46. Blind Soul
forty-six
Blind Soul
Onyx: 2024
A t some point, you start to wonder if the shit you were forced to listen to over the years might have been spot on. Someday, my mouth will probably get me in trouble, especially in times like these.
“Get me off this disgusting ass floor, you psycho coffee bitch!” I hiss, trying for the millionth time to break the zip ties cutting into my wrists and ankles.
She squats down beside me, gently smoothing my hair from my face. Before I can jerk my head away, her fist tightens in my hair, shoving my head to the side to see her. “While the Dark Queen lived in her pretty mansion. I was here, pissing in a bucket, over in that corner.” She points to a shadowy spot of the cell. Next, she yanks me by my roots until I’m sitting, then spins me until I’m staring at the other side of the cell. “While the Dark Queen cried to her mommy. I was here, being tormented by Hazel. Sleeping on a mattress filled with rats.” Suddenly, she jerks my head around, leaning close enough our noses almost touch. “Do you know what it feels like to have rats scurrying under your back?” she asks, glaring into my soul with a glowing smile.
Yep, my mouth’s definitely getting me in trouble.
“Bitch, I don’t know anything about pissing in buckets. Or who Hazel is. Or sleeping with rats! Stop calling me Dark Queen! And just so we’re clear, I hated my mommy!” I shout, grimacing at her smiling face. “She was the only person that didn’t throw me away, so I tolerated her,” I add.”
Amy rolls her eyes before throwing me on my back. “Ollie, keep your eyes on the baby brat. B and I got some stuff to do,” she orders, skipping from the cell like a demented psychopath.
B props his phone against a bar of the cell, then follows her like a lost puppy. Nolan’s face appears on the tiny screen as their footsteps fade in the distance, causing me to feel nauseous.
My stomach knots as my mouth waters while we silently stare at each other. Thinking you know someone, only to find out everything’s been a clusterfuck of lies, sours your life in seconds. Making you question your own sanity.
I watch as he leans back, relaxing into an overstuffed chair. “Are you in my fucking house? Get out of my house, creeper,” I seethe, rage boiling my blood to the point I fear my brain will melt.
He chuckles lazily, shaking his head slowly. “You never listen. Opal laid everything on a silver platter, and you ignored it. I warned you repeatedly, but you never listened,” he tells me, tilting his head. “For the record, this house doesn’t belong to anyone currently.”
“You said yourself, Mom signed over everything to me years ago,” I argue, twisting around on the ground until I’m out of breath, zip ties cutting into my skin.
He leans forward until his face fills the screen, studying me through the camera. “You should always read the fine print.”
“The fine print? You said —”
“People can say whatever they want!” he shouts, laughter bursting from his lying face I want to punch. “What if I said I owned it?” he questions, fueling the flames he’s ignited in my belly.
My brows dip when I realize I would’ve believed him. Until he tipped my world seconds ago, I would’ve believed anything he said because he’s Nolan. The one constant normal person in my horrible life. Finding out he’s fake… hurts .
Tears silently drip from my lashes, leaving black splatter marks on my cheeks. “Tell me,” I whisper hopelessly.
“ If you graduate, everything I told you holds true. But…” he starts while he makes himself comfortable again, watching me smugly. “ If you don’t graduate, the agreement shifts to Opal’s firstborn, Amethyst Tulip Whithe. All of it goes to her,” he finishes.
Reality turns into a funnel, pouring my broken sanity onto the concrete. Lies morph into truths as trust wilts into hate. So many moments turn to smoke, evaporating as questions poke at my broken brain.
They return, but I barely notice or care. Amy kneels beside me, snapping her fingers in my face. I think I notice her mouth moving, although the darkness hovering around me refuses to be penetrated.
I’m floating in a sea of silence.
My breath falters when I’m thrown over Mr. Brickman’s shoulder, the world suddenly upside down. Survival mode screams at me, forcing me to count each step he takes silently.
Thirty-two steps to the white hallway.
Familiar white marble passes below his boots as the numbers start over in my head.
Twenty-five steps to a different concrete floor.
Five steps to the wooden chair.
Blood whooshes loudly in my ears, drowning out the silence when I feel a faint pinch on my wrists. A phantom feeling of wrongness crawls up my legs. Burning spreads over the back of my scalp, begging to be touched. Nothing penetrates my eyes, which stare blankly at the light projected over a black-and-white hallway outside the doorway.