Page 34 of Heir of Darkness

Luna turned around for a moment. Her mother shook hands with the older dude, her father stood beside him with a bright smile. She recognized him as one of her father’s business friends that attended the same galas and balls they did. Someone that had been in her father’s life since she was a child. That was all Luna knew about the man, other than that he was single with no children of his own.

She turned back around with horror. “They want me to marry him?” she asked, her voice fearful. A panic attack was on the horizon, building and building until it hit completely. “I need to get out of here.” Her hands reached for her neck, rubbing atthe skin with brutal force that shocked her. She felt like she was suffocating, the pearls around her neck starting to choke her.

Cecilia grabbed her hands, pulling her along.

“Where are you taking her?” Blair asked. “There’s no way out of here.”

They were able to hide in between the crowds of people and away from her parents’ sight.

“She needs to get out of here,” Cecilia said. “I just don’t know how. Maybe we can cause a distraction?”

“Finn is over there,” Gianna said. He stood right beside Augustus, sporting a black eye. Luna had to assume there were more bruises where that came from. He shot back another glass of some dark liquid.

“No,” Luna disagreed. “I don’t want to drag him into this.”

“He’s your brother. He’ll want to help you, and if he doesn’t, then he’s more useless than I thought,” she said.

Luna wanted to shake her head because Gianna didn’t understand. She didn’t understand that her brother had probably already taken another beating trying to stop the events of tonight just because her father couldn’t put his hands on her himself. If he wasn’t in the meeting earlier, then he had to have seriously pissed off their father. She didn’t want him putting himself in harm for her any more than he already had.

Gianna stomped over to Finn and Augustus, shoving his shoulder. “Tell security to let Luna out of the building for air.” Of course he knew they weren’t just going out for air, but it was an alright lie for the moment.

“They’ve been given strict orders not to let her out anywhere,” Finn said. “You can thank my father for that.”

“Is that who fucked up your eye?” Blair asked.

Finn’s mouth turned up into a snarl. “Watch your mouth.”

Luna could feel her time running out. She was going to break. It was only a matter of time. “Please, Finn,” she begged. “I can’t do it. I swear to God, I can’t.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You know what he’ll do to us.”

“Grow the fuck up,” Augustus said, shaking his head. “I would send a bullet through his head for every time he put his hands on you if I was you.”

Cecilia placed her hand on Finn’s shoulder, which was quickly pushed off by Augustus. She ignored the latter and instead focused on the issue at hand. “No woman deserves to suffer like this, especially not Luna.”

Luna hated hearing the desperation in everyone's voices. How quickly it seemed that the situation had turned into life or death.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help,” Finn said. He looked at Luna, setting his glass on the table. “Come on. You all stay here.”

She followed after him, walking as fast as she could in her heels. They maneuvered through the crowds, narrowly missing their parents that were still engaged in conversation but would probably be looking for her soon. They made their way into the hallway where the bathrooms were. The first place in the entire building that seemed bare of people. Had they not been in a rush, she would have asked him a million questions, but silence was the best option. Once they made a sharp turn entering a more desolate hallway, Luna ripped the heels off her feet.

She left them in the hallway, the cool marble floors relieving her feet. Finn opened a door at the end of the hallway. It was another entrance into the kitchen. Cooks were rushing around, plating food and carrying it out to the ballroom. They paid no attention to the two people who had no business being there. She narrowly avoided running into any of the chefs but slammed against Finn’s back when he stopped abruptly.

He held open a thick, silver metal door, letting in the frigid night air. She stepped out apprehensively, wishing she had more on her than what she currently did. She turned to look at her brother, wondering if that would be the last time she would ever see him again.

“I never took you back here and I didn’t see anything. You got it?” Finn asked.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do what you have to do.”

He didn’t say anything else, but she had learned that he wasn’t one to comfort anyone. The fact he gave her an out was enough for her at the moment.

With that, he shut the door in her face, leaving her outside all alone. That was all the sign Luna needed to start running. She ran away from the building, trying to get to the back lawn of the property. Her lungs burned and her feet ached with every step she took on the uneven concrete, but she kept running. She ran down the hill, seeing the statues and decorated bushes in front of her.

Her legs took her as far as the last statue before she fell. How she was able to get all the way down here all those years ago in a drunken stumble was a mystery to her. Pebbles dug into her hands as she held herself on all fours, her knee burning from scraping it. She sat up, leaning her back against the statue’s base, staring at the blood that dripped down her leg.

It was when her mind finally stopped that everything hit her all over again. When the first tear fell, she wiped it away furiously, angry at herself for crying so much. All she had been doing for the past two weeks was crying and she was sick of it. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel so helpless, and yet, she couldn’t help it.

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