Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Lena
The world around me flickers, like a candle on the verge of extinguishing.
Nothing makes sense. I’m running out of Kian’s estate, and it feels like I’m watching myself from an aerial point of view.
I can’t tell what’s real. This is what people must mean when they say “Out-of-body experience.” It feels like I’ve been living in a nightmare or a dream or a hallucination the last couple months, ever since Kian took a seat at my bar.
This is it for me, the last straw if you will. Once I get back to campus, I’m getting the fuck out of here. If I’ve learned one thing from tonight, it’s that it’s high time to cut my losses and go. Damn the consequences and magical contracts.
I blink hard, trying to shake the strange feeling that has settled in my chest. The moon hangs low in the sky, casting a silver light over the narrow, winding road cutting through the woods.
Wasn’t I just in Kian’s study? Tall, ancient trees border the road, their twisted branches reaching out skeletal hands.
The wind whispers through crisp leaves and rattling branches, interrupting the unsettling stillness of the night.
It’s Samhain, All Hallows’ Eve, the witches’ New Year, and the night my life is falling apart.
My creature is suspiciously quiet. Shadows loom and shift.
Hadn’t I just been sipping a martini next to a cozy fire?
My breath quickens as I reach out, fingers brushing against the cold, damp bark of a nearby tree.
It feels too real, too solid. Everything around me feels wrong, like a painting that has started to melt, and twist, and drip.
Kian knew Dmitri might be alive. He knew I almost died.
I fell? No, I was pushed. In my recurring dream, I was always pushed.
My footsteps echo in the quiet, the soft crunch of gravel beneath my shoes, the rapid beating of my heart loud among the forest sounds. I tuck my hands into my sweatshirt pocket to shake off the cold that seeps through the air and deep into my bones.
The dream or, I guess, memory was always there every morning, vivid yet distant, half-remembered upon waking.
But now, my reality feels fragile, slipping through my fingers, cracking and shattering on the hard ground.
I try to build a plan, recite my Rules. First, get back to campus.
Then, pack a bag. Catch a ride to the closest town, and get the fuck out of New Hampshire.
The road stretches out ahead, a dark ribbon disappearing into the shadows, and I quicken my pace, every instinct telling me to run. I should have asked Cal to drive me. Cal. Did they know about Dmitri? Always too many questions without answers.
The darkness becomes more oppressive the farther from the estate I get.
The forest feels alive, not in a comforting way.
It’s menacing, watching me, waiting. I now know what all lurks just beyond my sight: wild animals, shadowy figures, things that I believed didn’t exist until recently, things that shouldn’t exist.
A terrifying thought grips me: If I fell into the ravine, did I not wake up?
Could I be lying in a hospital bed somewhere?
Is this my reality, or am I trapped in a comatose nightmare?
A fantastical dream about magic and power, starring all the mythical creatures from the whispered bedtime stories Dmitri would share when he tucked me in for the night?
I can’t tell anymore, the lines blurred beyond recognition.
The trees are closing in, and I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up.
My heart skips a beat at a faint rumbling from behind me.
Rapidly growing headlights cut through the darkness, light bouncing along the uneven road.
There’s no side road to slip down, no thick brush, no way to disappear without stumbling down into the deep drainage ditch.
The road is too narrow and too exposed. I take my chance and dart toward the side ditch, but the blinding light floods over me.
The car comes to a stop next to me. The window down, the figures inside shadowed and obscured by the dim interior light, the air thick with tension and the smell of gasoline.
A low and unsettling voice emerges from the car.
“Need a ride?” The figure hits the lights in the car, illuminating the interior.
I push out a breath of relief. “Boden. You scared me.”
“Get in, darling girl,” Cal says from the passenger seat. “We’ll give you a ride back to campus.”
“I don’t want to talk to either of you.” I cross my arms.
“Good. I don’t want to hear your voice,” Boden says snidely. “Get in the fucking car, Solis.”
I open the back door, deciding that twenty minutes with an insufferable prince is better than the hours it will take me to walk back in the dark when I am clearly having an existential crisis.
The car glides over the gravel-laid road, and I dissect my night.
I run through everything that occurred this evening, this week, and the last couple months.
Mist swirls low over the road and through the trees like specters.
Am I Alice down the rabbit hole? Are all the fantastical creatures that surround me real or in my head?
I pinch my arm, hard. Well, I felt that.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask out loud to no one in particular.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Cal muses, staring out into the dark. This feels like my “why is a raven like a writing desk” moment. And I’ve already established I’m no good at riddles. If Cal is the Mad Hatter and I am Alice, is Boden my Cheshire Cat?
A deafening screech fills the air, and the world around me explodes in chaos. The sound of metal on metal surrounds me as a vehicle barrels into the side of Boden’s sports car. The impact is violent—I’m flung to my side. My body slams against the door with bone-jarring intensity.
Glass shatters, spraying like jagged rain, and the car lurches, rolling wildly.
My breath catches in my throat, my vision blurring as the car flips again and again, the sound of metal twisting, groaning in protest. Pain shoots through my side, sharp and searing, the car’s frame crumbling around me, trapping me in a nightmare of tangled steel and broken glass as the car comes to a jarring halt.
I always thought that such a violent assault on your body would make you lose consciousness, shock you into not feeling pain.
But of course, I’d never be that lucky. I feel everything, every bone that breaks, every muscle and sinew that stretches and tears, every organ that rips and bursts.
I’m nothing if not pain dressed up as sunshine.
For a moment, there’s only silence—heavy, suffocating silence—as I lie paralyzed in suffering. My body is twisted at a grotesque angle. I try to move, but my limbs are unresponsive. My uneven breaths push my chest further into glass and metal.
The door is wrenched open. Thank god, help is here. I gasp for air, my chest heaving and ears ringing. Strong arms wrap around me and yank my body out forcefully. That’s not right, help should be gentle.
Panic surges up my spine as I’m thrown without a care onto the road, which sparkles with broken glass. “It’s her, I got her,” a guttural voice calls out. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber fills the air, acrid and overwhelming, mixing with the metallic tang of blood.
I strain my eyes, searching through my red-tinted cloudy vision. “You’re a hard one to track down,” a man says. I can barely see through the haze of smoke. The world seems distant, surreal, the continuation of my nightmare. Did it feel like this when Alice landed at the bottom of the rabbit hole?
“What do you want me to do with these two?” the man standing over me asks someone outside of my line of vision.
I hear a whispered conversation, but I can’t make the words out.
I focus on trying to move my limbs. Everything is a blur of pain and confusion, the sounds around me fading in and out as darkness creeps in at the edges.
I fight to stay conscious, as a new face leers over me. A face I hoped I’d never see again. “You’re looking well, Vladlena.”
It’s just four words, but they send a chill down my spine, kicking my flight-or-fight instinct into motion.
I turn, rolling onto my stomach and getting on all fours, my limbs screaming in protest as I attempt to crawl away.
A hand yanks my hair, snapping my neck back and sending my body crumpling to the ground.
I flail my arms and legs frantically as I’m dragged by my hair across the road, gravel and broken glass cutting the exposed skin where my sweatshirt has ridden up.
My attacker lands a punch to my face, and my nose cracks.
They throw a second punch, so much harder than those I’m used to in combat class or the occasional hit from Katri.
My body is lifted off the ground, and I’m thrown into the jostling metal of a car.
A loud bang echoes as I’m enclosed in darkness.
I’m in a trunk. As I drift in and out of awareness, one thought echoes in my mind: I’m so fucked.