Knight circled them with a little smile on his handsome face. “Do you remember being his shadow? Like, from the day he was born?”
Shadow frowned, trying to recall such memories, but nothing other than the vague feeling of belonging came to him. “No.”
Knight glared at the taco dusted in fluffy green mold. “So… if you remember nothing from before you woke up, how do you know about phones and so on? Where does that information come from?”
“Do all shadows have British accents or was it really just the footman’s body?” Elliot asked with a grin.
Shadow had a bite of the taco. “I think it’s my body that’s making me sound this way. And the other things… I can’t place it. I just know. And then there are things that I feel I should know but don’t. Maybe the bones were old. Maybe a shadow doesn’t know all its human does. I don’t understand why I am the way I am, but I want to learn. I want to be useful. I want people to like me,” Shadow whimpered, helpless in his continuous misery. If Gray didn’t want him, he’d rather have the tree take all of the ruby inside him and make him die already.
Knight nodded as if it was the most interesting piece of knowledge in the universe. Shadow was kind of proud he could provide it. “Well, I’m rooting for you. If you ask me, Gray would feel much better if he got a good fuck out of someone. Let’s hope you’ll be out here soon.”
Elliot took a step back, rolling the tape measure into a small bundle. “All done. We’ve got a friend who makes a lot of her own clothes, I’m sure she’ll gladly make this for you.”
Shadow looked at the two of them with a smile. “Are we friends?”
Knight laughed. “Sure. And we’ll be even tighter friends once you take that bath. No one should skip that for more than a day.”
Shadow sighed deeply. “Whatever it takes.”
But then Knight’s phone rang, and that always led to Knight and Elliot leaving, because Elliot was practically attached to Knight. Which was exactly what Shadow wanted with Gray. To sew their skin together and never part.
“See you tomorrow,” Elliot said once he put some numbers into a small leather-bound notebook. He followed Knight outside, and Shadow couldn’t quite hide his disappointment when the cell once again drowned in darkness and the two pairs of footsteps dispersed.
He saw in the dark just fine, but that didn’t mean he liked the severity of the colors surrounding him when there was no light at all. And even though it couldn’t be true, it seemed that the cell got colder whenever the light went off.
Tomorrow.
How long until tomorrow?
Shadow crawled under his blankets, no longer hungry enough to bother with attempting to catch a rat. Even the entertainment of hunting lost its appeal when faced once more with this eternity of loneliness.
Being separated from others felt like being submerged in a cold lake and watching the world through a thick layer of ice. This forced isolation taught him patience and made his thoughts far less chaotic than they were when he first appeared, but there was no one around to appreciate Shadow learning. At times, he believed that the rats and cockroaches answered him when he spoke, in their own language of taps and squeaks, but it was still like listening to his own voice.
Or was he actually talking to himself out loud?
He didn’t know anymore.
He wished he’d never been chosen by Baal. He wished to be back with the others, floating in warmth, unaware of the existence of time—the bane of his existence. Seconds, minutes, hours, all passing too quickly or too slowly. How was time a constant measure if half an hour was hardly anything around Knight and Elliot, yet felt like a month when Shadow shivered under a blanket?
Why had he been banished to this place where he constantly craved things he couldn’t get?
He would learn though, and the next time Gray came, he would prove himself worthy of releasing. He would be restrained, and obedient, and good, and wash if necessary.
Even if he’d have to live without Gray’s touch, if he was back with people, he would be around Gray, hear his voice, smell him, and watch him whenever he wanted.
He would do anything for that alone.
Chapter 8
Gray had always detested the flavor of pre-cut fruit. Watered-down, with a hint of plastic, it was something he refused to rely on. How hard was it to cut a few apples or a banana?
If you didn’t have both arms—very hard.
Even the fucking bananas needed to be peeled first—something he hadn’t thought about when he’d added his requests to the club’s weekly shopping list. So he did the best he could in a bad situation and squeezed the banana under his armpit while using his one hand to open the bright yellow skin with a knife.