Page 5 of Queen of Nothing

I was recoiling now. Folding into myself.

And I threw a moody look from beneath my lashes at Oliver as he pushed the menu closer to Mother.

“The lamb and hummus for lunch.” He slid a smirk to me. “And gelato for dessert.”

Then he took off. Launched himself from the daybed and ran back to the waters.

“You stay here,” Mother said softly—but there was nothing soft about the way she lingered a look over me.

Dray slipped off the daybed then, with a glance at me, his mouth flattened into a slanted line, left without a word.

I stayed on the daybed for lunch.

Mother ordered me a Greek salad. No dessert.

And she didn’t excuse me until the last hour of the outing, when all the children were tired, and slow-moving, and Serena and Asta were asleep on loungers.

Landon and Oliver filled up the sandpit with water.

Dray ditched them and chased me into the water. I only knew he followed me when he splashed water up my back, and he teased, “Do you still want a little life?”

I shook my head, face scrunched between the tears I silently wept on the daybed and the moodiness settled deep in me.

But Dray just advanced on me.

His steps were slow and playful, his smirk ghosting over his lips.

Instinct jolted through me and I made to run deeper into the waters—but Dray caught me, fast.

His arms, his weight, spun around my midsection before I was tackled off my feet.

And I came down in the water with a giggle.

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Folded over, I turban the stiff towel around my head. It’s abrasive against my hands, like an exfoliation mitt, and I have the fleeting fear that it will damage my hair.

But I have bigger problems than that, so I dismiss the thought as quickly as it came.

Droplets of water roll over my face before I flip upright—and a wince shoots through me.

An ache in my back thrums, ice-cold.

I grip onto the edge of the stained basin.

Days of sleeping on floors, on the hard chairs at airports, sitting for too long in narrow seats on cheap flights, and the lumpy mattresses in these depressing motels—and my back is paying the price.

All these aches started with seventeen hours on a rocky boat… or maybe, it all started with an ass-whooping from Asta.

The remnants of her attack are all over me. The discoloured patches around my ribs and my belly, the scratches on my clavicle, the black and blue and purple stains on my face.

My scalp hurts, my face hurts, my wrist and my knee, my mouth, my belly, my back.

Everything hurts.

And there’s no witchdoctor to run to.

Just a soothing balm that has the texture of milk and that smells like eucalyptus. All it does is soothe. Not take the pain away. Not heal.