by Ella Fields
“Mind your tongue,” he clipped with a hard look at me. “You’re a fucking idiot if you thought you could mess with her daughter and get away with it. Again, what were you bloody thinking, Jude?”
“I just wanted her to…” I couldn’t even finish that sentence. To him, it would sound petty and childish and completely unnecessary.
And everything I’d done to that girl was all those things.
But he didn’t know her as I did. He didn’t know how deep her obsession had swum, and therefore wouldn’t understand why I’d had to go to such extreme lengths.
I’d been freaked out, pissed off, and a myriad of other things I would never know what to do with. None of it mattered now, though.
Not when it seemed the psycho was about to get everything she’d wished for after all.
Fern
I stared at the pictures.
They stared back at me.
Rage had been building, slowly gathering force until I was out of bed and at least showering once a day. So what if I stared at the walls most of the time, unthinking and unblinking. Improvement was improvement. He might have stolen something I’d never get back, but I was still breathing, and with every new breath, it hurt less to do so.
With every bright morning, I felt the gathering dark.
I latched onto it. I needed it. It was my lifeline out of this unbearable place he’d shoved me into with such incurable malice. There was no remorse. There was nothing left but me and the broken beat of my heart.
Jude Delouxe wasn’t capable of showing remorse.
It would ruin that asshole exterior of his. The one he’d never dare let anyone climb beneath.
In the days, weeks, nearly months that’d passed, I’d sometimes find myself wondering what he’d done or what had happened to him to become the cold-blooded creature he was.
The boy I’d crushed on through most of high school was not the same person he used to be. Over the years, he’d shed that self-assured, king of the world veneer, and in its place now stood cocky defiance, ready to lash out at anyone who crossed him.
And crossed him, I had.
It wasn’t my fault he’d found my diary. Okay, so maybe it was my fault. I’d stupidly left it on the bed, never thinking he’d care enough to wonder what it was I’d been doing the day he’d first stepped inside my room.
I’d never been more stupid in my entire life—and I’d done my fair share of stupid shit. Crushing on the school’s token bad boy being the most stupid.
I’d since moved rooms.
My mom couldn’t handle the stench. You need light, or the dark will fester, she’d said.
I’d said nothing and continued to close the curtains. If I had to see the doors to his lair one more time, I feared I’d throw my lamp across the hedge and into the glass.
One day after showering, I returned to find the curtains drawn once more. Instead of closing them, I’d grabbed my bedding and pillows and marched down the hall to the spare room.
It sat opposite my mom’s bedroom with the stairwell between us, but I didn’t mind. She didn’t either. For when she returned from work the following day and found me transferring some of my things, she immediately began to help.
Nothing was said about Jude even though I knew she was well aware of all that’d happened.
I had no desire to talk about it, and she didn’t appear to harbor any interest.
Which meant Coraline had spilled everything.
So, in silence, that was how we’d spent time together—the only time we’d spent together this summer—but that was okay.
It all had to be okay.
The pictures taunted. His green eyes shining under the small light swaying from the ceiling of my closet. I was willing to bet he’d seen them. I was willing to bet he’d not been happy about it.
I wished I’d never pressed my lips to his.
Pity I couldn’t escape him entirely. Last I’d heard from Cory, Jude still planned to attend Ardent Falls University.
But he wouldn’t get his way and scare me off anymore.
I was already packing. This new rage would no longer allow me to be a victim. He wanted to be left alone? Fine. I’d leave him so alone he’d never remember what it was like to have my affection in the first place.
I might have done things the wrong way, but that didn’t mean I deserved to be the laughingstock of the island for weeks on end.
He never deserved my adoration, and so even though it sucked to exist right now, exist I would until he was nothing but a distant, horrible memory.
Sighing, I launched forward and dragged my chipped, chewed-off nails down the articles, paper, and photographs. One by one, they fluttered into a box I’d laid below it, some missing and falling to the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Just getting rid of my beautiful nightmare.”
“Right,” Cory said, then sniffed. “Good, I’m glad.” I whirled to discover she was crying. Her eyes were red. “Maybe you can help me get rid of mine, too?”
My hands started flapping at my sides. “Where do you want me to stab him?” I didn’t know what to do. Her eyes were leaking, and they were puffy as though she’d been crying long before she’d gotten here.
“In his junk,” she deadpanned.
I dragged her out of my old dungeon and down the hall to my new one. “Wait here; it should only take me an hour or two.”
That rewarded me with a wet bout of laughter. “Fern, stop.” She sniffed some more. “Just get the booze and some tissues.”
“On it,” I said, spinning out of the room and racing to the stairs.
When I returned, Cory was sitting in the center of my bed, staring at her phone. “He won’t stop calling me.”
“What happened?” I finally asked, popping the top on the white wine and handing it over.
“He…” She stopped, took a deep swig from the bottle, then cried, “He cheated on me.”
I felt myself sway, a tiny shocked laugh escaping without permission because there was no way. There was no way the guy who looked at her as if he’d been handed his every dream in life would ever willingly fuck that up. “No,” I finally said. “He wouldn’t.”
