No one is allowed in.
My nails drag across the floorboard as I try to catch my breath, but I can’t. My shrill escapes me.
I shatter.
Alone.
Riven
24
Two days too long.
For a grueling forty-eight hours, my angel has locked herself away in her cage.
She’s stripped my permission to enter.
She won’t let me in. She won’t let anyone in.
None of us.
Not Lam-the-man. Not Yemi. Not even V.
She’s verbally told him not to enter again after he starshot in there. He refused to tell us the condition she’s in and now even he’s tucked away in his nook above the fireplace, ignoring us.
Poor Seismet. Despite the danger and technically the rules about not leaving the meadows, he’s been doing nothing but lying under her windows.
The first night, we slept in her hallway. Well, saying we slept is a stretch. We sat there. For hours, listening to her cry.
I fucked up and got yelled at when I attempted to talk to her through the door. She moved away after that, either to her bathroom or closet. The guys were fucking furious.
I was furious at myself. I couldn’t help it, though. I needed her voice to say my name.
She didn’t.
When does she open the door to get the food Creed leaves her?
I don’t fucking know.
Yesterday, we stood at the end of her hall for hours, waiting to see if she’d open the door and grab the plate.
We walked away for five minutes.
That’s all it took for the sneaky little thing to snatch it up, then shut the door once again.
Today—well, I guess tonight, this morning…it’s like two in the morning, so whatever that’s called—I’m doing something about this.
A lot of things actually.
This plan of mine has been in the works for twenty years. Now I have the resources and gods at my disposal to enact my vengeance.
It’s going to be so, so delectable.
I stroke my finger down Creed’s nose and stare at the beautiful scar across his eye. He’s so much more approachable when he’s snoozing.
“Creed, sweetie,” I coo as I pinch his nostrils closed.
A shriek tears from me as he sits up, gasping and wrapping his hand around my throat all in the same second.
