Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Valen treated me with kindness. Valen treated me with kindness? I rub my eyes and look around Valen’s bedroom. It’s the same, no hint about how long I’ve been asleep or where he might be. I crawl from the bed and remember I’m only wearing a towel. Where are my clothes?
I peek into the bathroom and find my answer. Bloody, shredded material is strewn across the marble floor, and the tub still has a slight pink tinge to it. I don’t want to see it, to think about it. I’ll just have to do a modern walk of shame through this medieval nightmare castle.
Pausing at the doors leading to the hall, I steel myself. Unless Valen’s cleaning crew is especially talented, there’s no way they could remove all the blood—mine and Gorsky’s. It’s a blur, but I’m almost certain Valen turned him into mush. I clutch my towel tighter as that unpleasant thought grows larger and larger, so big that it’s jammed against the door to the point I’m afraid my shaking hand won’t be able to turn the knob.
“Just go,” I tell myself through clenched teeth. “Go!”
I yank the door open and force myself to walk. To just fucking walk and not look too closely at anything.
Relief floods me when the hallway seems to be just as it was before. Still, I hurry past the place where Gorsky pinned me, where he—No. I can’t think of it, not right now. My steps quicken, and before I realize it, I’m sprinting through the corridors, past the library, past the staid rooms with too much gold, too much finery, then up, up, up, climbing the stairs so fast my thighs burn.
Once I’m in my room, I slam the door and press my back to it.
Safe.
My lungs burn, but it’s a good ache this time. They aren’t damaged or deflated. They’re healthy and whole. ‘Thanks to Valen,’ my mind whispers.
“I wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for Valen,” I snap.
Damn, now I’m talking to myself. I was right about this underground prison making me go nuts eventually. How could it not?
I toss the towel and take a shower with the water one degree shy of scalding. Every trace of blood goes down the drain, and I scour my skin mercilessly until every inch is wiped clean and inspected. It’s pink in spots, and not just from the water. The skin is soft and smooth, like scar tissue but not. Once I’m out of the shower, I inspect them all in the mirror. The ones on my arms and my head—I know how they got there. Gorsky bludgeoned me enough to break skin and bone in several spots. But the marks along my sides, those are curious.
Turning this way and that, I take stock of all the spots and find the biggest ones along my ribs on both sides.
“What the fuck?” I stare for a long while. A possible answer ricochets around my skull like a pinball from one of those old arcade games. But there’s no way. I would’ve died if Valen had done what I’m thinking. But if I look at it clinically, the conclusion becomes plainer, almost obvious. I was unconscious, my lungs deflated, my heart possibly stopping or right there at the brink. Valen—I swallow hard as my mind recreates a possible scene—must’ve torn through my skin to reach my lungs, to use his blood to heal them. He did an emergency surgery with nothing but his hands.
“Holy shit,” I mumble as I go to my closet and get dressed. “Holy fucking shit.”
For the next three days, I wander around the castle, invading spaces that were previously off limits because I knew Gorsky favored them. His death has left me scarred inside and out, but at least I’m not afraid of him anymore. I have plenty of other things to fear, so it’s nice to check one thing off the list.
His room is messy, clothes hanging from his dresser drawers and his bed unmade. Old magazines litter his nightstand. I pluck one up and flip through it. It’s from the 90s, the women on the pages wearing combat boots and butcher’s aprons while the caption promises “Riot Grrrl Revolution”.
I’m in his bathroom snooping through his drawers when I hear the hallway door open. I freeze, then hurry behind the bathroom door and hold my breath.
Shuffling sounds emerge from the bedroom, and then I hear a ‘fwoompf’ that tells me someone is stripping the bed. The new staff? I lean back a little to try and get a look through the hinged part of the door. When I get a good angle, a green eye appears on the other side.
I scream and jump back.
“I can hear you in there.” A male voice. “Your pulse is kind of insane. Sit down or something.”