Chapter 18 #2
I dropped into the garden, landing hard among the rosebushes. Their thorns bit into my jacket, snagging at me as though the earth itself wanted me to stay down.
The guards’ voices drifted through the storm—gruff, careless, the language of men who thought no one would dare come here.
Their flashlights sliced across the manicured hedges, pale arcs of danger in the dark. I pressed myself into the wet soil, heart pounding so violently it hurt.
Bootsteps drew closer—two of them, boots crunching over gravel. I froze, the rain trickling down my face, tasting of iron and fear.
“Heard something,” one muttered.
My pulse thrashed in my throat.
The flashlight beam swept over the hedge, close enough to bleach the color from my skin.
“Probably a raccoon,” the other said, his tone dismissive.
The light passed. Their footsteps faded.
I didn’t move until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Then I crawled from the shadows, keeping low, every nerve alive.
The garden stretched before me like a battlefield—floodlights sweeping, statues glistening, fountains whispering.
I darted between them, the night alive with the sound of my own ragged breathing.
A guard dog stirred nearby, its chain clinking softly.
I stilled, whispering a prayer I didn’t believe in, until it settled again.
Every inch brought me closer—to the house, to her.
To the wound that would never close.
At last, I reached Penelope’s window.
The glass was still fractured from before, the cracks catching the light like veins of ice.
I peered inside.
The room was empty—no movement, no sound. Just the disheveled bed, the pale curtains stirring with the draft, and the faintest trace of her perfume, warm and floral even through the rain.
Relief hit first. Then disappointment.
And then—the voice.
“Freeze!”
I spun around. A guard stood ten paces away, flashlight blazing, gun raised.
The light seared my vision, but I didn’t need to see his face to know what came next.
My body moved before my mind caught up.
I hurled the letter through the broken pane—watched it tumble into her room like a dying bird—and ran.
My feet pounded the wet grass, thorns tearing at my clothes, lungs burning as shouts erupted behind me.
“Stop! Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
I vaulted the hedge, slipped on the slick stones, caught myself, kept running.
The rain roared in my ears, drowning out everything—my fear, my guilt, the echo of her name.
The only thing that existed was forward, the need to escape, to survive long enough for her to find that letter.
It was all I had left to give her.
And all she’d ever have left of me.
The guard’s whistle cut the night like a blade.
I ran—no thinking, only motion—launching over a garden bench, slaloming past a marble cherub, my jeans catching on a jagged stone.
A gunshot cracked somewhere behind me; I flinched and that half-second cost everything.
A boot slammed into my face and the world inverted.
I hit the ground, mud and rain in my mouth.
Ten shadows closed around me, teeth and boots and hands that moved like a single animal.
They didn’t ask questions. They answered with fists.
A kick to the ribs folded me; another to the groin took the breath from me and left me raw and howling.
They kept coming—pummeling jaw, stomach, legs—each strike a punctuation to the single, burning image in my head: her, in someone else’s arms.
“Penelope knows me,” I coughed through blood, tasting metal. “Ask her—she—”
They spat at me and kept moving.
Two grabbed my arms like I was nothing and dragged me across the manicured lawn. The cold pooled under my back as they dumped me by the estate gates. One of them leaned down, sneered in my face so I could see the wet glint in his teeth.
“You’re alive only because the Romanos don’t want a war with the Volkovs,” he said. “Step foot here again and we’ll kill you.”
A final boot slammed my ribs; knives of pain lanced through my side.
Then they left me there, rain washing new blood into the earth.
I lay under the downpour and counted my wounds: ribs that burned with each breath, a nose that would be a crooked ruin, skin torn raw where stone had met bone.
Pain mapped my body—bruises, cuts, every inch a ledger of brutality.
I dragged myself up, fingers slipping on wet stone, hands trembling.
I didn’t know if the letter would ever reach her hands. Maybe she’d ball it up and throw it away. Maybe it would burn unread in some drawer. None of that mattered now the way it used to.
The pain of being left, of being seen as nothing more than a secret—those were the things that would shape me.
I tasted rain and copper and a promise I could not take back.
The rain-soaked earth clung to me, cold and heavy, like the world itself was trying to pull me under.
Every breath was a knife between my ribs; every heartbeat, a reminder that I was still alive when I didn’t want to be.
Blood ran in ribbons down my face, warm against the freezing rain, my clothes torn to ribbons by the estate’s jagged stones.
Penelope’s betrayal burned hotter than any wound.
