I’m leaving soon. I’m ending this soon.
Taking her hand, I squeezed. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
She blushed. “I think I have an idea.” Tugging free, she looked away. “She’s a lucky young lady.”
And I’m a lucky fucking bastard.
I remained silent.
Awkwardness wafted off her, mirroring my own. No matter how much I appreciated Edith’s help, I wanted to be alone. Now.
A thought snapped into my brain. “Oh, did you receive a reply?”
Edith tilted her head. “Excuse me?”
“From the message I sent on your phone last night?”
“Oh…uhh.” Her emotions stuttered, shadowing with grief that she didn’t have better news.
Goddammit.
I didn’t need her to vocalize what my condition told me. Nila hadn’t replied.
Why not?
Is she okay?
Edith shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.”
I sighed heavily.
What does that mean?
Nila didn’t see the message?
She’s hurt and imprisoned and suffering?
Fuck!
My heart bucked against my ribs, feeding anxiety to an already strained nervous system. Jaz said she’d keep her safe. Please, Jaz, keep your word.
My attention left Edith, unable to wait any longer. Ripping into the plastic, I unwrapped the box like a spoiled brat at Christmas and grabbed the phone. With trembling fingers, I tore open the SIM package and battery and inserted both into the device.
I pressed the power button, waiting for it to come alive.
“Oh, almost forgot.” Edith passed me a receipt with a recharge pin. “That will get you on the internet and unlimited calls for a month.”
Shit, I’d forgotten that part of prepay. My old phone had been on an account, deducted and sorted by our personal accountant, along with other menial bill payments.
“Thanks.” I took the docket, anxiously entering the code once the phone illuminated. “I’ll bring the money to you tonight.”
I had no idea how I would do that seeing as I had no identification, bankcards, or way of leaving the hospital, but I would pay her a small fortune for such kindness.
She waved it away. “Just when you can. No rush.” Smiling one last time, she made her way to the exit.
My mind immediately discounted her as I focused entirely on the phone. A text pinged saying the voucher code was accepted and the number was ready for use.
The wave of indecision from Edith and small creak of the door wrenched my head up. “Anything else?”
Edith blanched, her eyebrows knitting together. “I was going to ask something, but it’s not my place.”
It killed me to pause when I was so close to contacting Nila, but I grinned softly. “You’ve earned the right to ask me anything.”
She bit her lip. “Do you know?” Her eyes darted to the floor. “You were shot. There’s secrecy about how it happened and only one number on your next of kin.”
I waited, but she didn’t go on. Only the gentle pulse of curiosity from her inquisition.
“What’s your question?”
She patted her plaited hair. “Like I said, not my place. But I wanted to know…if…you knew the person who did it?”
I froze. What sort of answer should I give? Pretend amnesia and hide yet another aspect of my life?
I’m sick of hiding.
All my bloody life I’d hid from my condition, my obligation, my future.
I was done pretending.
“Yes, I know who did it.”
Her hand curled around the door handle. A wave of injustice for my situation washed from her.
I grinned, letting myself indulge in my condition without repercussion. “In answer to your next question, yes, I will make them pay.”
Her eyes popped wide. “How did you know I was going to ask that?”
Her surprise reminded me of Nila’s shock when we spent the night together, when I truly let down my guard and felt her tangled thoughts.
Someone like me had the ability to seem as if we read the future. The perfect mystic able to decipher palms and speak with the dead—all the information you ever needed to know about a person was right there ready to be felt if more attention and empathy was used. Pity the human race was so wrapped up in themselves that they forgot to think about others.
“Just a knack I have.”
Edith blushed again. “You’re quite the interesting patient.”
I managed to keep it together while she vibrated with more embarrassment.
“Anyway, I have to start my rounds.” Giving me one last look, she slinked around the door and disappeared.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the room quietened and the door shut me away from the outside world. The instant I didn’t have an audience, my heart crumpled. I gritted my jaw to stop the overwhelming pain from eating me alive.
