Slade will be worrying. I was supposed to meet him in the library, so he’ll know something’s wrong since I didn’t show up. I just need to rest, to bide my time and pray for the day to come.
After a few quiet minutes tick by, the heaviness of my body drags me into an in-between place where pain doesn’t exist. I drift, like a boat without an anchor, lost in a shallow sea.
Yet I’m washed right back up to the rocky shore again, jerking against a collision of awareness when a noise clanks in the hall.
The door suddenly swings open, making me jerk upright, sending my back into snaps of torment again.
I barely have time to react before four guards rush in and grab me. Two of them hoist me up by my arms, another one blocks my feet when I try to kick out, and the last one is Scofield, who steps up and blocks my view of Digby.
I can hear Digby cursing and some kind of scuffle ensuing, but my eyes widen when Scofield holds up familiar white petals, freckled with blood-red dewdrops.
“No!” Through panic and frenzy, I struggle to fight off the guards, but the moment one of them grazes against my back, I cry out in agony, the fight pouring out from the wounds.
“Is that too much?” one of the other guards questions.
“King Midas’s orders,” Scofield replies, a look of guilt flashing past his eyes for a moment, though it does nothing to placate the hate I feel for him. “Just hold still, my lady,” he pleads, as if he wants me to make this easier for him.
“Fuck you!” I heave, vision bursting with circles of black that threaten to stain my consciousness.
“Don’t hurt her!” Digby shouts before hissing in a breath.
A snarl rips from my throat when Scofield moves just enough for me to see ginger-headed Lowe holding Digby down.
“Open, my lady.”
My gaze is ripped away from Digby as Scofield shoves the petals toward my mouth, but I snap at him, teeth as vicious as a timberwing, hard and quick enough that I draw blood.
He curses and flinches his hand back, looking at me with a flash of anger. Using his other hand, he grips my cheeks and then squeezes hard on my jaw, forcing my lips to part. Before I can so much as curse him, he shoves three petals inside my mouth, clamps my jaw shut, and then covers both of his hands over my mouth and nose.
I feel the saccharine liquid coating my tongue, feel the petals dissolving in my mouth. I try to spit, but Scofield presses my lips hard against my teeth, not letting me open. The inside of my lip slices open as I struggle, but I can’t breathe with his hand clamped over my face.
My body panics at the lack of air, and then it betrays me by swallowing. The second I do, horror fills my eyes.
Too much. They gave me too damn much.
Scofield lets go, and I cough out huge gasps of torn breath that rip right from the center of my chest. “Get your fucking hands off her!” Digby growls.
“It’s okay, Dig,” I gulp, because I can’t let him take another beating. I need him to live. Need him to let me go without a fight that will only leave him even worse for wear.
“It’s not fucking okay!”
The drug hits me instantly, like being pushed into a lake, the slap of the surface jolting me from head to toe. My mind folds in, the pages of a book creased right down the center, jumbling my thoughts, crimping my words.
I can’t even think straight. I’m just full body spasms, a shredded tongue, a bowed spine, a spinning stomach. And heat. Unbearable heat connected to my core that makes me throb right at the center.
No...
My burning eyes lift to Digby one last time before I’m dragged out of the room. My chin slumps against my chest, body succumbing to unnatural warmth. I fade into unconsciousness, hearing Digby’s last shout and the door slamming shut.
But in my head, I’m whispering, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.
Chapter 43
AUREN
Ten Years Ago
I’ve started sitting beneath the dock of the harbor.