I shrug again.
He throws a light punch into my shoulder, egging me on.
“Okay then, that’s fine. How about I leave you with this…I’m going to ask Father if I can marry Everly and he’s going to agree.”
My blood runs cold. I clench my jaw.
“I’ve never shown an interest in having a wife before and he’ll be only too happy to oblige.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“Why? ‘Cause I like her. She’s fight and she has heart. She fights hard. It’s difficult to find a woman like that. A woman like that is wasted on you.”
I try to push my way out of the guards’ grasp, but they tighten their grip.
“And when we are married, she will be mine to do with what I want for as long as I want. And you’ve seen nothing yet.”
A rush of anger from deep inside of me comes to the surface and I break free from the guards’ grasp.
I launch my body on top of Abbott’s, pushing him down to the floor.
I punch him in the face over and over again as fast as I can until the guards pull me off him.
He didn’t see me coming and he looks dazed and bloodied by the attack.
The guards hit me in the stomach with their batons and push me toward the door.
Just as we’re about to exit, Abbott runs up to me and pushes himself closer to my ear.
“You are going away, brother. For a long, long time. And as you sit in that cell all alone for years to come, for a crime you didn’t commit, you will think of all the things I’m doing to your pretty girl. Better yet, I’ll send you some pictures and videos to keep you occupied and I’ll make sure that the guards make you watch them. ‘Cause I want you to know just how much she’s going to suffer in my hands. And just how much I hate you.”
Chapter 17 - Easton
When I’m alone…
When they take me back to my cell, I am covered in blood and my fists are throbbing. I pace around like a caged animal.
My thoughts are completely focused on Abbott and everything that I’m going to do to him.
The punches he received just now aren’t enough.
Nowhere near enough.
I just need the opportunity to throw one big one.
The kind that would knock him out for good.
Once and for all.
One punch homicide.
A man can dream, at least.
Unfortunately, I doubt that I will have the opportunity.
Abbott had laid it all on the line and he had made threats against Everly.
He’s a lot of things, but he is also a man of his word.
What he says he will do to Everly, he will likely do to her.
My fists ball up in anger and I throw one at the wall.
Luckily, I take a step back just in time before I make contact.
My knuckles are already bloody and worn, and a collision with the wall would surely break my hand.
No, he’s not worth that. I swing through the air again, trying to calm myself down.
A nurse comes in to take a look at me.
She bandages me up and gives me some pills for the pain.
Advil, nothing too exciting.
She asks me questions about how I’m feeling, but I’m too wired to carry on a conversation.
And then something occurs to me.
“Everly, do you know, Everly?” I ask.
She looks into my eyes.
Her skin is lined and older, but her eyes twinkle as if they belong to a teenager.
“Everyone knows Everly,” she says quietly.
“You have to warn her. You have to tell her what Abbott intends to do,” I plead.
She may be a House of York loyal or she might be a rebel.
I have no idea where her loyalties lie, but I have to try.
I have to reach out. I don’t really have anything else to lose.
“I will warn her,” the nurse says, pushing her dark hair out of her face. “But I have a feeling she already knows what’s coming.”
“You have to help her,” I whisper. “You have to help her run away. She can’t stay here anymore.”
“This is an island, sir. There’s nowhere to go.”
“That’s why you have to help her. There are boats and planes. People do get off this island, but they need friends.”
The nurse shakes her head.
“Please,” I plead.
“I can lie to you and say that I will,” she says with a deep exhale, “but you will know as well as I do that that’s an impossible thing to ask.”
I know.
It’s unfair.
It would put her life in danger.
If she is caught…she would be sent away to a labor camp or worse.
Yet, I have to ask.
For Everly’s sake.
“As much as I want to help her, I can’t risk it. I have a family.”
She leaves shortly after as I slump into my bed and close my eyes.
A sense of helplessness fills the air and feels like it’s choking me.
I can’t breathe.
My throat is closing up.
I take it one breath at a time and continue to breathe despite everything.
The hours turn into days.
At first, I try to talk to the guards.
I ask them questions about my case and trial.
I wait and ask again.
But it’s all to no avail.
They don’t respond, and I ask less and less.
Mainly, I just wait.
I sit on the bed and wait. I lie on the bed and wait.
I wait until I can’t wait anymore and then I wait some more.
I don’t know when my trial will be, and I don’t know when I can see Tiger again. I don’t know if there will be any consequences for attacking Abbott.
Here in my cell, in which I spend twenty-four hours a day, I don’t know anything about the outside world.