“He admitted it,” she said, leaning forward to emphasize each word. “He fucking admitted it, Fern. He came to my apartment last night with dinner, as planned, and just fucking blurted it out like it’d been eating him alive.” She paused then, thinking. “And looking back at how he’s been acting these past weeks, yeah,” she said, nodding and drinking. “Yeah, it probably has.”
“He’s been acting weird again?”
“Worse than weird. He’d see me, but he wouldn’t talk, and he hasn’t wanted to have sex…” she stopped, rubbing her forehead as more tears dripped free. “God, Fern. He really honest to god fucked everything up. It’s all ruined. We…” Drawing in a heaving breath, she choked out, “We’re ruined.”
I grabbed the bottle before it fell over my bed and set it on the floor. Then I sat next to her and plucked several tissues from the box.
She took them, crying but otherwise silent as I rubbed her back. “I just don’t understand,” I said after some minutes had passed. “I don’t understand why he’d do that to you.”
“You and me both, and he said they made him do it.” She laughed then, but there was no mirth to it. “Can you believe that? As if someone can actually make someone cheat on their girlfriend.”
“They?” I frowned. “Wait, was he heaps drunk? Did someone take advantage of him?”
“No,” she howled. “They made him.”
“Who are they? His friends?”
“He wouldn’t say,” she said, scrubbing a tissue beneath her nose. “He said he couldn’t say anything else, and so I told him to leave.”
I didn’t dare ask if she’d spoken to him since. His name flashing on the screen of her phone told me they hadn’t. And I didn’t dare ask if they’d broken up.
I peeked at my phone in my lap, waiting for a text from Cory
after asking how she was doing. A stupid question, probably, but I needed to check in, and Mom had hurried me out the door as I was texting.
“Where are we going again?” I asked her now.
January, seated across from me in the back of the Town Car, expelled a breath and grabbed a bottle of champagne from the minibar. The Town Car now made more sense. We rarely used them unless she needed to for work, to drink or was planning to drink. “I’ve been in denial, I’m afraid.”
I made a face. “Huh?” She popped the lid. “About what?”
We rolled farther into town, and she put the visor up, ensuring the driver wasn’t privy to whatever it was she was muttering about.
“I’ve tried,” she said, seeming close to tears.
“Mom,” I said, a nervous laugh accompanying my next words. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer, just drank straight from the bottle. And then she drank some more. She kept going until she’d nearly polished off half the bottle.
Her anxiety was making me anxious.
“Do I need some of that?” I tried to joke.
“Oh, probably.” She handed it over, and I took it, alarm snaking through me. “We’re almost there, so I’d hurry up and drink.”
I set the bottle back in the fridge, needing something to do. “Almost where?”
“You’ll see. Put your seat belt on.”
I rolled my eyes but clipped it on.
“I daresay you’ve heard rumors every now and then about some of the people who live on the island.”
“You’ll need to be more specific, I’m afraid,” I said, frowning. “Rumors are social currency here, and I’m not a very social person.”
She plucked at nothing on her tight cream dress. “You’ve not heard murmurings of the society?”
“Are you referring to the council meetings you attend?” I wondered what that had to do with anything. “What, are they like secret meetups for singles or something?”
Mom snorted. “Hardly, and no, I’m talking about Nightingale.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Them,” she said. “We’ve been born into it, and the only other way in is via marriage.”
I was so confused right now. “Born into…” I laughed, suggesting with sarcasm, “Oh, like a for-real secret society?”
“Yes, and it’s far more deranged than any rumors could suggest. I’ve tried.” She moaned then and rubbed her temples. “Lord, have I tried, but this day was always coming, and I’ve just been too chickenshit to put my naïve, off with the fairies child through it.”
“Hey,” I said, annoyed. “Wait, what?”
“You heard me. It’s time for you to initiate, Fern, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it. But what I have done,” her voice lowered, her eyes sharp on mine, “is made your arrival far easier than most.”
Initiate.
Arrival.
What in the love of fuck was happening right now?
“You’re joking, right?” Laughing again, I shook my head. “This sounds like a cult.”
“Call it what you like, but just keep your mouth shut around those who’re not members.” When I opened said mouth to ask one of the billion other questions, she snapped, “The rest can wait until we’re in my office.”
The car pulled into a driveway behind the hotel, and a man in a dark navy suit opened my door. “Good morning, ladies.”
“The paperwork is on my desk?” Mom asked, throwing her arm around when I failed to move.
I climbed out, and he closed the door behind me. “Ready and waiting.”
“Thank you, Dick.”
Dick? “I thought your assistant’s name was…” Oh. “Never mind.”
“Richard does whatever I tell him and that includes tolerating the name Dick.”
“Why not just call him Rich? Rick? Or I don’t know, maybe even Richard?” I asked as we stepped inside two blacked-out glass doors and entered a stark, glowing foyer.
“Life’s a bitch, Fern. One must take enjoyment wherever they can. If that’s at the expense of others, then so be it.” She then added dryly, “Besides, he’s paid too much to care.”
I wasn’t about to argue, but I did withhold a laugh.
