Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I love you.
I love you.
Fuck—
Curling my fingers into the dark copper carpet, I willed the episode to pass.
It only grew worse.
Greyness snuck over my vision.
Weakness stole through every bone, and my body tipped with warning.
I had seconds.
Mere seconds and I didn’t want to pass out on the floor.
Staggering to my feet, I turned off the bedside light, then stumbled, shuffled, and fell through the dark to my side of the bed.
I tumbled beside Ily.
I grunted in pain.
Darkness grabbed me and sucked me deep.
* * * * *
“It’s okay, Hen. Truly.” Ily cupped my cheek and pressed her nose to mine. “You can say it. Here…I’ll teach you.” She smiled and gave me the sweetest, softest kiss. “Don’t think about what the words mean, and just say it…I love—”
“I can’t.” I groaned against her lips.
“You won’t, you mean.”
“No…I literally can’t.” Rearing back, I caught her sunshine-shining eyes. “I can’t say I love you when I’m not worthy of love.”
Her face softened. “Don’t you think I should be the judge of that?” Kissing my eyes, my cheeks, my forehead, she whispered, “I see what you are now. You did come for us. You’re going to free us. I know it—”
I choked and shot upright.
The dream shattered, leaving me blinking in a pitch-dark room.
My entire body screeched with discomfort.
I hated that Peter’s words kept haunting me but in Ily’s voice.
“I see what you are now. You did come for us. You’re going to free us. I know it—”
The rush of sickness coated my tongue; I launched out of bed. Wrapping my good arm around my bad ribs, I tried to hold my pain together as I half-ran, half-staggered to the bathroom, and flipped up the lid on the toilet.
My skin flushed with sweat.
I shivered with an icy chill.
I waited to vomit for the second time tonight.
Waited for that familiar curse to remind me all over again that the things I wanted were wrong and toxic and had to be purged.
How strange that my dreams had been full of love and togetherness instead of darkness and screams. How tragic that I’d finally begged for someone to see me, and I couldn’t stomach it when they did.
Breathing hard, the gush of nausea slowly faded.
I backed away from the toilet and crashed against the towel rail.
Ow.
Goddamn ow!
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I didn’t want to exist in so much agony, and I didn’t trust my sleep not to torment me.
I’m done.
Grabbing a white bathrobe off the hook, I lurched toward the exit. Shrugging into it, I ripped open our borrowed bedroom door and looked left and right.
Track lighting glowed above the flagstones. Faint and barely there, it granted just enough illumination to slip into the shadows and close the door behind me.
I wouldn’t be able to lock it, but I took the risk that Victor lived up here, and other guests wouldn’t be stupid enough to trespass.
I needed a book.
A thousand books.
If I could lose myself in their pages, then I could—
“How’s she doing?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
Holding my rabbiting heart, I spun around and groaned as a fresh wave of misery made me sweat. I blinked at the ghostly figure in the dark then swallowed a curse as I snapped, “Your attempt at giving me a heart attack failed.”
“What a pity.” Dr Belford came toward me. She flicked on a switch. The drafty corridor suddenly glowed with soft sconces. “I was just on my way to check on Ily.”
Ily.
I love you.
Shut up.
“She’s asleep.” I sniffed. “Whatever you gave her knocked her out.”
Not before she knocked out my heart.
The doctor sagged with relief. “In that case, I’ll let her rest a little before I disturb her.”
I nodded and did my best to be civil. “Goodnight.”
Before I could turn away, her weary eyes locked on my left arm. Her brows rose as she noticed the pinprick of blood that’d already soaked through the terrycloth dressing gown. “You’re still bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” Pushing off from the wall, I went to head downstairs.
The library would be empty.
I could peruse the shelves, select a thick, brutal story, then bring it back to bed.
I’d sink into someone else’s misfortune for a change.
Only, the corridor flipped upside down, then back to front, and I found myself on my knees again.
Motherfucker.
Soft hands landed between my shoulder blades. “Come with me. I’ll stitch you up and give you something for the light-headedness.”
“I said I’m fine,” I snapped.
Perhaps if I kept saying it, it would come true.
Maybe if I believed it, I could remember how to survive without a bruised girl, a broken heart, and a soul riddled with fucking rot.
I didn’t like people caring about me.
I didn’t know how to act, how to accept it, how to deserve it.
Her temper appeared. “If it were up to me, I’d leave you to bleed out on this icy floor, but…you aren’t the boss, and the man who is the boss would gut me if I refused one of his guests the best medical care I can provide so….” She dropped to her haunches and stared me right in the face. “Get the hell up and come into my room. Hold your tongue while I sew you up, and then you can go back to bed.”