The one thing that is different from before is that I am no longer taken out for exercise.
Now, even that privilege has been revoked.
Now, I’m just alone with my thoughts all day and all night.
When you are alone all the time, you have a lot of time to think.
But it’s not so much thinking as dwelling.
I don’t have the power to change anything, so I just sit here and steep in my regrets.
And with regret, comes another thought.
It’s quiet at first, sitting in the back of your mind as a possibility.
And then with each passing day, it creeps closer and closer until it’s the only thing you can think about.
My own death.
I don’t have the power to do much, but I do have the power to orchestrate that. I have bed sheets.
I have a bed with a metal frame.
And suddenly, just like that, all I can think about is how much better off I’d be if I weren’t here anymore.
Perhaps, Abbott would lose interest in Everly.
Perhaps, Father would realize that I had nothing to do with Dagger’s death.
If nothing else, I doubt that anyone would miss me anyway.
And there’s that other thought; the sweet relief of death.
At least I wouldn’t have to wait for the inevitable anymore. I can take it into my own hands and end it once and for all.
“Come on, get up!” A loud voice breaks my concentration. “Get up!”
I do as I am told.
I put my hands through the slot in the door and let them put handcuffs on me.
They don’t put the shackles around my legs and I revel in the little bit of freedom this allows me.
Then they open the door and walk me down a long hallway I haven’t seen in who knows how long.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Is the trial starting?
Are they taking me to see Tiger again?
Is the trial beginning?
Or am I finally going out to the exercise yard again?
“You’ll see.”
Part Four
Chapter 18 - Everly
When I’m alone…
I have not heard anything about Easton in days.
Not since that fight he had with Abbott.
I haven’t seen him since the arrest, but the whole mansion is just seeping in gossip over what happened.
All video recording was turned off, so that makes the rumors even more intense and potent.
The guards could only hear a little bit and who knows if what they relayed was even true?
I had my doubts about the whole story in general, until I saw Abbott’s face.
It was a few days after, and his eyes were still like slits.
His whole face was black and blue as if he had been beaten to a pulp.
It took all of my willpower to keep the smile that was rising within from escaping my lips.
Easton had beaten him up.
He had hurt him and now he was in pain.
At least, there has been some retribution for all the evil that Abbott has imparted on the world.
When I saw Abbott’s face, it was only out of the corner of my eye.
After being an almost constant presence in the house, flirting with Olivia and Savannah and even me, he practically disappeared after his fight with Easton.
And when I did see him again?
It was completely by accident.
I was going on a walk with Teal and he had just hopped into a brand new, red Ferrari. I don’t know much about cars, but Teal’s brother is really into them so she educated me.
Though the car was nice to look at, what I really enjoyed was looking at Abbott’s bruised face.
I saw him for only a moment, but I relished in the gruesomeness that Easton had imparted on him for days after.
But, besides this one encounter, my days here at the house after Easton’s arrest have been quite uneventful.
The first night I worried that they would take me away, too, but Mirabelle came and eased my fears.
She promised that she would warn me if they were ever going to come for me and so far, after all of this week, no one has come.
Apparently, the powers that be have decided that Easton had acted alone.
So, for now, I spend my days doing what all the other girls are doing.
Lounging by the pool.
Reading.
Going on walks by the beach.
The guards continue to watch us pretty closely and there are places around the property that are off limits, but other than that, I have a lot more freedom than I did before.
The doors aren’t locked.
I can come and go as I please.
I even have access to the large library, which I lose myself in quite often.
There’re only so many hours in the day that I can watch television and Netflix and I’ve always been more partial to books.
But besides making friends and growing closer to the girls here, there’s one other thing I do to occupy my time.
I wait.
I learn and watch and search, but mostly I wait.
I have explored the area in quite a lot of detail, hence the need to take so many walks. And now I feel like I’m pretty familiar with it.
I can get around, but I still don’t see a way out.
York is an island and an island doesn’t need to have much protection or guards since it’s surrounded completely by water.
Water is a natural barrier.
There are also no boats anywhere near the water and there are no bridges connecting the island to anything else.
On my walks, I have explored most of it quite carefully and I have discovered that this place is like a fortress.
No one comes in or out of it without someone else’s permission.
No wonder they have no issues with me wandering around the place.
There’s nowhere to go.
Or is there?
I have to keep hope alive.
The thing that gave me the strength to make it through those nights of total darkness was hope.
Hope is all you have sometimes and it’s everything.