We entered an elevator fit for at least twenty people. With the exception of the back wall, which was mirrored, the rest was all glass, granting view to every floor.
I caught glimpses of rooms, and as we rose higher, what appeared to be conference rooms. When we reached the top, I felt my stomach drop. You could see the entire island, and then it just fell away, replaced by water and small glimpses of Ardent Falls and Old Isle. “Wow.”
Mom stayed silent, and then the doors opened with a ping to reveal a huge foyer that broke into two hallways. Upon the ceiling were fat babies with wings, playing amongst the clouds between patches of glass shielded sky.
We moved straight ahead, gliding past weird writing in gold frames. I struggled to keep up, let alone ask what they were.
And then I saw it at the end of the hall.
Inside a black gilded frame was the same picture as Jude’s tattoo. This one was larger, more detailed. The birds taking flight from the mouths of the snakes and soaring toward the frame glittered in a way that made it seem like they were moving each time you tilted your head.
Nightingale.
“Fern,” Mom called. “You’re not supposed to be here yet, so we need to make this quick.”
“Mom,” I said, at a loss for words. I pointed at the picture, my head swimming.
“Shit, are you going to faint?”
Unsure, I used the wall for support as I waded to her as though I was walking through quicksand. “I thought your office was on the ground floor.”
“That’s a decoy.”
“A what and why?”
“Enough,” she said, waving me into what was apparently her real office, the door already open. “Sit.”
In a soft brown leather chair, I waited for her to quit pacing behind her desk. She’d be a while, so I looked around and studied the stained floor-to-ceiling shelves. Upon them sat thick black books with silver and gold embossed spines. No words labeled them, but roman numerals.
“Fern, you need to initiate before you turn nineteen.”
She hadn’t stopped pacing. “Why?”
“It’s tradition, and exceptions are rarely made. So,” she said, her shoulders rising and falling with a loaded breath, “you need to sign these.”
“Um.” I stared at the papers she pushed across the concrete slab she called a desk. “I’m going to need more information about what’s going on first.”
“Younglings aren’t usually told more than what they need to know. I’ve told you all I can, and until you’re in, you cannot know more.”
Well, shit. “I don’t think I want to do this.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
I could tell, peering up into her face, the immovable iced expression, that I wouldn’t be leaving here until I’d signed the awaiting papers that laid before me.
“What exactly am I signing?”
Mom didn’t falter. “A marriage agreement, your ironclad NDA, and a marriage license.”
My eyes blurred, and I wheezed, “Marriage?”
“You will marry Jude Delouxe in thirty-five days, and you will do so in front of the entire enclave to swear fealty to a cause that will protect and serve you, as you shall serve it, for the rest of your life.”
Breath fled me so fast that I thought I would faint. “Sorry, but could you repeat that?” My voice was thick with shock. “Because I think you just said I need to marry…”
“Jude Delouxe, yes.”
I’d always known she was a little unhinged, but this was too much. “If you think I’m going to marry the guy who not only broke my heart but also cut it up and served it on a golden platter for everyone to stare and laugh at, you’re insane.” I swallowed when she didn’t speak. She did nothing but stare at me, her brow ticking with impatien
ce. “And for the rest of my life? This entire thing is just… ridiculous and unbelievable and no.”
“You and Jude can terminate the marriage after twelve months.”
“That’s not…” I paused, baffled and about to vomit. “I need that drink.”
“You’re pale. Are you going to puke?”
I couldn’t answer. My head was spinning, and my heart was screaming. I couldn’t do this.
Why was she making me do this?
I must have said those last words out loud, or she read the question in my wet eyes.
Sighing, Mom rounded her desk and came to stand before me, tipping my chin up. “No one fucks with you and gets away with it. It was too perfect not to take advantage of.”
Fiancé.
Husband.
How was it fair that dreams come true only in the form of nightmares?
“Mom…”
“Shhh.” Both hands clasped my cheeks, her thumbs rubbing away my fear. Her own eyes glistened with tears she’d never allow to fall. “Right now, you think I’ve done this to hurt you, but you will see in time that I’ve protected you. Your heart might be broken, but your soul?” She sniffed, smiling a little. “Your soul will forever remain untouched.”
She was wrong. It was already stained beyond recognition.
Before I could ask if hers was, too, she released me and dropped something into my lap.
An engagement ring. “I don’t want it.” Horrified, I stared down at the velvet green box. Green. “I don’t want any of this.”
“You don’t get a choice. You’re my only child, and so you have to. Trust me, this could be a thousand times worse. Just ask your new fiancé.” I gaped at her, and she jabbed her finger at the ring. “Put it on.”
My hands shook as I opened the velvet box and stared at the glittering diamonds inside. They mocked me, taunted me with what-ifs that would never see the light of day. A common daydream, to wonder when and how you might be proposed to, what that ring might look like, and how you might feel. Overjoyed, shocked, and so in love.
I was shocked all right, but there was no joy, no love—I highly doubted there ever would be. There was only loathing and resentment and fear.
I snapped the box closed and cleared my throat. “Later. Hand me a pen.”