I ignore Sanford’s insinuation that Stein practiced Burbank Gates’s ascension methods on him, too. I do not see the same type of violent, mangled disfigurements anywhere on his person thatIam forced to cover. I do not see years of being treated worse than a stray dog anywhere in his countenance. And when Stein took me away from Karia, Sanford did not stop it. Hehid.
And hesedatedher. Hedruggedher.
In my head, I see her with a knife to her throat, head wrenched backward.
Stein left a few guards here, no doubt to alert him if I came crawling back like the fool I am. It’s true, we did discuss the possibility of it, but if Sanfordknew…
I let him talk me into this, but it wasn’t hard. Iwantto know more. Iwantto understandwhymy life has been a living hell. I can’t stay away from searching for answers, even if it means puttingherin harm’s way. So I agreed to the cab ride. I let the employee he fucked at Dreary Inn serve Karia and I coffee, giving Karia her own carafe. I thought nothing of it, because my head was full ofher.The way she made me feel just last night. The look in her eyes. The scent of her. How vulnerable she was, sleeping in bed beside me. The bruises along her side.
Proof of her love for me.
It did not take long for the sedative to come into effect.
Sanford walked through the door just as she dropped her head clumsily in her hands.
He said it would be better that way. That she did not want to go to Haunt Muren and she would have fought me on it. He said I had to understand how to control her, or she would control me.
And I… don’t disagree.
Fury snaked through my veins as I leapt from my chair to catch her before she hit the floor at the inn, and I loathed Sanford for drugging her, but I think I hated myself more for agreeing with his sentiment.
Still, I waited.
I wanted to see when she would wake.
And she did, on and off, over the course of several hours.
But when she opened her eyes in my arms inside the inn, ascreamstarted to leave her lips.
I muffled the sound.
And I knew what I had to do.
It was either leave her for Stein to find, or take her against her will.
I will always choose the latter.
I made Sanford knock at the great double doors ofthishouse but I sent the cab away as I waited on a bench around thestone fountain of gargoyles out front, Karia in my arms. A guard answered the door with a gun, but Sanford had the knife Karia took from the tree.
He made shockingly quick work of the body. I don’t believe he has spent decades simply living underground.
Regardless, we thought that was all. I still sent Sanford in to check.
He reported nothing.
But when I carried Karia through the haunted halls while Sanford explored other corners of the estate, I found out his fucking report was off.
“She is safe,” he says now, his voice thready and weak. “She is harmed, but she is not dying, and she issafe.”
Safe.
Safe.
No. That is how she mademefeel. And all I have ever done is put her in danger. From myself, from my family, from Writhe itself now.
They will not let her live this down. Even if Mads Bentzen wanted to, you cannot look weak in front of a cult like ours.
I release Sanford all at once.
