“I’m so sorry,” Stein says. “I’ll have my doctor come straight away to tend to Karia.”
Sullen suddenly releases the man, like someone hit him despite the fact the guard didn’t even shrug him off. “No,” he says again, focused on me. “She… It’s not her fault. It’s mine.It’s mine, it’s mine.”He says it over and over, like a starving child begging for food.
I try to scramble out of the grip of the guards.
“Dad,” Von says, his voice low. “Tell them to release hernow.”There’s a snarl in his words.
“If they don’t,” my own dad says, his voice calm but deadly, “I will shoot them myself.”
And Mads Bentzen speaks next. “You promised her safety, Stein. Thus far, you aren’t a liar. But you are nothing to Writhe now, and if your men don’t release her, I will be forced to allowmineto forcibly make them do so.”
I try again to shrug out of their grip, my gaze still on my monster. “Don’t do this,” I say, everything in my body knotted up in panic. “Don’t be the fucking hero, Sullen Rule. You arenotthat. You arenot.Tell them the truth! Tell them the truth or?—”
“Release her at once.” Stein’s voice speaks louder, over mine. “Rex, Arthur, Constance. Gently take my son into custody. If anyone is hurt in this fray, I will personally execute all three of you.”
The guard lets me go.
I lunge after him as Stein’s men surround Sullen.
My fingers come to the guard’s shirt, a lump in my throat keeping all my horrors inside. I can’t cry or speak or scream. Sullen snaps his head up and he opens his mouth to say something as he surrenders to Stein’s men. I don’t care what he’s going to say, though.
I won’t allow this to happen.
I jerk backward on the guard by my fingers in his clothes, pressure behind my eyes but I can’t even cry and Sullen doesn’t manage to speak. Yet before the guard can even look over his shoulder, an arm bands around my waist.
I’m pulled backward into a hard body.
I try to free myself, a strangled noise of frustration the only thing that escapes my mouth as the guards put Sullen’s hands behind his back like he’s some sort of prisoner. His gaze is stillon mine as the person behind me captures both my arms by my side, pinning them there as they crush me to them.
The familiar scent of my father’s cologne envelopes me.
My pulse beats haywire in my body as I try to face my dad. “Let me go,” I say, my voice harsh.
His eyes are on mine, big and sad, and I hate him.
I swallow tightly, refusing to break. “Let me go, or I will never forgive you.”
Someone makes a scoffing sound.
I realize it’s my mother.
Acid burns up my throat.
“Let mefuckinggo.” I scream it now, trying to shrug my father off, but Antwine Ven is a marionette, too. He won’t believe me about Sanford or Stein or anything that’s happened to me the past few days. He won’t believe anything, because Writhe comes before me.
It always has.
I’m breathing hard, but it’s like there’s a weight on my chest. As if I can’t get enough air.
Dad pulls me backward, then spins us, so his back is to the doorway, and I can see nothing as commotion—the shuffle of feet—pass by.
They’re taking Sullen away.
I won’t see him again.
They are taking him away.
“Sullen!” I call out his name, frantically trying to catch a glimpse of him, but Von looms into view, his gray eyes on mine. I will beg him. I am not above anything, for Sullen Rule. “Don’t let them take him,” I say to Von, my voice whispery and frantic, even to my own ears. “Don’t let them or they’ll kill him.” I think I might throw up.