The image of her in another man’s arms replayed behind my eyes, cruel and endless.
I’d risked everything—my life, my sanity—to bring her that letter, to make her see what she’d done to me. Now I was nothing but wreckage, a boy stripped bare by love and violence, clinging to the faint, trembling thread of hope that my mother was still waiting for me.
I couldn’t die here. Not like this.
Not in front of the house of the girl who had destroyed me.
I tried to walk.
Pain flared through my left leg—white-hot, grinding bone on bone—and I almost screamed.
My right leg held, barely, just enough to drag me forward.
Each step was a war.
My blood marked a trail behind me, crimson smears on the pavement like a signature I didn’t mean to leave.
The car came into view at last. My lifeline. My escape.
I staggered toward it, half-falling, catching myself on the hood with a gasp. My reflection stared back at me from the window: swollen eyes, split lip, a stranger’s face twisted with loss.
“Just hold on,” I muttered, unsure if I meant my body or my heart. “Just a little longer.”
I gripped the door handle, my hands slick with blood, and hauled myself inside.
The seat’s cracked leather swallowed me, and for a brief, shaking second, I let my head fall against the steering wheel.
The sound of rain against the roof became a lullaby—a cruel one, but it kept me breathing.
I had to get back to the hotel. To her. My mother would know what to do, how to quiet the chaos clawing at my chest.
She had to.
I leaned to one side, favoring my less-damaged leg, my body shaking from both the cold and the pain.
The engine coughed to life beneath my trembling hands, and the vibration seemed to echo through every fracture and bruise.
The world beyond blurred.
My vision swam, each blink heavier than the last, my head fogged by pain and exhaustion. I could barely tell where I was driving, only that I had to keep going.
Mom won’t recognize me like this, I thought, the words bitter in my mind.
A rough, broken sound escaped me—half laugh, half groan.
My reflection in the rearview mirror was unrecognizable.
My hands looked worse—raw, trembling, split open across the knuckles from the oak tree, from the glass of Penelope’s window, from the guards’ boots.
The pain was a steady thrum, but beneath it was something worse—emptiness.
I gritted my teeth and pressed harder on the accelerator, the engine’s roar drowning out the pain clawing up my leg.
The tires hissed over the slick asphalt, water spraying up from the gutters as I tore through Brooklyn’s deserted streets.
The city lights blurred into ghostly trails.
My chest tightened.
Every turn of the wheel felt like it could be my last, but stopping wasn’t an option. I had to see her. The woman who’d called herself my mother—the only person left who’d chosen to find me.
By the time I reached the hotel, I could barely feel my legs.
I pulled into the underground garage too fast, the tires screeching against the wet concrete.
My head slammed against the headrest, stars exploding behind my eyes. For a second, I just sat there, slumped forward, the world spinning in and out of focus.
Then I forced the door open.
The cold air hit me like a slap.
I stumbled out, my left leg almost giving way, and caught myself on the side mirror.
My blood left smeared handprints along the car as I pushed off it and started toward the elevator.
Each step was a battle—my body lurching, my breath wheezing, the sound of my shoes squelching on the floor like wet cloth.
I left a trail of crimson footprints behind me, a breadcrumb path of my suffering.
The elevator ride felt endless.
The metal walls seemed to close in around me, the flickering overhead light pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
My reflection in the steel door stared back—a ghost in a soaked jacket, eyes wide and feverish.
I wanted to close my eyes, to rest for just a moment, but I knew if I did, I might never wake again.
When the doors finally slid open, I stumbled into the hallway, my body scraping the wall for balance.
The carpet absorbed the sound of my limping steps.
I reached our door, fumbled with the keycard, dropped it once, twice—my blood-slicked fingers refusing to obey. When the light finally blinked green, I shoved it open, breathless and shaking.
“Mom,” I whispered, voice cracking. “I’m back—”
The words died in my throat.
The room was dark.
The air was colder than it should’ve been.
Something in the silence was wrong—too heavy, too still. My stomach twisted as my eyes adjusted.
The bed was empty. Sheets torn. A lamp on the floor.
And that faint, unmistakable scent—
chamomile,
and blood.
Blood smeared the floor, stark against the faded carpet.
Her clothes lay in tatters—her raincoat ripped, her blouse shredded, her underwear discarded like a cruel afterthought.
Scratch marks clawed the bedstand, the headboard, the floor, as if she’d fought desperately against an unseen force.