A die-hard football fan, her dad. He had attended O.U. in Oklahoma for three semesters, and had never cut those ties.
She could not allow herself to think about them, about her mother and father and how wonderful they’d been…and…oh, she couldn’t stop it from happening…. Her mother’s image formed, taking center stage in her mind. She saw a fall of hair so black the strands appeared blue, much like Annabelle’s own. Eyes uptilted and golden, much like Annabelle’s used to be. Skin a rich, creamy mix of honey and cinnamon and without a single flaw. Saki Miller—once Saki Tanaka—had been born in Japan but raised in Georgetown, Colorado.
Saki’s traditional parents had freaked when she and the white-as-can-be Rick Miller had fallen hopelessly in love and married. He’d come home from college on holiday, met her and moved back to be with her.
Both Annabelle and her brother were a combination of their parents’ heritages. They shared their mother’s hair and skin, the shape of her face, yet had their father’s height and slender build.
Although Annabelle’s eyes no longer belonged to either Saki or Rick.
After that horrible morning in her garage, after her arrest for their murders, after her conviction, her lifelong sentencing to this institution for the criminally insane, she’d finally found the courage to look at herself in a mirror. What she’d seen had startled her. Eyes the color of winter ice, deep in the heart of an Arctic snowstorm, eerie and crystalline, barely blue with no hint of humanity. Worse, she could see things with these eyes, things no one should ever have to see.
And oh, no, no, no. As the trust circle yammered on, two creatures walked through the far wall, pausing to orient themselves. Heart rate spiraling, Annabelle looked at her fellow patients, expecting to see expressions of terror. No one else seemed to notice the visitors.
How could they not? One creature had the body of a horse and the torso of a man. Rather than skin, he was covered by glimmering silver…metal? His hooves were rust-colored and possibly some kind of metal as well, sharpened into deadly points.
His companion was shorter, with stooped shoulders weighed down by sharp, protruding horns, and legs twisted in the wrong direction. He wore a loincloth and nothing else, his chest furred, muscled and scarred.
The scent of rotten eggs filled the room, as familiar as it was horrifying. The first flood of panic and anger burned through her, a toxic mix she could not allow to control her. It would wreck her concentration and slow her reflexes—her only weapons.
She needed weapons.
The creatures came in all shapes and sizes, all colors, both sexes—and maybe something in between—but they had one thing in common: they always came for her.
Every doctor who’d ever treated her had tried to convince her that the beings were merely figments of her imagination. Complex hallucinations, they said. Despite the wounds the creatures always left behind—wounds the doctors claimed she managed to inflict upon herself—she sometimes believed them. That didn’t stop her from fighting, though. Nothing could.
Glowing red gazes at last settled on her. Both males smiled, their sharp, dripping fangs revealed.
“Mine,” Horsey said.
“No. Mine!” Horns snapped.
“Only one way to settle this.” Horsey licked his lips in anticipation. “The fun way.”
“Fun,” Horns agreed.
Fun, the code word for “beat the crap out of Annabelle.” At least they wouldn’t try to rape her.
Don’t you see, Miss Miller? one of the doctors had once told her. The fact that these creatures will not rape you proves they are nothing more than hallucinations. Your mind stops them from doing something you can’t handle.
As if she could handle any of the rest. How do you explain the injuries I receive while bound?
We found the tools you hid in your room. Shanks, a hammer we’re still trying to figure out how you got, glass shards. Shall I go on?
Yeah, but those had been for her protection, not her mutilation.