by Meg Evans
“I told you the truth,” he eventually replies. “It’s up to you whether or not you believe it.”
For a moment it seems to me I’m dreaming. In fact, I hope it’s just a nightmare, and I’ll wake up soon. I’ve been waiting for the truth, but now he’s revealed it, I’m not satisfied. I expected anything but what he said. Every cell of my body rejects his words.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say and raise my index finger, “are you trying to tell me that… that you’re…”
“A soul thief.”
A soul thief.
Those three words echo in my mind for a long while after they have been said. My brain strives to assimilate this information somehow, but such news is so exceedingly improbable that it’s hard to grasp.
I look away from Dorian and begin snickering. “And you think that I’ll believe that? That you’re a soul thief?”
“As I just said, you don’t have to believe me—but in that case, I think we’re done here,” he says, and gets up off the bench. “Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
“No!” I rush to him and grab his hand to stop him. We can’t just leave like that. “Okay, let’s say I believe you. No matter how implausible it sounds. But does it mean that you…” I don’t even know how to formulate my question not to sound dumb. “Steal souls?”
“Yes.”
His assurance petrifies me for a fraction of a second. I still can’t believe that it’s not either a stupid joke or some kind of a test to see whether I’m mentally stable.
“How come?” The corners of my eyes crinkle. “How is that even possible? A soul isn’t a thing that you can just take from someone and put in your pocket.”
He drops his gaze to my nails, still biting into his hand. I didn’t realize that I was using so much force.
“I’m sorry.” I let go of him.
“We’d better sit down.” He motions to the couch.
“I’d rather stand.”
“Okay, but it will be a long conversation.”
CHAPTER twenty-five
We stand in silence for a lingering while. Tension grows between us. The tree branches scrape against the cabin, and a few pinecones, from the sound of it, bounce off the roof. I’ve been waiting for this conversation for a very long time, but now that it has come, I’m not certain if I really do want to know the truth.
“So how do you steal a soul?”
“There’s a whole process. Sometimes time-consuming, sometimes quick. It depends on many factors.”
Did he just say PROCESS?
I’ve heard that word at least twice. First when Dorian explained to me that all his women had undergone a process, and secondly, a few hours ago when that strange guy in the parking lot by the market looked me in the eye and said that the process had already begun.
“Hold on.” I narrow my eyes. “You told me that all those women… All of them… Oh my God.” I bury my face in my hands. Everything’s falling into place and starting to make sense, even though I’m still too much of a rational person to fully accept it. “I’m one of them.”
My discovery renders Dorian frozen. After about ten seconds of surveying me, he only nods without speaking.
I grow cold. I let out a forceful breath and toss him a reproachful look. “But why? Why did you choose me?!”
“Are you serious?” His face is grave. “Why did I choose you?” He approaches me, but I take a step back to avoid letting his warmth influence me and take away my ability to focus and stay persistent. Getting mushy is the last thing I want now, even though my heart longs for him. “So many times I kept telling you that it couldn’t be you, that it would be better for you if you gave it a rest, but you were so stubborn. All the time you tenaciously came back to our house to sniff around, you were searching for any form of contact with me, regardless of my warnings. You didn’t want to listen, and now you’re trying to blame me, but you were the one who opened the can of worms yourself. I continuously pushed you away, discouraged you. I was even snippy and curt to you, but it wasn’t enough.”
His tirade leaves me speechless for a few seconds. Nothing of what he’s said is untrue. I did it to myself, and I’m well aware of that. How could I have known, though? Nobody of sound mind would’ve suspected what his secret was.
“You should’ve told me the truth in the first place!” I pinch my lips together.
“First of all, would you have believed me?” He pauses to let me answer, but I don’t agree, shake my head, or give him any other form of response, so he continues, “Secondly, even if you had known, would you have stayed away from me?”
Good question. I’m positive I wouldn’t have, even if I’d been aware of what the truth was. Most likely, I’d have made multiple attempts to be closer to him regardless of the consequences.
I’m conscious of these things, but reluctant to admit them to Dorian. He’s right. The more he pushed me away, the more I tried to get close to him. I was jealous of all those women that he was with. I couldn’t restrain myself from peeking out of my bedroom window every night, hoping that I’d see him for just a moment, walking out of his part of the house. I wasn’t able to focus my thoughts on anything else than Dorian Hatch. I was so vulnerable to his influence.
“Is that why you told me that I should be afraid of you? Because your plan is to… Uh… Is stealing a soul equal to killing?” My heart plummets. His response will change everything. It’s not about being a thief anymore. The issue now is whether he’s a murderer.
“Yes and no.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“Well, you’re asking me whether the act of separating a soul from a body equates to killing.” Dorian crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Obviously, a body can’t live without a soul, so, theoretically, stealing a soul is killing. At least in earthly life terms. But remember, a body can’t live without a soul, yet a soul can live without a body.” That doesn’t put me at ease. In fact, I’m genuinely confident that Dorian is being confusing on purpose. He wants to tell me the truth, but in a way that won’t seem as cruel and dramatic as it actually is.
