I had been playing with Ada all this time, just little games, but even those can be done with much power. After all, was I not the hunger in Ada? I was made out of desire, I tasted of it, I filled her up with it and choked her, lying over her like a killing cloud, soft and unstoppable, all the weight of a wet sky. My power was so absolute that she couldn’t tell where she was and it didn’t matter—it was a reminder that I was there. I wanted her to know me well and never feel alone, to always remember that no one could fuck her up as well as me, no one could get her as high as I could. Ada could pretend as if she hated me, but you can’t hide the truth. I felt how tightly she held me, how she didn’t want to come down or let me go, how she didn’t care about the cold or the pain because she had me, and wallahi, I was better than drugs, better than alcohol; she was never sober with me. I was the best high, the fastest, most reliable dealer, the best beast. Why would Ada ever want to wake up from me? Even when she couldn’t cut her skin anymore, I was sharp enough to do it from the inside because we both knew the sacrifices could never stop.

After the brothersisters visited me, my purpose became clear. My existence was offering Ada a temporary solution, you see, but they’d reminded me that there was another option, and the best part was that I could do both things—I could honor the oath while protecting Ada. It was perfect. She was me and I was her, so by returning to the other side, I would be taking her away from this useless human realm, and what better protection could I offer her, really? I had done what I could so far, with the boys and the drinking and the fucking, but I could do better. I could be better. I could change Ada’s world. We could all go home.

?LAGHACH?

(To Return)

Chapter Thirteen

Do not hang your heart on me.

As?ghara

We had settled into a rhythm by now. Even though Ada named us, I think she was surprised at how quickly Saint Vincent and I took on these names, how distinct we became. She wasn’t sure if we were real, but nothing about us felt false. I told her to keep us inside her head, in the marble room, so that no one could see us. They would’ve told Ada that she was crazy or that we weren’t real, and I couldn’t allow those lies. I had to protect us. When I made Ada do things she didn’t want to, I wasn’t doing it to be cruel. The whole is greater than the individual.

So when she started looking up her “symptoms,” it felt like a betrayal—like she thought we were abnormal. How can, when we were her and she was us? I watched her try to tell people about us and I smiled when they told her that it was normal to have different parts of yourself. “You’re just like everyone else,” they said, because they were just like everyone else; like Itohan’s family, they couldn’t see the kind of thing Ada had become.

“It’s fine,” I said to a worried Vincent. “Let her play this stupid game.” Eventually Ada would realize what I’d been telling her: she didn’t need people to understand; she only needed us. I let her read up on personality disorders, and once in a while, I’d tell her to stop looking, even though I knew she wouldn’t listen.

Ada wanted a reason, a better explanation. We were not enough. We were too strange. She had been raised by humans, medical ones at that. So instead she read lists of diagnostic criteria, things like disruption of identity, self-damaging impulsivity, emotional instability and mood swings, self-mutilating behavior and recurrent suicidal behavior. I could have told her it was all me, even that last one. Especially that last one. Maybe all her research was done in self-preservation, because she didn’t trust me to save her. I wanted her to die, yes, but like I said before, everything I did was in our best interests. I was just trying to save her.

And for the record, she was the one who tried to kill me first.

It’s fine if I seem selfish, running through the world with a body that didn’t really belong to me. But I was considerate, even when I didn’t have to be. Take, for instance, the kind of men I allowed to touch Ada’s body. Some of them wanted Ada, not me, so I removed them because it was impossible—in those sweaty moments, there was only me. The gentle ones were useless. They would touch Ada’s body as if she was made of spun sugar, brittle like Saachi’s teeth, stretched like Saul’s temper. Let me tell you the truth about men like that—they want soft moons. They want women with just enough crescent to provide a sufficient edge, tender little slivers of light that they can bring home to their mothers. Like I said, useless. I didn’t want them near me. After what happened with Itohan’s older brother, I had learned what I could do to men like that, and it was better for them to just lock their doors against me, because I was coming over the hill like a monster.

I allowed myself to love Ewan, even though he was human, because I thought, well, this one can handle me. He is a liar and a cheat after all, he even deserves me. But after he walked away, and after Itohan’s brothers, I only hunted cruel men, men who also cheated and lied, who broke things with the selfishness of their hands. They were violent in bed—they knew how to fuck me as if I was made of rage and metal. It felt as if they could seize the sky and force it to its knees. I wanted to lock myself in with them and run out of air, to be loved like the weapon I was, to lie in bruises like a monster.

In retrospect, it is not surprising that Ada tried to kill me then. I had dragged her through unprecedented filth in the name of protection.