Chapter 3. Ophelia #4
Oh. Well, that clears that up. “I … you …”
“I’m not interested in putting you behind bars, Ms. Winters. I’m more interested in keeping Alex and his sisters safe.”
“It was after. It was the day the article went live. It had a … it had a photo in it.”
“To your personal phone?”
“Yes, it’s my only phone.”
“Are you busy tomorrow? I’d like to have a look at your phone to see what I can gather from the text.”
I toe my boot in the wet mud beneath my feet, desperate to leave all of this behind. To leave Bancroft behind, Cain behind, Sorrowsong behind. “I’m not busy.”
His tone is sharp and efficient, like I’m helping him get through his boring to-do list. “Great. I’ll fly in later tonight.”
The line drops before I can ask him anything else, leaving me stranded and shivering on the forested path back to the castle. A shudder up my spine sends a puff of white breath into the frigid air, and when I walk toward my lecture in the tallest spire, eyes weigh heavy on my back the whole time.
A STRONG GUST of wind sweeps through the valley, rattling the ancient window in its frame.
A thin strip of moonlight illuminates the dust on the cold tile of my bedroom. I can hear a few students laughing outside the mansion, despite it being past three in the morning.
I’m fighting sleep. This is how it goes every night: deluding myself into thinking I’m some new breed of human who just doesn’t need rest.
My friendships may be growing, my fitness improving, my grades recovering, but my nightmares couldn’t be any worse. It’s so bad, the guy across the hall has filed a noise complaint.
I was sleeping better when Alex … never mind.
Why did he leave without a word?
I should let this go, move on, think about something else, but I can’t. I understand why he left that day, I understand why he took the CEO position, I understand why he dropped out of university, I understand everything except one thing.
Why didn’t he wake me up and fight for us?
I can only imagine his mental state that morning. Alex was doing better in the months before he left, but I’d still seen him at his lowest. Those sporadic evenings when he’d ask me to leave, tell me he felt so low that he might never get out of bed again.
Depression can be a cruel illness. When I checked the news every ten seconds for the rest of that day, it wasn’t for news of his father’s demise, it was for his.
So like I always do at this hour, when the Nightshade mansion howls and groans under the biting wind, I allow myself to hunt for any scraps of Alex I can find.
He makes it all look easy. I’ve watched each press conference, each blurry paparazzi video. Christ, I even got a one-month subscription to the Financial Times to see an article about him.
When you find yourself reading your third hedge fund managers’ take on the upcoming quarter to get full value out of your news subscription, you know you’ve fallen a bit too hard for a man.
It can’t get lower than this.
Fleur’s Instagram story is a mirror selfie with her new boyfriend. If I wasn’t trying to be less skeptical and judgmental about the world, I’d say he looks like an absolute wanker.
But I am, so I won’t.
Mia still lets me follow her private account with a hundred followers, but she, like the other five of her siblings, has been radio silent for the last month.
I’m worried about him. I hope he started those antidepressants, is keeping up his sessions with Harwood. I hope he’s not spreading himself too thin, but I know he is.
In the eerie darkness, I furiously brush away my tears before they have the chance to fall. I’m angry with myself, frustrated that no matter how many times I try to toughen up, feel less, move on, it doesn’t work.
I want to be more like Belladonna, but it sure is harder than she makes it look.
I shut off my phone, plunging the room into darkness.
I squeeze my eyes shut before they can adjust, before I can see Sofia’s untouched bed, the cobwebs on the walls, the knife on the bedside table.
With the bitter chill of an overnight snow seeping through the walls, I bury my head beneath the blankets and try, try, try to relax.
Ping.
A text notification rings through, loud and clear in the silent room.
I can’t explain the bad feeling that washes over me, the way that ping sounds so much more menacing than the other identical ones today. The note is too high, too shrill, too out of tune. It echoes between the decaying beams above me and lands right in my stomach with a nauseating thud.
Through one squinted eye, as if that might make it any better, I risk a glance at the text.
I let my phone clatter back down to the side table, let my head fall back to the bed. It’s not dread, or horror, or fear that runs through me. It’s exasperation. A complete exhaustion, sapping the fight out of me.
I can’t do this again. I can’t take this anymore.
I turn over, burying my face in the blanket so I don’t have to see the blurry photo, sent from the anonymous number, of me walking out of the swimming pool greenhouse earlier today.