“What happens with the stolen souls after they’re, I guess, pulled out from their bodies?” It’s hard for me to find appropriate terms to describe this act, which is so far beyond the scope of my cognition.
“The only thing I can tell you at this point is that stolen souls are kept in a special place, from which they can’t break free.”
“But why do you hold them there?”
“Me?” He chuckles and shakes his head like my question amuses him. “There are tens of thousands like me out there. I’m not the only thief. They steal the souls of unwary men and women every day. They suck what’s best out of you. They take away your vitality, your positive energy, the will to live, thrive and breathe. Soul thieves beguile, leading their victims to madness.”
My heart feels like it’s shrinking when the reality hits me. Dorian is a predator—the same one I saw last night. I remember the wild rage in his black eyes, and a sudden chill shudders through my body.
“Are you a human being? Do you have your own soul? What are you?”
“On the one hand I am, and, on the other, I’m not. I don’t want to discuss that with you, though.”
I knew it. I could’ve anticipated from the very beginning that he’d explain to me only the things that he considers relevant. Nothing more than that.
I feel like rolling my eyes and throwing the objection that he promised to tell me everything at him, but I don’t. For one thing, I detect a somehow tortured expression on his face, which discourages me from pursuing the subject. Secondly, after all, there are only the two of us in this cabin, and as much as I don’t want to believe he’d hurt me, I prefer not to irritate him. Especially after I witnessed his dark side last night.
I move on to my next question: “Who are those strange people who showed up at your house? Are you one of them?”
Dorian nods. “Yeah. Those people are responsible for supervisi
ng certain… things.”
“What things?”
“Simply put, they make sure that everyone fulfills the designated tasks.”
“So you aren’t just a random bunch of individuals? You have to report to somebody?”
“We have our hierarchy.”
I start pacing around the room. I need a moment to digest what I’ve learned. Based on Dorian’s explanation, I gather that the world of so-called soul thieves has its own structure—they have a whole society, where everyone has a certain role to play. It blows my mind to realize that such beings live alongside regular people. Have I ever come across a different thief in my life?
“Where are you in the hierarchy?”
A shadow swings across his face. He averts his eyes from me, looking somewhere into space before him. He wants to spare me from this knowledge.
“I’m just a tool. That’s it.”
I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that it’s not true. I remember Blair praising Dorian for being one of the best. He can’t just be an ordinary one. There must be something special about him in their world, something that other thieves can’t do. However, for some reason Dorian isn’t eager to share his position in his community. I suspect that the truth might be too hard for me to handle, and that’s why he’d rather keep it to himself.
“Enough straying from the point.” He fixes his eyes back on me. “There’s one thing that you need to know about, and that’s why I’ve dragged you here. I need to make sure that no one will either hear or disturb us, and also that you’re not in danger.”
“You need to be sure I’m not in danger?” I frown. “Why would you even care whether or not I’m safe?”
He comes closer. “You have to know what the process of losing the soul looks like.” He turns a deaf ear to what I said and gets to the essence of the matter. “Only then will you grasp what’s been going on with you lately.”
I’m perfectly aware what this means: I’ve been subjected to the process against my will. I’m one of them—a victim. He, on the other hand, is the monster who’s chosen me, or rather to whom I have given myself voluntarily.
He takes one more step towards me. I can sense some sort of electricity between us. It’s like an invisible pull that draws us to each other. “Let me use simple terms. Thieves have a couple of reasons for collecting souls.”
“What’s yours?” I immediately chime in. That’s the only reason that interests me.
A bitter expression cloaks his face. His jaw flexes.
“To survive. Thieves like myself need to steal souls primarily to maintain their existence. The ones above us benefit from that and that’s why they created, or rather programmed, us like that.”
I suddenly recall the conversation with Dorian when he said that he didn’t want to hurt me, but he had to, as it was his nature. At that time, I didn’t understand his words—I even found them ridiculous—but now I begin to comprehend.
“So it’s true.” A lump forms in my throat, and I swallow hard. “You’re not human.”
My heart splinters into hundreds of pieces when it dawns on me that the man who’s caught me, body and soul, in an obsessive trap of passion for him has almost nothing resembling humanity in him. The feelings I have for Dorian are more profound than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. He’s the embodiment of everything I’ve ever desired. He’s the fulfillment of my greatest dreams. Yet I’m only his quarry. He needs me solely to survive.
My eyes fill with tears. I hold my breath for a moment. The pain in my heart is excruciating.
“So, go ahead—enlighten me.” My voice trembles. “How do you do it? How do you steal someone’s soul?”
“In various ways, for instance through murder.” I flinch at that word. “But the problem with that is that a soul is resistant and fights back, and as a result often weakens the one who’s taken it away.”
“Have you ever murdered anyone?” I ask, in a weak, almost inaudible voice.
“Does it matter to you?”
