am forced to watch as they reach her—and then consume her.
She screams—a sound that pierces my soul. My knees buckle and everything blurs as the flames overtake her flat. Drywall, furniture, cabinetry. All of it burns.
My own screams are strangled and hoarse, but I can’t make them stop.
The silvery glow beneath my skin brightens until I’m glowing nearly as hot as the fire itself.
Still, I am untouched on the outside.
On the inside—
I’m suddenly back in the small room below ground. Strapped to the chair. Tubes of my blood being sucked away into the machines behind me.
Nurse Schmidt stands at the end of my chair, smirking, satisfied.
I suck in a clean breath, one that is no longer tinged with smoke and ash. Then another. And another.
It takes long moments before I gain control and the sobs abate. Even then, all I can see behind every blink is Helen being burned alive—at my hands.
When I am quiet, Nurse Schmidt grunts. “You did good work.”
She says it like we’re a team. Like I didn’t just relive the murder I committed. Or watch as I attempted to take my own life. Like I didn’t just suffer in a way I never knew I could for the sake of some flimsy story about saving my sister.
There’s no possible way what happened here today has helped Estelle.
Cutter, maybe, though I still don’t understand what he’s after. And how torturing me this way helps him get