Only this pain wasn’t from the bullet but the terrifying fear that Nila had been hurt.
She didn’t respond to my previous text.
She had to have known it was me.
I swallowed against more agony. I wished I could sense her from this far away—tune into her thoughts and find out if she was safe like Jasmine promised or needed my help before I was any use to her.
My muscles quivered as I fumbled with the phone’s menu, inputting her number and opening a new message. I didn’t want to be reckless, but I also couldn’t lie there another moment fearing for her safety.
The debts she’d lived through were nothing to what was ahead. I had to kill my father before that happened. Before he took her away from me. Nila hadn’t been told how many debts she had to pay and to be honest, I’d read paperwork where more were added and less were taken, depending on how bored or cruel my ancestors were.
The Fourth Debt was coming. But the Fifth Debt…
I shuddered.
That won’t happen. I would never let it happen.
Sighing, I forced happier thoughts and typed a message.
Unknown Number: Answer me. Tell me you’re okay. I’m okay. We’re both okay. I need to hear from you. I need to know you’re still mine.
I pressed send.
I STOPPED COUNTING time by hours.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
Four.
Nothing had meaning anymore.
I thought the Hawks couldn’t hurt me once I’d sunk to their level and played their games. I thought I’d be safe to plot my revenge and hold on until Jethro came for me.
I was such a stupid, stupid girl.
Bonnie proved that over and over again. Breaking me into pieces, scattering my courage, burning my hatred until there was nothing left but dust. Dust and cinders and hopelessness.
Five days or was it six…
I no longer knew how long I’d existed in this hell.
It no longer mattered as they slowly broke my will, ruining my conviction that I could win. However, Jethro never left me. His voice lived in my ears, my heart, my soul. Forcing me to stay strong, even when I couldn’t see an end.
If it wasn’t for the passing of autumn into winter, I might’ve thought time stood still. The ticking of clocks was only punctured by pain. The passing of night and day only pierced by Bonnie’s whims and wishes.
I’m dying.
On my lowest moments, I thought I was dead. On my highest moments, I still fantasised about killing them. It was the only thing that got me through the hellish week they subjected me to.
My hate evolved into a living, breathing thing. There was nothing left but loathing.
What else was there to feel when I lived with monsters?
My mind often tortured me with thoughts of happier times…Vaughn and me laughing, of my father being so proud, of the sweet satisfaction I got from sewing.
I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home.
Every time my thoughts turned to Jethro, I shut down. The pain was insurmountable. Every day, I stopped believing he’d survive and worried about the worst instead. In my rapidly unthreading mind, he was dead and I believed a lie.
Jasmine tried her best to keep me from the worst.
The Rack she’d denied.
The Judas Cradle she’d flat-out refused.
But there were others she couldn’t reject—she couldn’t disobey her grandmother, no matter that her eyes screamed apologies and our unspoken bond knitted tighter.
Jethro was no longer there. But Jasmine was.
And I learned to love and hate her for helping me.
Her help wasn’t love and kisses and tender stolen moments. No. Her help was selecting the punishment I was strong enough to survive, carving my soul out dream by dream, keeping me alive as long as possible to find some way out of lunacy.
The worst part of my punishment was Vaughn saw it all.
He witnessed what the Hawks did.
He knew now what I was subjected to.
His screams were what undid me; not Bonnie’s laughter or Cut’s smug chuckles—not even Daniel’s demented cackles.
Love was what ruined me the most.
Love was the ultimate destroyer.
But no matter how much I tried to let go…I couldn’t.
“Do you repent, Nila? Do you agree to pay the Final Debt?”
I squirmed in my bindings, choking on terror as Daniel marched me toward the guillotine. All around me stood ethereal figments of my exterminated family, their detached heads hovering above their corpses.
A wail howled over the moor. Was it death? Was it hope?
I would soon find out.