It’s like icy cold is slowly covering my heart. Dorian’s silence is more than an answer to me. He just doesn’t want to admit it.
He’s a murderer. He’s taken someone’s life in cold blood. My heart thumps an erratic rhythm in my chest. I instinctively take a few steps back to increase the distance between us. I still can’t believe all this is happening.
“There’s another, more effective way,” he continues. “A soul can be also possessed; then it gives up by itself.”
“Possessed?” My feet hit the wall behind me. “Do you mean…”
“By physical contact.”
“Are you trying to tell me… that… that when we were…” Despondency creeps into my heart.
“You gave yourself away of your own free will,” he says quietly.
It now makes sense why he was so reluctant to be intimate with me. I finally realize why all his inner fights were coming from. He lusted for me, but he also recognized what severe consequences surrendering to his desire carried. It’s such a paradox that it was me who kept insisting and pushing him to give in, deaf to his resistance. It doesn’t make me feel better in any way to realize that. I might have been too persistent, sure, but he should have never come into my life in the first place. If he hadn’t moved in next door, then I’d have never fallen for his charm.
But do I really regret it?
“That explains why you asked me how much willpower I had. To check whether I’d resist.” I have the impression that if I blink, tears will run down my cheeks.
“Actually, you’re wrong there. I asked about your willpower not to establish whether or not you’d resist, but rather how long you’d be able to fight it off.”
“What do you mean?”
Dorian clears his throat. “When a thief finds an object of his interest, he checks out its aura, which informs him how vulnerable the victim is to his allure… influence… call it whatever you want. If the aura is very palpable and radiates thoroughly from the person the thief’s going to attack, it means that he’s dealing with a strong soul, which won’t be easy to possess and will be unconsciously fending off the attack. Even though at the end it will give itself away to the thief anyway, the whole process is longer than it would have been with a soul that has a barely perceptible glow around them. That’s the rough explanation.”
“Why did you ask me how much willpower I had if you could see my…?”
The answer dawns on me. How many times did Dorian claim that he couldn’t see me? It was my aura that was invisible to him in the basement when I asked him to help me fix the lights in the house. He couldn’t determine how vulnerable to his influence I was.
“I couldn’t see your aura. It’s been a mystery to me ever since. Like you’re some sort of an anomaly. Or perhaps you’re special.” He takes one small step toward me.
My fingers and toes tingle. The closer he gets, the more confused I feel. Somehow, Dorian is eerie and menacing, but at the same time unbelievably appealing. I’m scared, but also excited. I fidget, holding his intense gaze.
“So that had never happened to you before?”
“Never.” He takes one more step. My knees go weak and a light chill of fear travels along my spine, but simultaneously every fiber of my body tingles for his touch.
“Every human being has an aura. Even if it’s extremely dim, it still exists.” One more step. “It reflects your life energy, personality, thoughts, and emotions. It depicts the state of your mind and soul. Thieves use it to decipher their victims; they are like an open book that we can browse as much as we want. You, however, are totally opaque to me.” Another step. “Rita can’t see you either, which clearly proves that it’s not just my affliction. I couldn’t predict what to expect from you. Every physical contact with you could’ve been the last one, ending up in you being unable to wake up again.”
I wet my lips. “Isn’t that the point, though?”
“I’m not stupid. We would’ve been forced to move out right away
not to arouse any suspicion.”
That sounds like Dorian cared more about maintaining his façade than my life. But why am I surprised? He even admitted himself at one point that he wasn’t able to feel anything for anyone. I didn’t take those words seriously either. Now I know that the only thing that matters to him is collecting souls.
“Yeah, that’s obvious. I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out myself,” I say, striving to sound as indifferent as possible, even though it feels like my heart has just been shattered. “It also explains why you pushed me against the wall that night in the basement. Was it because you couldn’t see my aura and were wondering who I was?”
“I suspected that you were… someone other than the person you claimed to be.”
“Who?” I blink faster.
“I’ll get to that point.”
There’s another mystery that has been burdening my mind since the basement incident. “When you were holding my hands, I felt freezing cold running through my arms. Why?”
“I don’t know why that happened.”
That’s hard to believe, but I move on to the next question. “Why did you pull away so suddenly?”
“Because you literally burnt me,” he says, and closes the distance between us to merely two steps. He’s been stalking up to me like a panther in a jungle. “That’s why I let go. I wasn’t able to stand the touch of your skin. I can’t explain that either. But I know one thing for a fact; at that moment, some kind of electromagnetic field was generated between us, and was robust enough to bring back the electricity in the house.”
“Electromagnetic field?!” I open my mouth as if I want to say something further, but nothing comes to my mind, so I close it again.
“Yes. What’s more, I’m sure that the same sort of energy made the fuse blow in the first place. I wasn’t around, so it must’ve come directly from you.”
If I told him the truth, I’d die from humiliation. There is no proper way to concede that I was thinking about Dorian, imagining him touching me while whispering dirty words in my ears. My cheeks burn when I recall the steamy images that ran through my mind that night.