Chapter 33 – Desta #3
“So are you!” I bellow as I try to slide my way slowly down the fabric.
It’s nearly impossible without going full tilt.
There is no going slow like this. It’s all or nothing.
“He didn’t have to die!” It guts me that he’s gone.
That I brought this on him. Maybe it was all about the money and the tiara, but he risked his life for me. More than once.
“He did. But you don’t. Please. Let’s talk. We just need to talk, and you’ll understand.”
I grip the blanket tighter. “You’ve lied to me my entire life.”
Her dark hair, streaked with gray, flies up as a gust of wind shoots past us and smashes me back into the stone, shoulder-first. I whimper, fresh tears burning my eyes at the pain. My muscles are giving out on me, and I don’t know how much longer I can hold on.
“Oh my god! You’re going to fall.”
“Stop!”
“Everything I did was to protect you. To keep you safe. To have you stay mine. I loved your father, the king, so much. I got pregnant, and he made me have an abortion. Then he left me for her, and he got her pregnant. Only there was no abortion this time. She had the baby. I couldn’t take it.
The queen raised you until my sister made threats to take you once the king ended it with her. She was wild and unstable.”
My eyes pinch shut.
“You should have been mine. Not hers. She stole you from the palace, from your home there, but I’m the reason you’ve been safe since.
I’m the reason you’ve grown into who you are.
My sister had nothing. You would have lived in poverty, moving from place to place.
Please. You’re my daughter, and I love you. ”
Chaos swarms within me. Nothing in my life is real. I wasn’t the daughter of the queen? That’s a mind fuck.
Before I can react or respond, my hands slip, and I go shooting down the sheets until I hit the knot where it connects to the blanket.
I scream as I come to a jerking stop, my body flailing.
With that, it dislodges the knot and the blanket along with it.
I plummet to the ground with no way to stop it.
I hear Antonia call out my name, but there’s nothing she can do either.
The blanket provides the mocking suggestion of a buffer only to disappoint. I land on my left side, my hand outstretched to break my fall. It works in that my body doesn’t take the brunt but fails when my wrist audibly cracks and pain, sharp and hot, bands around it.
I cry out, tears instantly stinging my eyes, but Antonia rushing through the cottage on her way out to me hands me a fresh wave of adrenaline.
I get to my feet and take off. I don’t look back.
I don’t listen to what Antonia says as she shouts after me.
I don’t slow down. I keep my broken wrist tucked against my chest and let my legs do the rest, aiming for the gate.
I punch in the code, grateful she hasn’t changed it, and break through.
It hasn’t even been a week since I did this the first time, and it makes me miss Ferrin more.
He changed my life. He took an idea, a dream, and turned it into reality for me.
I’ll always be grateful to him. I’ll always think of him.
But right now, I need to save myself.
Earth crunches beneath my feet, the cool mantle of leaves providing a welcome barrier from the sun.
Shouts and footsteps behind me die off as I run deeper into the woods.
I have no clue where I’m going, nor did I pay attention to whether this was the same route Ferrin and I took last time.
I have no food or water and no phone. Ferrin led the charge last time, but he had his phone’s GPS, and I have nothing.
Not to mention I have a broken wrist that’s “throbbing like a motherfucker,” to quote him.
I slow my steps and collapse against a tree, panting for my life.
I tuck myself against the rough bark and glance around it, but it’s just me out here. If she’s following me, I’ve lost her.
With my good hand and my teeth, I rip the bottom of my T-shirt until it’s one long strip of fabric. I secure my wrist with it, binding a twig against it to keep it straight. It’s excruciating, and tears streak a path down my cheeks.
What would my life have been like if I had never left the cottage as my mother told me? I never would have made it. I know that now. I was truly at my end, and Ferrin showed up right in time. It’s been a rough six days, but also… the best of my life.
Ferrin. It’s hard to be mad at him, even if hating him would be easier right now than what I’m feeling. Was I really just a money grab to him? Was he that good at deception?
Or was there more to us that he didn’t want to acknowledge?
I choke out a bitter, pain-laced laugh. It doesn’t matter now. He’s gone, and I’m here.
I start through the woods, having no clue where I’m headed.
I do the only thing I can do. I walk. And walk.
And fucking walk. I’m hurting, I’m dehydrated, I’m hungry, and I’m coming off whatever drugs have been pumped into my system.
I’m covered in sweat and dirt and leftover lake grime.
I don’t have my bag. I don’t have any money.
Maybe I can walk into that town again. Find Masters and see what he can do for me.
Eventually, I reach the other side of the woods and find the road. I start off for the town, determination keeping me going.
That is, until a car comes and pulls up beside me.