"So, look," Nita Callahan is saying, "we thought you must be getting pretty bored in there --"
You look up then, through the translucent cell wall, still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, and see her straightening up from the stack of books she's just set down on the floor. Books, familiar ones, yours, and the sight of them is like a blow that knocks the air from your lungs, and something bound and buried deep inside you struggles awake trying desperately to scream.
No. No, you can't, you can't -- you smother it up, shove it back down --
"We got them from your room," Nita's saying, with a kind of hopeful attempt to smile. "It seemed we'd have better luck there finding stuff you liked? I mean, I could've raided my shelves, but books are so -- individual, you know?"
"Oh." You can barely hear yourself. You can't look away from the stack of books, you can't see the titles at this angle but you barely need to: that's a volume of Lord of the Rings (just one?), and a Heinlein juvenile, and the scuffed and taped-up spine of The Last Unicorn, and two Star Trek novels, and --
"Is this," and the dread is almost choking you, this is wrong, you shouldn't ask, but "Do I ... do I have to do something?"
(And if she says yes,) murmurs the memory of Lucifer's voice, your master's voice, and the sound of it makes you want to weep with dread and fear and longing, (if she names a price, Andrew, will you pay it? Do you still want these toys so badly as that?)
"No! No," Nita says in alarm and swift reassurance, too swift to tell whether you would be able to answer with that same no.
She's still talking as the understanding settles on you slowly, softly, like falling snow, like despair: you don't get to take the books back. Not ever again. Not ever --
Andrew's blinking at Lucas, waiting for him to finish the sentence.
no subject
You look up then, through the translucent cell wall, still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, and see her straightening up from the stack of books she's just set down on the floor. Books, familiar ones, yours, and the sight of them is like a blow that knocks the air from your lungs, and something bound and buried deep inside you struggles awake trying desperately to scream.
No. No, you can't, you can't -- you smother it up, shove it back down --
"We got them from your room," Nita's saying, with a kind of hopeful attempt to smile. "It seemed we'd have better luck there finding stuff you liked? I mean, I could've raided my shelves, but books are so -- individual, you know?"
"Oh." You can barely hear yourself. You can't look away from the stack of books, you can't see the titles at this angle but you barely need to: that's a volume of Lord of the Rings (just one?), and a Heinlein juvenile, and the scuffed and taped-up spine of The Last Unicorn, and two Star Trek novels, and --
"Is this," and the dread is almost choking you, this is wrong, you shouldn't ask, but "Do I ... do I have to do something?"
(And if she says yes,) murmurs the memory of Lucifer's voice, your master's voice, and the sound of it makes you want to weep with dread and fear and longing, (if she names a price, Andrew, will you pay it? Do you still want these toys so badly as that?)
"No! No," Nita says in alarm and swift reassurance, too swift to tell whether you would be able to answer with that same no.
She's still talking as the understanding settles on you slowly, softly, like falling snow, like despair: you don't get to take the books back. Not ever again. Not ever --
Andrew's blinking at Lucas, waiting for him to finish the sentence.