God of Wrath (Legacy of Gods #3) by Rina Kent

If he used her to spy on me, then I’m not beneath doing the same.

But then I started noticing things about the outwardly boring Cecily Knight. Like her infuriating love for animals, her nerd tendencies, her deliberate façade, but none of those held my attention for long.

What kept me coming back for more is manifesting right at this moment.

She’s zoning out—or more accurately, dissociating.

I know the technical term for it. More than anyone else, I’ve been exposed to this phenomenon since a young age and researched it as soon as I could understand what mental health meant.

Soon after I started following Cecily, I noticed these moments where she’d stare into space in a catatonic state, unblinking, and completely unaware of her surroundings. Her friends or her colleagues at the shelter would call her name and she’d show no sign of hearing them.

It would take them a few tries, snapping their fingers and waving their hands in front of her face to wrench her out of it.

At first, I thought it was an ill-fated coincidence. After all, what are the chances of me witnessing someone suffering from dissociation again?

But the more I watched her from the shadows, the deeper I inserted myself in her life, the surer I was that she definitely has it, and the worst part is that she probably doesn’t know about it.

It’s mild, barely noticeable, and unlike severe cases, she can be brought out by external intervention.

The ghost remains inside her, though.

Lurking beneath her skin, waiting for the time he’ll be able to completely take over.

It’s come back now, right after she threw up.

Her body has stiffened, and she’s no longer staring at her beloved bastard while he’s fucking another girl.

I hadn’t planned to bring her here tonight. I was following her as usual, all the way to her apartment. It’s become a habit to shadow every move she makes, lurk in the darkness, and wait for the ghost to return.

Don’t ask me why. Even I have no fucking clue why I want to tug that part of her out and sink my knife into it.

Or her.

I don’t know which at this point.

However, no matter how many times I follow her home, she doesn’t experience that state. She only slips into it when she’s with friends or sitting alone.

I planned to end the night as usual—watch from afar and gather clues, but then she stuck earbuds in her ears and some assholes thought it was a good idea to follow her.

Only I am allowed to do that.

When she saw me, there was no point in hiding further, and I made a last-minute decision to bring her here. She needed to realize that Landon King isn’t the revered saint she makes him out to be.

He’s a monster like the rest of us—if not worse—and has no business being held in high fucking regard.

But I didn’t think she’d vomit and dissociate at the view.

If it were anyone else, I’d completely ignore her and get on with my day. I have zero interest in people. Especially shady ones who might or might not be getting in the way of my plans.

But something stops me.

The stiffness in her limbs, the freezing state of her face. The bulging of her eyes that nearly pop out of their sockets.

I grab her by the shoulder and shake her, gently at first, but when that doesn’t work, I use more force.

Nothing.

Her gaze remains glued to Landon’s erotic show that he offers to anyone willing to watch.

Motherfucker.

I tug her with me, but I might as well be moving a stone. One that’s planted in place and refuses to move.

So I physically drag her behind me. But no matter what I do, her attention remains glued to the fucker.

I round the table and click the button underneath it that blacks out the scene and mutes the sounds. The painting slides back into place, but Cecily doesn’t snap out of it.

Her bulging eyes that have transformed into a muted green color watch the red impressionist painting with undivided attention.

I fall on the chair and pull on her arm so that she sits on my lap. Her muscles don’t unlock, remaining as stiff as granite, and she’s barely sitting. Her hands are glued to her thighs as if they’re an extension of them.

“Cecily,” I call her name with a firm voice.

She doesn’t show a hint of hearing me.

The Cecily I’ve come to know these past few weeks has sensitive hearing. A misophonia of sorts. She can’t handle a lot of noises and uses sleeping buds to be able to go to sleep.

It’s also how she knows I’m there whenever I couldn’t give a fuck and become sloppy in hiding my tracks. She hears a step or the rev of my bike’s engine, and her ears twitch like a fucking cat—or rabbit.

So it’s not like she didn’t hear me just now.

It’s that she can’t.

My fist clenches before I slowly flex it and force myself to breathe deeply.

Then I tap her on the cheek once. Her pale skin immediately reddens at the impact, and I didn’t even put force behind it.

Still no response.

My hand splays out on her skin, on the redness that spreads all over her cheek and neck. Then I stroke it, sliding my fingers over the tiny freckles beneath her eyes. “Cecily, can you hear me?”

No reply.

I rummage through her bag and retrieve her packet of sugar-free mint gum. I’ve often seen her crunch on these, even during her zoning-out states. The moment I place two pieces at her lips, she gobbles them inside and chews them. Maybe it’s a sense of recognition at something familiar that makes the gum a break from the unusual. It’s robotic, though. As if she’s not aware of the effort.