Without it, you would be lost and with it, you have a reason to keep trying.
My life in the House of York isn’t nearly as bad now as it was then.
There are dark clouds looming up ahead, of course, but for now, life is fine.
Good.
Comfortable.
That’s more than I’ve had before and for that I am grateful.
What does the future hold?
I don’t know exactly but I know the rumors.
Abbott has his eye on me.
He has me in his crosshairs.
I don’t know what’s going to happen at Easton’s trial, but the gossip has been swirling out of control ever since their fight.
Some people are saying that Easton is going to be found guilty for sure, but others are holding out hope.
Almost no one thinks that Easton actually did it, or maybe that’s just something they’re saying to me?
York is a place of secrets and agendas, which makes it hard to decipher what’s true and what’s not.
When I am not outside, wandering the grounds, or hanging out with the girls, I’m usually in my room.
I need the time to decompress and relax.
I lie down on the large king-size bed and bury my head in a book.
I’m reading three or four books a week now, mainly because I need to escape. And burying my head in a book allows me to do just that.
There’s something so relaxing about reading about other people’s problems rather than living in your own.
A knock on the door startles me and I look up from my book.
With the pillows propped up just so behind my back and under my knees, it takes me a moment to actually see who it is.
“Everly,” Mirabelle says and walks up to me.
I’ve gotten pretty close to Mirabelle and I appreciate her candor and openness.
When there are things that she can’t talk about, instead of simply lying she simply says that it’s not something she can discuss.
That kind of honesty is difficult to find.
“What’s up?” I ask, putting the bookmark in to not lose my spot.
“They have a surprise for you.”
Chapter 19 - Everly
When she has a surprise…
Wait, a second.
What kind of surprise?
Good? Bad?
I demand to know more, but Mirabelle just repeats herself.
I understand the words, but not their implication.
“Why can’t you tell me?” I ask.
“I just can’t. Get ready.”
“Now?”
She nods.
I stare at her.
I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt and flip-flops.
I am ready in that I’m dressed, but I don’t know if I’m dressed for this since I don’t know what this is.
“Never mind, you look fine. Follow me.”
I do as she says.
But as I follow her, I throw out more questions at her. Questions that she doesn’t answer.
When it seems like she’s finally exhausted by me, she stops and turns toward me.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on. I have no idea what they’re doing…”
The last bit of the sentence comes out softer than the rest.
She’s right.
Of course, she’s right.
My heart beats loudly.
Each step I take, my head gets flooded with blood and I can barely hear my own thoughts.
Mirabelle leads me out of the main mansion and toward the King’s house.
In all of my explorations, I’ve stayed away from this place because I was told to stay away.
But I know the rumors.
The dungeons, where they kept me and many others are underground.
Is that where they’re keeping him?
But instead of head
ing downstairs down to the basement, Mirabelle makes a turn down a wide hallway with linoleum flooring.
The walls are taupe and have the distinct look of an institution to them.
In fact, they remind me of my middle school. Same dull lighting without a window in sight.
Same flooring which makes a loud sneaking sound when you scruff your feet.
The only difference is that there are no motivational posters on the walls reminding you that you are different from everyone else.
One large hall becomes a smaller waiting room and then an even smaller room.
When we finally reach this small room, Mirabelle says that she is going to leave me here.
“What is this room?” I ask.
There’s a large window in the middle with a view of the water.
But the window doesn’t open; it’s a bay window like the kind they have in hotels.
The room is quite small, about the size of a doctor’s examination room.
There’s a mid-century modern fabric, low-profile couch next to one wall with a matching coffee table in front of it and two gray chairs on opposite ends.
The decor of the room is warm and modern and Scandinavian.
Wealthy without being ostentatious.
Functional and comfortable.
I look around the room carefully, noting that there are no cameras.
At least, no visible ones.
When I look back from the window, Mirabelle is about to leave.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“You don’t want me here for this.”
“For what?”
She gives me a small, mysterious smile out of the corner of her lips and disappears behind the door.
However unusual this is, it is probably not something I should be too concerned about.
I trust Mirabelle.
If whatever awaits me here is going to be bad, she’d warn me. I’m sure of it.
I nod, trying to convince myself further. I do trust Mirabelle, but this is York.
This place is full of surprises.
So, my trust in her has its limits.
But I don’t think she would outwardly deceive me like this.
I walk around the room and look out of the floor-to-ceiling window. It’s a few floors up and I’m at about eye level with the top of the shorter palm trees.
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