Chapter Twenty-Seven
C-C-COLD. CONSTANZA WAS SO COLD. And hot. Fiery hot. She could feel the burning stings of a million angry hornets all over her body. Cold. Hot. Hot. Cold. Why could her body not decide which it was?
And those hornets. They buzzed so loudly in her head. The only thoughts that could rise above them were short and broken. Escape. Danger. Eleonora.
Eleonora. The word was a razor blade, cutting away through deadened senses that bound Constanza’s mind in a thick fog. The details of why those three words were linked were gone, but all that mattered was Eleonora. And Eleonora needed her.
Darkness met Constanza when she opened her eyes. Even after they’d adjusted, she couldn’t distinguish much except the room was cold and stank of body and excrement. If it weren’t so quiet, she’d swear it was a cell in the Tower of London.
Escape. Danger. Eleonora. Winston.
Her breath caught. Winston. He’d found her. Found Eleonora.
Constanza tried to roll to her side, but her whole body had become lead. Hot, cold, muddled brain, a deadened body? She’d been drugged. He’d done this to her.
The man was a devil, and his reign must end. Eleonora needed her, and Constanza would fight until her dying breath. First she had to get free. The hot tingles prickling her skin meant the medicine was losing effectiveness. Her body was awakening. It just needed an extra nudge.
With a jaw clenched so hard it ached, she rolled.
Metal bit into the skin of her wrists and ankles.
Shackles? He’d placed her in shackles? The fiend.
She fought against them, her strength coming back in small batches.
Wetness formed and slicked the restraints where they rubbed.
Iron scent tainted the air, and its taste filled her mouth when she bit down on her already chapped and split lips.
A door opened, and light cast the figure in shadow. “Nurse Rhodes, grab the morphine!”
Morphine? And from the sounds of it, a female spoke. But not Ursula.
Light flooded the narrow room as the nurse brought in a lantern.
Gray walls, tall ceilings, and a single barred window caged Constanza.
A thin straw tick lay beneath her, and the iron door—meant to protect her from the world—or, more likely, the world from her—stood open, forgotten in the nurse’s haste.
Isolation.
Memory flooded her. The conniving blackguard. He knew what he was doing in goading her to attack him.
Last time she’d been here due to hallucinations, but not now. She knew it down to her very marrow. Winston had been here. Really been here. And he’d threatened Eleonora.
Worse, Constanza had been within moments of finally ending his threat forever.
Blast Longview and its drugs. Those horrible drugs. And now Winston was free and she trapped, while he did who knew what to her precious daughter.
Unless she escaped and stopped him.
Constanza ignored what the slickness was and squeezed her hand to its narrowest size, then she pulled at the restraints. The metal cut deep, but with a bit more force, it would slide off. It had to.
Before she could slip even one hand free, the nurse pinned her arms to the bed. Another nurse and an orderly rushed into the room. They didn’t even allow her to speak before administering a new dose.
“No! I have to save Eleonora!” She clawed and fought, screaming as the cold slithered through her and ended the stinging heat.
A minute more of struggle, then all her strength was spent. Limp, she glared at the nurses and the retreating orderly’s back.
“Let me go.” Her words were raspy and strained.
The younger nurse knelt beside Constanza and winced when she took Constanza’s hand. Her pocked face twisted in appall as she fingered the shackle. “Nurse Shreckhise? Why is she in physical restraints? I thought they weren’t allowed. And if she must be in them, why not the leather ones?”
The wiry, gray-haired nurse harrumphed. “I wouldn’t get too close to her if I were you. She attacked a visitor, and she’s determined to get free and finish the job.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Though youthful of face and feature, Nurse Rhodes was no fool. “What is going on here? Surely Dr. Chalfant does not approve of this.”
“Oh, get off your high horse, Nurse Rhodes. It’s needed for her safety and ours.
” By the contempt on Nurse Shreckhise’s face, the metal restraints were her idea.
“The last time she was awake, she got the leather ones undone with her teeth. Fought me like a wildcat and has every time I’ve come in while the medication was wearing off.
I’d watch your fingers. She’s already bit me six times over the last three days. ”
Three days? Three days in which Winston was free to do Eleonora harm without any chance of interference. Oh, God in heaven! Am I too late? Constanza whimpered, afraid of God’s answer.
Nurse Rhodes compassionately ran a hand over her hair. “Shhhh. You are safe here. No one will hurt you, but you have to stop fighting or else you will hurt yourself more.”
“She’s brung it on herself.” Nurse Shreckhise crossed her arms and scowled.
“You have to take these off her. She’s fighting because she’s frightened.”
“You want the key? You’ll have to take on sole responsibility for her.”
“Fine. Give it to me.”
“Suit yourself.” Nurse Shreckhise tossed a metal key to the floor. “That one’s a lost cause. It’s best to keep her sedated and let her pass in her own time.”
Nurse Rhodes snatched it. “No one is a lost cause. No one.”
“You’re new here. We’ll see what you say in a year. If you even make it that long. Once they reach this point, it’s better for everyone if they’re forgotten and left to their own devices. You’ll see.” Nurse Shreckhise marched out.
Regret softened the lines of Nurse Rhodes’s sharp features as she unlocked the restraints. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this. You need kindness and gentleness. Not these inhumane shackles.” Metal clattered onto the floor.
She pulled a handkerchief from her apron and dipped it into the water cup Constanza hadn’t seen but had been too far away to reach anyway. Nurse Rhodes dabbed at Constanza’s wrist, cleaning away the blood. It should have stung, but numbness was all this place allowed.
Nurse Rhodes was kind and Constanza’s only hope of saving Eleonora. “Please, help me.”
“What can I do?” She continued her ministrations, but she looked at Constanza like whatever she said truly mattered and would be believed.
Please let it be so. “Tell Marcellus. Eleonora. Warn them.” The morphine was taking effect. Her words struggled to form and push through the growing fog. “Winston.”
“Who are they?”
Darkness crowded in. Not yet. I need her help! Constanza fought, but she could feel the words slurring. “Eleonora. Daughter. Winston. Danger.”
“Your daughter is safe.”
“But Winston.” All light was gone. The fight for words was a lost battle, but she forced four more. “Winston will kill her.”
Nurse Rhodes’s words came from some far-off place, growing more distant by the second. “God will keep her, Mrs. Davis. He has not forgotten nor forsaken either of you. Rest well.”
Rest well? Impossible. Sleep would come. Constanza couldn’t fight it. But the world would never be well again. She would never be well again. Winston and Ursula had won. Their revenge was only just beginning. Death would be kinder than this knowing Eleonora would soon be lost.
And it was all Constanza’s fault.