“I think what Alexander is trying to say in his terrible, very stupid way,” Rome interjected. “Is that he’s concerned for you. If you get caught with a Lower, then his dad could call the whole engagement off. And we all know that would be disastrous for you and your social clout in Upper society. If you lose Remington here, you’re never going to get married.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” I replied, still annoyed that Alexander was so clumsy with his words.
“Then you’ll be beholden to your parents forever, Willow,” Alexander replied with horror. “You’ll never be your own person, and you’ll be at the mercy of whoever takes over their estate when they die. If you don’t have a child, then their money and businesses get absorbed by whoever they’ve partnered with. You know all this. Why do you forget such important things?”
“I don’t think I ever knew it,” I replied and rubbed my head. There was a dull pounding there now, and I was exhausted at last as everything caught up to me at once. “It feels like new information. Just when I think I’m getting back to my old self, something like this happens, and I feel like I’ll never get there. I’ll always feel disconnected like this.”
“Just relax,” Alexander said, pulling me down onto the bed. “You need to sleep, little sparrow. You need time to recover, that’s all.”
“Besides, maybe we don’t want the old you back,” Rome said, moving out of the way to make room for me between them. “You were kind of a bitch.”
I laughed and let them kiss my stress away. I could relax if I had to, and in their arms, it was so much easier than on my own.
But still, they had to leave at some point in the middle of the night. As Uppers, their rooms were not monitored, so they could come and go as they wished. Getting back to bed at three in the morning wasn’t a big deal for them, but they couldn’t stay out all night. And they couldn’t be caught in my room, or I would be punished again.
The moment they were gone, the silence suffocated me, though. And when I turned out the lights, the dark terrified me to the point that I could barely breathe as I reached over and turned my bedside lamp back on.
I had to sleep like that, with the lamp glowing brightly beside me. Every time I woke, I needed to see it there, like a guide in the night.
And still, every time I closed my eyes, it felt like I was back in the Pit.
And I felt like I was falling like I would never be whole again.
Whatever Matron Baker and Mr. Remington had intended to do to me, it had worked. Part of me would carry it with me for the rest of my life, and part of me would never leave the Pit.
They’d broken me, but just a part of me. There was enough left that I would survive, and I would thrive.
Even if I had to face the dark to do it.
CHAPTER5
“Harlow, wait!”I called to my friend as she hurried across the campus. It was a foggy, chilly morning about a week after we’d returned, and she had been overtly avoiding me ever since. She was huddled once again inside an oversized black hoodie with the hood pulled up around her, shielding her face from the dim light of the sun that made it through the mist.
She didn’t slow down or give any indication that she had heard me other than trying to speed up. I was desperate to talk to her and desperate to find out what Baker had done to her. Matron Baker was on my short list of people I wanted to hurt, I’d even considered telling my parents about the horrors of the Pit, but Alexander had talked me out of it. Since his father had been the one to order it, my parents wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. They were lower on the Upper food chain. Hell, everybody was.
“Come on, Harlow,” I said as I caught up to her from behind. “You can’t avoid me forever.”
“Just try me,” she said and pulled the hoodie tighter around her bony frame. I couldn’t believe the difference in her, and from this close, they were even more apparent. Her face was so gaunt, and her hollowed cheeks gave her the illusion of being the walking dead. Her once bright, sparkling eyes were dull, and I could sense a simmering resentment beneath their surface.
“Please,” I said and touched her arm. She pulled away as if burned and glanced around to see if anybody else was around. They weren’t, it was too early on a Saturday, and the only reason I’d gotten up was to intervene when Harlow went for her early morning secret smoke. Even after everything that had happened, she was like clockwork with her habits. “We need to talk. Let me come with you. We can be in private.”
Harlow glanced around again. She furtively slid her eyes back and forth across the campus and finally shrugged. “Fine, it’s a free world.”
I was elated. That was about the most enthusiasm I was going to get from her as far as I was concerned, so I’d take it.
I followed close behind to make sure she didn’t elude me again, and we pushed through the hedge into our secret hiding spot. It was cooler inside than it was on the grass, and I pulled my own jacket around my body to guard against the cold.
We took a seat on our usual bench, and she pulled out a pack of cigarettes with a shaking hand. She pulled a single one out, popped it between her lips, and put the pack back into an inside pocket in her hoodie. She pulled out a matchbook, tore off a match, and scraped it across the bottom. Her hands shook even harder as she held the flame to the end of the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
I could almost feel the nicotine flood my own lungs, and I had the sudden urge to draw in smoke to match my friend. I longed for the sweet, acrid tang of it swirling around my mouth, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask her for one. I chickened out because I was so worried that she already hated me more than I could handle.
“So what is it?” she asked as she exhaled her second drag. “Why do you keep staring at me like you’re looking at a ghost? Didn’t you think I was coming back?”
“I didn’t know you were gone,” I replied. “I only found out the day I came back.”
Her head turned to me sharply, and she squinted her eyes in disbelief. “Right. So you weren’t in the Pit then?”
“I was,” I replied. “I was there the entire time.”