Chapter 4 Karia #2
He seems dazed. His lips are parted, so beautiful and soft. He feels firm beneath my grip, but I get the feeling he is fading away. Vanishing, like his grandfather, right before my eyes.
“Sullen.” I plead with him, my voice splintering on his name. “Tell them he was right here. Tell them what he said.” My eyes sting, tears filling them, pressure mounting behind my sockets. “Please tell them. You can’t leave me. We can’t… separate. You can’t leave me like this.”
He only says one thing. One word. He sounds the way I feel; like he’s breaking. “Karia.”
“No.” I shake my head. I turn to face Stein again, and I don’t let go of Sullen. “I will kill you,” I say, my voice even. I step forward, and this time, Sullen doesn’t stop me. “I promise you, if you hurt him again, I will kill you.”
Two guards rush me at once, despite the fact I only took a single step toward their puppet master. They grab my arms, either side of me, gripping me so tightly I know I’ll bruise as they force me away from Sullen.
“Let her go,” he snarls before he reaches for one guard, balling the man’s black tech shirt in his fist, a vein in his throat just under his bandana pulsing. “Let her fucking go or—”
“I’m so sorry,” Stein says. “I’ll have my doctor come straight away to tend to Karia.”
Sullen suddenly releases the man, like someone hit him despite the fact the guard didn’t even shrug him off. “No,” he says again, focused on me. “She… It’s not her fault. It’s mine. It’s mine, it’s mine.” He says it over and over, like a starving child begging for food.
I try to scramble out of the grip of the guards.
“Dad,” Von says, his voice low. “Tell them to release her now.” There’s a snarl in his words.
“If they don’t,” my own dad says, his voice calm but deadly, “I will shoot them myself.”
And Mads Bentzen speaks next. “You promised her safety, Stein. Thus far, you aren’t a liar. But you are nothing to Writhe now, and if your men don’t release her, I will be forced to allow mine to forcibly make them do so.”
I try again to shrug out of their grip, my gaze still on my monster. “Don’t do this,” I say, everything in my body knotted up in panic. “Don’t be the fucking hero, Sullen Rule. You are not that. You are not. Tell them the truth! Tell them the truth or—”
“Release her at once.” Stein’s voice speaks louder, over mine. “Rex, Arthur, Constance. Gently take my son into custody. If anyone is hurt in this fray, I will personally execute all three of you.”
The guard lets me go.
I lunge after him as Stein’s men surround Sullen.
My fingers come to the guard’s shirt, a lump in my throat keeping all my horrors inside. I can’t cry or speak or scream. Sullen snaps his head up and he opens his mouth to say something as he surrenders to Stein’s men. I don’t care what he’s going to say, though.
I won’t allow this to happen.
I jerk backward on the guard by my fingers in his clothes, pressure behind my eyes but I can’t even cry and Sullen doesn’t manage to speak. Yet before the guard can even look over his shoulder, an arm bands around my waist.
I’m pulled backward into a hard body.
I try to free myself, a strangled noise of frustration the only thing that escapes my mouth as the guards put Sullen’s hands behind his back like he’s some sort of prisoner.
His gaze is still on mine as the person behind me captures both my arms by my side, pinning them there as they crush me to them.
The familiar scent of my father’s cologne envelopes me.
My pulse beats haywire in my body as I try to face my dad. “Let me go,” I say, my voice harsh.
His eyes are on mine, big and sad, and I hate him.
I swallow tightly, refusing to break. “Let me go, or I will never forgive you.”
Someone makes a scoffing sound.
I realize it’s my mother.
Acid burns up my throat.
“Let me fucking go.” I scream it now, trying to shrug my father off, but Antwine Ven is a marionette, too. He won’t believe me about Sanford or Stein or anything that’s happened to me the past few days. He won’t believe anything, because Writhe comes before me.
It always has.
I’m breathing hard, but it’s like there’s a weight on my chest. As if I can’t get enough air.
Dad pulls me backward, then spins us, so his back is to the doorway, and I can see nothing as commotion—the shuffle of feet—pass by.
They’re taking Sullen away.
I won’t see him again.
They are taking him away.
“Sullen!” I call out his name, frantically trying to catch a glimpse of him, but Von looms into view, his gray eyes on mine.
I will beg him. I am not above anything, for Sullen Rule.
“Don’t let them take him,” I say to Von, my voice whispery and frantic, even to my own ears.
“Don’t let them or they’ll kill him.” I think I might throw up.
Dad doesn’t let me go.
Von is staring at me with pity, his lips parted as he watches me, like he wants to crack at what he’s seeing. His friend, come undone.
“Von,” I say. “I’m not crazy.” It’s hoarse, my words. “Please, Von. I’m not crazy.”
But the footsteps are far away.
I can sense Sullen isn’t near.
I can barely breathe.
What will they do to him?
This is my fault.
“Von.” I try one more time, tears blurring my vision. “Please believe me. I’m not… I’m not crazy.”
I watch his throat roll as he swallows.
Then he just says, so soft I can tell he’s lying, “I know, Karia.”