Page 44 of King of Ruin

“I’ll give you your space and only return when I have a solid plan. You’ll be safe in here till then, please trust that.”

My lips part to object but then I snap them back shut. This is what I asked for. It’s what I want. Yet the empty churn in my gut says something else entirely.

Still, I manage a curt nod.

He purses his lips, the disappointment evident in the green swirls of his irises. But he doesn’t argue and walks to the door.

With every step he takes, an odd sensation swells in my chest–something I can’t place until I feel a warm tear tumble down my cheek. That’s when I realize it’s a deep seated sadness, an understanding that what he’s doing right now will be a blessing to see when this is over.

Because I think we both know, in reality, one of us won’t live to see the day after this all ends.

It’s almost midnight.

I should’ve heard from Zek already. When we spoke yesterday, he told me he was coming up with a plan. He swears he has one, even though he won’t utter a word of it to me, and said I just need to trust him.

Asking me to trust him so blindly under my current conditions is a lot. But I’m going to try–for now, at least–because I know he has my well-being at heart. Plus, I understand not wanting someone like me to know the details. I’m not what you’d consider well-equipped to handle any type of torture, so if it came down to it, I’d probably sing like a songbird. I mean, maybe. There’s also a very high chance I’ll run like hell before being caught.

That’s how I handle most of the situations I get myself in when pulling my usual stunts, and it’s how I ended up back home with Lawrence.

Zek told me to find a guard to flirt with, and I found one. Then he made a deal with Sam, telling him he’d give up the access codes once I was home safe. Like my brother figured, Sam wasn’t buying it, not without some insurance, at least. He assigned a guard to babysit me in case my brother was bullshitting. And of course the one who got volunteered for house arrest duty, was Lawrence.

The original plan was for me to come home, knock his ass out with the bat my brother kept in his room, grab Mom, and run. I was nervous as hell, but since Lawrence has a little thing for me, it was supposed to make him put his guard down. But my worries didn’t matter in the end because when we arrived, Mom wasn’t there. Not only that, but somehow Phineas got the codes, and ended up with Onyx and Zek anyway.

Now, I’m a sitting duck, waiting for either the Maddy woman to show up or for the Murphys to order Lawrence to kill me.

My eyes flit to the clock on my phone that Sam disabled. Lawrence was called away a couple hours ago, and since then, I’ve been pacing, doing dishes, reorganizing the bathroom, and sweeping the front porch as I wait. For what? I’m not completely sure, but the silence is becoming deafening and waiting in limbo is becoming torture.

Frustration has me slamming the glass plates into the cabinets a little harder than necessary.

Does Zek not care that the freaking Embros family is going to come for me if they haven’t heard anything? Is he not worried that it’s been a week and Mom is still freaking nowhere? Can’t say I’m anything other than mad, because the one freaking time I need the woman to come through, she does what she excels at, and disappears. If I knew Zek wouldn’t be completely crushed, I think I would have left a long time ago.

Maybe.

I latch onto the sink, doing the best I can to steady my breathing, but it’s no use. The air grows thinner the harder I suck in, and the only noise I can hear is the rush of blood through my ears and the pace of my throbbing heart.

Clutching at my chest, I stumble to the living room, dropping onto the worn couch.

Breathe.

I think of the room with the cot, Phineas sneering as he told me what his army would do to me.

Breathe.

I envision what my brother must have gone through every time he went to see that disgusting man.

“Breathe.”

I think of my–

My face snaps up at the voice that isn’t mine, my eyes wide while my lungs stop working completely.

Maddy leans against the TV, the same blade from the hospital twirling in her hand. Her wild red curls drape over her face, a heavy contrast against her pale skin and black clothes. Her legs are crossed over one another and it’s then I see her muddied boots, stained with blood, telling me a story I’m definitely not ready to read.

“Y-you said I had th-three–”

“And I could have sworn you said you had a guard watching you. I’ve been here over an hour and haven’t seen a single soul.” She points the tip of the blade at me. “You lied to me, little mouse.”

I shake my head profusely, holding a hand to my chest as if it will somehow keep in both my vomit and raging heart. “I didn’t. I swear. He left a couple of hours ago. He didn’t tell-l-l–” A fit of hiccups erupts from my throat, burning my esophagus as they stream out one after the other. The pain seers through me, and I feel my eyes well with tears, I somehow push back.

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