Chapter 2

Jayla ignored the throbbing ache in her jaw where his fingers had dug in. She forced her head up, her eyes tracking Jordi's retreating form.

The moonlight barely reached this part of the cave, but it was enough. She stared hard at his lower half, and her pupils shrank to pinpoints.

They weren't human legs. It was a tail-a Merfolk tail. But it was a nightmare of ruined flesh.

The tail was supposed to be covered in shimmering scales, a symbol of pride for his kind. Now, it was a mass of festering wounds. Where the scales should have been, there was only raw, exposed meat and ragged flaps of skin, weeping clear fluid and blood.

Every time Jordi dragged himself forward, the rough stone ground grated against those open, scale-less wounds. He left a smearing trail of dark red blood on the gray rock. He didn't make a sound.

"Jesus..." Jayla breathed, her operative instincts momentarily overridden by sheer human horror. "What kind of sick torture is this?"

The sight of the raw, weeping flesh acted like a key turning in a rusted lock. Suddenly, the sensory input-the metallic scent of blood, the damp chill of the cave-collided with something buried deep in the subconscious of the body she now inhabited.

The residual memories of the original Jayla didn't arrive as a story; they hit her as a series of violent, visceral flashes.

Jayla screamed, clutching her head as she curled into a fetal position. The cave vanished, replaced by a kaleidoscopic nightmare of the original Jayla's perspective. She wasn't just watching; she was feeling the echoes of the original owner's sadistic thrill.

In the memory, the original Jayla stood over a bound Jordi. She held a crude bone knife, its edge stained with his blood. She was laughing, a high, manic sound that made the current Jayla's skin crawl.

"You belong to me," the original Jayla purred, her voice dripping with possessive madness. She placed a foot on Jordi's chest, pinning him down, and then she leaned in.

With a brutal twist, she pried one of his tail scales loose.

Jordi's agonizing scream echoed in Jayla's skull. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated despair, loud enough to make her ears ring. Her stomach roiled, bile burning the back of her throat.

The memories didn't stop there. They flashed by in a montage of cruelty. She saw the original Jayla whipping other males until their backs were ribbons of flesh. She saw a proud wolf-man whose power crystal had been brutally gouged from his chest, leaving a gaping hole. She saw an eagle-man whose magnificent wings had been snapped and bound, his primary feathers violently plucked. Seven different males, seven broken figures, all enduring the extreme limits of agony. She saw her locking them in cages, treating them worse than animals, feeding them scraps.

The flood of horrors finally receded, leaving Jayla gasping for air. Cold sweat plastered her dirty hair to her face. Her shirt was soaked through.

She understood now. She understood the look in Jordi's eyes. The hatred, the fear, the physical revulsion-it was all justified. The body she inhabited belonged to a psychopath.

Jayla pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. Her arms shook with the effort. She looked toward the corner where Jordi had retreated. He was a dark lump against the shadows, trying to make himself as small as possible.

She had to try. She wasn't that monster.

Drawing on her training, Jayla knew that any sudden movement would be perceived as an attack. She didn't approach him. Instead, she slid backward a few inches to give him more space and lowered her center of gravity, making herself look as non-threatening as possible.

"Hey..." Jayla called out softly. She kept her voice as gentle as she could manage, slowly resting her hands open on the ground beside her, palms up, ensuring they were clearly visible.

The reaction was instantaneous. Jordi's body went board-stiff. He snapped his head around, his blue eyes wide with sheer panic. It was the look of a cornered animal.

He scrambled backward, desperately trying to hide his ruined tail under his body. His hand shot out, grabbing a jagged rock from the ground. He held it in front of his chest like a weapon, his arm muscles corded, the veins bulging under his pale skin.

"Don't come near me!" he shrieked. His voice cracked, breaking the pitch of terror.

Jayla froze, remaining perfectly still. She slowly raised both hands in the air, showing him she was unarmed. "Listen, I'm not going to hurt you..." she said, trying to inject some rational calm into her tone.

It was the wrong thing to say.

Those words-'I'm not going to hurt you'-acted as a psychological trigger. They were the exact same lie the original Jayla whispered to him every time before she inflicted a new wound.

Jordi didn't just react; he suffered a total systemic collapse of composure. The fear transformed into a wild, uncontrolled rage, a desperate survival reflex. With a guttural scream, he hurled the rock at her head.

Jayla's body moved on pure muscle memory. She jerked her head to the side. The rock whizzed past her ear, missing her skull by an inch. It smashed against the cave wall behind her, shattering into sharp fragments.

A shard of stone sliced across her cheek. A thin line of fire bloomed on her skin, followed by the warm trickle of blood.

Jordi saw that he missed. The rage drained out of him as quickly as it came, replaced by a terror that was even more paralyzing. He scuttled backward until he hit the cave wall, then he collapsed into the darkest corner. He wrapped his arms around his head, making himself a tiny, trembling ball.

Jayla slowly lowered her hands. She touched her cheek, her fingertips coming away wet and red. She took a deep breath, forcing down the frustration bubbling in her chest.

Words were useless. Rationality was useless. In the face of this kind of trauma, the very sound of her voice-the voice of his tormentor-was a weapon. Any explanation from the mouth of his abuser was just another form of torture.

She pulled her hand back. She stopped looking at him. In the quiet of her mind, she reached out with a cold, hard intent.

"A. Winter, we need to talk. Now."