The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (great books to read .txt) 📕

you were away from Lydia, and he did it. But I didn’t know how far it would go from there, how far you would go.” A step closer, his naked feet upon the wooden floors crunching the salt beneath them, his voice deceptively soft as he cooed, “You have a soft spot for humans, Lyra. It’s endearing. Suddenly you didn’t need to be lured away from him, not when I realized that the promise of power would not sway you. No, lucky me, you were so in love. How long for, I am unaware, but I am certain that doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t need a play by play,” I said, my voice carrying louder in the chamber, upsetting the throngs of people around him. Hushed murmurs rose and fell like a wave, beady eyes on my flesh. Let them stare, let them remember me as I am. “I was there, remember?”

“Oh, but we’re just getting to the juicy part,” he continued, his body practically vibrating with excitement. A little distance still remained between us, but with every motion he grew closer and my gut sunk lower. “The part that you don’t know about, those small little moments that you’ve missed. Don’t you want to know, Lyra, how he came in here, Rowan and him both pleading, take Leo instead of her. I agreed, of course, but only because I knew that you’d come. Don’t you want to know how he threw your phone to Rowan, how he begged, pleaded with him to just show you that last message, and my selfish little Rowan deleted it? I knew, how could I not? But I tried to have faith for that moment was a nice little treat for the human. I bet you want to know more, I bet you want to know how scared he was, trying to act brave yet I could smell the fear coming off him in waves.” He relished in the way my mouth dropped, color leeching from my skin. This was what he wanted, a reaction, misery from the pores of Lyra Wynne, a fitting case of retribution if he could never hope to upset my mother. “Oh, I guess you don’t, do you?”

Wide eyes, knives down my throat and stomach as I turned to Rowan. He was the easier one to look at the, the evil I knew how to face. Petty and cruel, he was honest at the very least, and what I needed now was that honesty.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Lyra. I would never hurt you,” his voice breathed in my ear, close, far too close. I doubted that he meant what he said. The expanse that was eons wide had now narrowed, only inches stood between us due to my insolence. I tore my eyes away from Rowan, looking to the other man once more, frightened to see his features rearrange once again. Familiar eyes floating across his face, narrow lips and a pointed nose; I’d stared at that face literally seconds before. “To make you more comfortable,” Rowan’s voice breathed, and my eyes flew back between the original and this, noting the being that stood in front of me to be a near replica, and yet a mockery all the same.

“I’m not more comfortable,” I spoke through tight lips, careful this time not to look away for too long again. There were consequences to face if I did, things that I didn’t want to see. “If anything, I’m more upset. Angrier.”

“A shame,” the man spoke. “I want you to be happy, Lyra, I really do,” my hands balled at my side, my breath catching in my throat. I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes, nothing more than to look away. Every word he spoke was an abomination, Rowan’s mouth and features moving too much or too little. There was no in-between, no reprieve from this hell. It was watch, or else. But the man took no offense to my disgust, in fact, he relished in it. “You want Leo, I’ll give you Leo and whatever else it is your little heart desires. Just one little signature and he’s yours, you can have the boy and everything you’ve ever wanted. Just one teensy, little signature. A life for a life, the simplest exchange I’ve ever promised.”

“I want to see him first,” my mouth moved faster than my mind, some invisible logic overcoming me. I needed to know he was okay, needed to know that nothing had happened to him yet, so that I didn’t make any mistakes. I wanted Leo, my Leo, not whatever recreation the man could piece together from the scraps. “I want to see him and know that he’s okay before I do anything, before I so much as think about signing anything. You show me him, and then… and then…” And then what? Signing felt less viable by the second. Living this life, waiting on hand and foot for this man, losing a part of myself? And what happened when I saw Leo, would he even let me sign? I was sure that there was no other way out, no other solution. But… “I won’t agree to anything if I don’t see him,” I stated. My mind raced behind my eyes, I wondered if he knew that.

“You want to see the boy?” He said, nevermind the fact that Leo was far from a boy at this point. Others stood straighter at this revelation, the circle shifting open further in the area where he once stood as he turned away from me. They understood him, seeming to move to his exact wishes. It was important that he got me, no matter what the cost. Of course, he’d let me see Leo, if only to encourage me onwards.

Still, his face lingered too long despite it. A part of me worried that there was no place to go, the people around us were only moving to escape the gaze of his shifting face. The cracks and crunches in