22. Angélique
22
Angélique
I ’m screwed.
I’m so much worse than screwed.
What felt like my last resort turned out to be what is going to break me.
I’m going back home.
Home.
I don’t think I can call Versailles home anymore. I’m not even sure I could have ever called it that.
Elhyor is sending me back to my prison.
And I’m scared of what torture my father will find to punish me for not being able to kill the dragon.
A dragon who can’t be killed.
Did my father know he was sending me on an impossible mission?
He wouldn’t do that.
And why would he accept me back? And even weirder, why would he want to meet in three days?
That doesn’t sound right.
Is he giving me more time? That doesn’t sound like him.
I mull over the idea as I grit my teeth.
The pain coursing through my hand is awful. Each time I try to move the hand he forced around my other dagger—making my pierced hand the only thing holding me up—in hope to get myself out of that joke of a crucifixion, it jolts the hand currently pinned with my first dagger, and it’s like my hand is cut all over again.
It’s excruciating, and until that, I thought I was brave, but there’s nothing in me that could make me release my good hand and let the other be completely torn, just to get on the ground, even if I’d rather be running already than be there when my father comes to pick me up—if he does that himself.
Time is so slow. I think it’s been more than an hour since I’ve been hung on this cross and can’t decide if the extra pain of a torn hand is worth my freedom.
It should be, but what will I do?
Just run once I’m down from the cross?
I’ve got no money, no idea where to flee to, and even fewer ways to flee.
I also need to get rid of that damn tracker Anne put on me before arriving here. I thought that she had stuck it to my shirt, but I was wrong. She stuck it to my skin, and the piece of technology has slowly dug underneath. Now, if I pay extra attention, I can feel it when I pass my hand over the right side of my backbone.
I didn’t know a tracker could do that—dig under your skin on its own—and it made me wonder if I didn’t have any others without my knowledge.
I checked—thrice—and I’m all good, except for the one next to my spine, of course.
So, it has to go.
Well, as soon as I gather the courage to tear the dagger out of my hand.
What would be worse? Getting the dagger with the hilt through the already existing hole? Make the dagger cut more of my hand on the side? Or between my fingers?
Cutting the side of my hand sounds like the easiest way, but it will break bones, so it might be the most painful of the solutions.
Between the fingers sounds like the least damaging solution, but I have no idea how I could do that. It would most likely involve me letting myself fall to the ground and dangling from my own hand. I shiver just at the thought.
Getting the hilt through my hands has the most risk of crushing some more of my bones inside my hands, and will be almost as painful as cutting through the side.
Nothing sounds really good to me, but I can’t stay on the cross all day long.
I need to be long gone when my father comes.
I take a deep breath.
Here goes nothing .
In one move, I turn my hand so that my fingers are pointing up, tighten my core, raise my knees, and turn my entire body in the direction of my pinned hand.
I grab the dagger as fast as I can and push myself away from the wall with both feet.
Fuck, that hurts like hell.
I’m panting, but I don’t take the time to look at the mess I made—well, truly, it’s Elhyor’s mess—and remove my tank top.
I need to stop the bleeding in my hand, and even if I sweat under the sun earlier, I’ve got nothing cleaner with me now.
My heart is pumping so fast with the adrenaline that blood is gushing out of my palm.
I wrap my hand with my top. As long as I can make it stop bleeding, it should heal.
Not as fast as that damn dragon, not even as fast as any shifter, since I can’t shift, but it’ll heal.
Well, it’ll heal the way the hand stays. I just have to hope that no bone needs to be reset or that, if there are any broken bits, they’re still where they’re supposed to be.
I wouldn’t have to think about that part if only I could shift.
But since that first time, I’ve never shifted again, and I don’t even think I would know how to do it now.
Fuck.
I need to go.
Pick my stuff up and get the hell away from here.
Maybe find a doctor, too.