Chapter 25 The Greenhouse
Sapphire
The glowing streetlamps illuminate our naked bodies.
The cold, wet cobblestone street presses into my back and thighs, and dampens my ratty hair. The fog and light misting shimmer across the twinkling night sky, casting a blanket of white shadows across the Chandelier Main Street.
“I should have killed him,” Niklaus mutters next to me. His deep, groggy voice is worn and beat down.
It feels like we haven’t slept in weeks. From being naked in a blizzard cave to being naked in Uncle Niles basement, strapped to a dirty mattress—I’ve aged one hundred years.
“No.” Fuck. My throat is in shreds, funneling a sea of sand and gravel. “His end is too satisfying to mess up.”
Niklaus sits up next to me, scanning the empty street, then grimacing down at me. And although I’m in nothing my undergarments, I don’t fucking care. My skin is probably unrecognizable. Black and blue. Streaks of gushing red.
“You sound like hell,” he comments, eyes dropping to the shiny cobblestone. “Did he…”
There’s a long pause before I shake my head, fighting to keep myself from sobbing over the idea of how close he came. How if I didn’t bide my time, scare him with what I know of his future and past, he absolutely would have assaulted me.
Niklaus glances up at the stars, sighing. “How bad did he hurt you?”
I roll my shoulders, arch my back, stretch my arms and legs, and wince at the long beam of pain radiating through my nervous system.
“No broken bones,” I rasp, then caress my fingertips at the fire eating away at my throat from Albatross’s strangulation.
“He beat you before he tried to choke you to death?”
I nod.
A few gentlemen turn the corner across the street, cigars in hand. They adjust their bowler hats to get a better look at us. Niklaus and I come to the same realization as we shift and attempt to scramble to our feet. He pops right up. I nearly faint from the effort.
“We’re going to get thrown into that fucking asylum if we don’t find somewhere to hide. I’m guessing by their outfits that we aren’t back home yet,” Niklaus whispers.
I prop myself on my elbows, panting with trembling muscles.
“Don’t fight me on this.” Niklaus lifts me off the ground, cradling my body to his chest and abdomen.
I want to laugh at his comment. I’m not stubborn enough to refuse help right now, even if it is from him.
Each step is a fight not to scream or groan through my teeth, my bones protesting as they grind and smoosh against my wounds.
My body doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It’s a distraught collection of bruises and inflammation.
But even through the jostling of his brisk walk down the midnight main street, I am stubborn enough not to rest my head against his shoulder.
I hold the muscles in upper back pin straight, putting myself through agony to maintain my posture.
“Just do it,” Niklaus says.
No.
But the weight of the night, the pain, the ongoing thumping steps loosens the grip I have on my position. I slump in his arms, dropping the side of my head to his chest.
We take a deep breath in unison.
His bare skin is warm despite the chilled breath of foggy air swarming our nearly nude bodies. It’s soothing against my cheek. Calming. Making it easy to drift—
“Son of a bitch!”
Ice-cold hands touch my bare stomach.
Liquid rolls of my skin.
I’m on the mattress again. My arms restrained, my legs—
“Relax,” Niklaus growls. “I’m cleaning you up. You’ll get an infection and die. Then I’ll really be stuck here.”
Moonlight pours through frosted glass, casting a green glow over the sheer ceiling. Vines. Flowers. Shrubs. Potted plants. The earthy scent of wet soil and moth balls. This room is a cocoon of warmth, yet I shiver violently.
“We’re in my father’s greenhouse,” Niklaus explains reluctantly.
My back flexes and goes stiff.
“We have to get away from him…” I choke, barely able to get volume above a scratchy whisper.
“Not Niles. My birth father.”
I look around awkwardly. Oh.
“I don’t think he ever came out to his greenhouse much. Just his gardener. We should be safe for now.”
I have been in this greenhouse before. This great big house is where Aunt Ruth and Uncle Warrose used to stay when they would visit, until Niklaus moved in when he turned eighteen.
Krimson and I would hide in here when we’d mischievously hide Uncle Warrose’s weapon’s belt so he couldn’t leave. Then he’d find it, and we’d fill his boots with rocks to slow him down.
He’d find us camping out in this greenhouse and call us the twins from hell. He’d say that this was our father’s way of laughing at him from his coma. All the while, I could swear his hazel eyes would glisten with tears as he’d say goodbye to us.
“Any idea”—I clear the gravel in my throat—“of where in time we are?”
Niklaus wrings out a blood-stained sponge in a metallic bowl of bloody water. He pauses as russet drops drips from his hands.
“I saw your mother walk into the house. In a navy-blue conformist’s dress.”
A ghost without a name presses its cold forehead to mine, and my soul flinches at the sudden realization that we are here. In the era my parents first met, so close to the infamous asylum that has been dissected and over-analyzed by savants.
“Really?” I hold my breath.
Niklaus glances at me in response, gently dabbing at a spot on my ribs with the sponge. His large hands are calloused but careful, treating this act of service like a task rather than a kindness. And with even, controlled breath, he tears off a piece of gauze with his teeth.
“Where did you get the supplies?” I ask.
I watch his black lashes lower as he presses medical tape into my skin.
“I snuck into his house.”
I lift my chin. I suppose that wasn’t too hard for him to do, considering he knows the estate better than anyone at this point.
“Did you see him?” I press.
“No.”
I take in a deep breath through my nose as he cleans the wounds on my right cheekbone. The garden air is humid, heavy with the scent of wet soil and fallen flower petals. As he mimics my deep breath, I can tell the scent soothes him.
“Do you want to talk about what happened with Uncle Niles?”
His eyes snap up to meet mine, darkening like a tide pulling back before a violent wave.
“Do you think this is social hour?” he says slowly, with condescending lethal precision.
My eyebrows raise. “What the fuck have I done to make you hate me so much?”
“I don’t hate you, Spitfire.” His dark eyebrows pull together in concentration, applying a last bit of ointment to my temples. “I just really don’t give a damn about you.”
The ointment seems to have strong, medicinal properties as the throbbing pain in every section of my upper body dissolves into a low, thrumming irritation.
I sigh, stretching out my sore limbs as I’m able to get off the mossy stone floor, standing in a flowy, ivory nightgown. I tug at the satin ribbon around the empire waist. The fabric smells of vintage lavender. He must have stolen it from the house.
“Glad we cleared that up,” I say, nodding once then turning to exit. “Then you won’t mind if I return to our time without you.”