At least before, I felt comfortable knowing I had a house to sleep in. I could have gotten a dead-end job in town with St. Augustine written on my CV. It wasn’t much, but it wassomething.
“Your inappropriate language will not be tolerated,” Drishti snaps. “Sit down, Blaze.”
I ignore her, my focus solely on the man in front of me—the man who had theaudacityto dangle his money in my face just to mock how screwed up my life is.
“Why the fuck aren’t you saying anything? I trashed your house. I destroyed your precious artwork and your entire room—your clothes, collections, trophies, everything that mattered to you.” I want him to scream at me, accuse me of being a liar, say that he’s above my lunacy, anything. Instead, his gaze drops to my neck, then to his ring around my thumb. “You ruined my life—you tookeverythingfrom me, all my memories, any kind of cash I had,all of it—and now you want to fuck up even more by showing up here too?”
I can lie to myself all I want and say I won the battle by calling out Kiervan’s name, but it’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. I can win as many battles as I want; there will never be a war that I can win against Kohen.
He’sthe one with money.He’sthe one with power. He may be the family's black sheep, but people still look at him with respect. When he opens his mouth, people listen. When he does something, people watch with interest. They don’t look at him because they’re scared of him. They don’t look at me because they don’t want to.
“Miss Whitlock, that’s enough—”
I move without realizing, shoving my face in front of his. “You haven’t even denied it! Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me that I’m a piece of shit whore whose brain is so fried that I burned my own house down.” My eyes burn with unshed tears. I haven’t cried about that night, and I refuse to do it in front of him. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you were hoping you’d kill me that night.”
Finally, he flinches. It’s so small that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been watching him for any reaction. He doesn’t give me more than that.
“Say something!” A single tear rolls down my cheek, and he watches as it descends down the column of my throat.
Silence. That’s all I get from him.
“Blaze, I’m going to tell you one more time—”
His head whips to the side from the force of my slap. I do it again. And again. And again. And he lets me. “Tell me, you fucking coward! Tell me!”
I’m ripped away from him before my palm collides with his face once more, and I scream. I cry out like I haven’t had the chance to let it out since that day. I scream because I mourn for all the things I had, want, and never will have.
Before I get the chance to utter another word or throw the guards off me, a sharp pain radiates through my neck.
Everything goes black.
Hazy white light assaults my retina when I blink, causing me to squeeze my eyes closed. Somewhere around me, I hear murmurs. Ican’t tell if it’s right beside me or in the distance. Then everything fades out again.
A jolt knocks me awake, but I don’t open my eyes. One by one, different aspects register. A rhythmic rattling, the sway of my body, the hard surface beneath me, a tightening around my body, and hushed conversation.
I open my eyes. The room is still empty except for a man in a white coat standing with his back to me. My eyelids droop closed when they become too weighted to keep open, and the next time I wake up, the room is empty, and my skin feels too heavy and tight. I notice the machines this time as an overpowering sterile scent hits my system.
When I close my eyes, I don’t wake up again until I hear beeping, and pressure builds around my arm to the point that it’s almost painful.
Wincing, I peel my eyes open just in time to see a woman write something down on a clipboard. I try turning my head to see what’s around my arm, but I can’t.
The fog in my head makes it impossible to comprehend anything happening. I can make out shapes and people, but not what, who, or, most importantly, why I’m here. And wherehereis.
I groan, trying to move my head up or down or side to side, but it doesn’t budge an inch. The same goes for my arms and legs. Try as I might, my shoulders and hips are also stuck in place. Panic sinks its teeth into my bones, and my attempts grow more frantic. What is happening to me?
“Oh. You’re awake. That’s poor timing.”
I blink, trying to register who the old man in front of me is. I know him from somewhere… Dr. Van der Merwe?
Slowly, I take stock of the room. White walls; plastic, blue countertops; white cupboards; blinding white machines; a blacked-out, reflective window. My nose wrinkles from the medicinal scent of the room as I try to take in steadying breaths.
I swallow to clear away the sandpaper in my throat. “Where am I?” At least, that’s what I try to say. The words come out too garbled to make sense of.
The panic kicks into hyperdrive as the fog clears away and the bindings seem to tighten, suffocating me. Anxiety hits me with full force, growing claws and wings, turning my stomach inside out as I thrash as hard as my body will allow. But God, I’m so tired. Every one of my muscles is fatigued to the point of failure. The adrenaline rushing through my system isn’t enough to do more than jar the bed, but I keep going, fighting off the need to close my eyes and let darkness take hold.
Various wires connect to stickers all over my chest, ankles, wrists, and head. I manage to get the monitor on my pointer finger off, but the blood pressure monitor remains firmly around my bicep.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
