Page 195 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
I sit up, blink over at him. “Excuse me?”
“Pack a bag—you need to come.”
And that’s all he says before walking out and closing the door behind him. I don’t have my things here so I just get up and numbly walk back into the living area.
“What’s going on?”
George looks up at me from his perch next to Arthur. “We’re going to take you to the hotel.”
I frown, look to Connie. “Why?”
“Because it isn’t fucking safe here!” George shouts, blowing out a breath and dragging his hand down his face. He points down at Arthur while looking at me. “He didn’t do this, alright? That sorry sod he killed? Yeah, his sister’s been sent into some kind of psychosis.” He shakes his head. “This,” he waves his arms about. “Is all her. The flowers, the book, the drugs, the picture—all fucking her, mate.”
“Oh.” My voice is barely above a whisper but it suddenly all feels very serious and that I should follow them to the hotel because actually my life might be in danger.
That’s a really scary thought, actually. Have you ever been in that position? When you know you might be seriously hurt or killed? It’s only ever been something I’ve seen in films or books or TV shows.
The boys haul Arthur up from the sofa and drag him outside as Connie holds the lift for them. I feel like someone has reached into my brain, snatched all my thoughts and held them above me in a flimsy net. They’re bound to drop but right now they’re not there, so I follow them into the lift, down into George’s car and all the way over to the hotel.
I’m not sure if I even blink or breathe on the way over. All I know is that I feel very sick and very unsure. Life is inconvenienta lot of the time, but when it’s this inconvenient and at a time like this, it’s near impossible to work through. Life is also a lot unfair but I wonder what I must’ve done for it to be this unfair. This is the kind of stuff that happens to people who have committed crimes—truly, to the bone, bad people. All I’ve ever done is maybe commit a few crimes against myself.
Maybe I don’t deserve whatever good will possibly come my way now. Maybe all the hatred I’ve given to myself has been unfair and actually this is just the way my life was meant to go. I won’t ever know the answer because this is happening now, in real time and you can’t stop time or slow it down to make it right. You just have to use the time you have left to make it right—which can be hard because how much time do we have left? Minutes, hours, days, years?
When we arrive in the car park of the hotel, the boys help Arthur into a suite where he starts to come alive a bit. I stand in the entryway, hearing him muttering nonsense as Connie and George help him into bed.
Albie walks over to me, nudges my arm. “You okay?”
I think I nod.
“He’ll be alright. He won’t go back to rehab or anything—we should be grateful it wasn’t H, that really would’ve set him back.”
I nod again (maybe I do?).
“We’ll keep you both here for a day or two until we know that she’s locked up or at least out of the bastarding country.”
He takes me under his arm, holds me to his side as I say nothing. My stomach feels hollow, which is weird because how can it feel so empty when there’s stuff inside of it all the time? There’s stuff inside of it right now but it doesn’t feel like that.
George and Connie come over to me, say more stuff about Arthur but I’m not listening. I’m concentrating on the contents of my stomach. George tells me that there’ll be someone outsideall night and that we’re more secure here then we would be in a HMP prison.
When they leave us, I go straight to sleep, next to Arthur, obviously because when have I ever left him alone? Never. Not even when I was with someone else and really should’ve left him alone.
He wakes up several times in the night to throw up and eventually, doesn’t come back to bed. I lay on my side, watching him nodding off by the toilet. He sees me. Of course he does. But we both don’t say anything.
We’ve never been much good at talking, him and I.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Prince Arthur
I try to open my eyes slowly but they fucking hurt, like a thousand pins stabbing my eyelids. It’s bright, too—too bright. And my back hurts.
I blink a couple times, rub my eyes, manage to open them fully and when I do, I see a pair of eyes staring back at me and I wonder why I’m not in the bed beside her. I usually am.
This morning, however, I am not. I’m crouched beside the toilet in a bathroom that isn’t mine or hers. It takes me a second to clock where we are, but also, why are we here?
I used last night. I know I did. I haven’t woken up like this in years. The more I wake up, the more I remember. There was a box with my name on it. The woman behind the desk gave it to me when I walked in after I left dinner early because I had a headache. Still do. I remember being really fucking confused because I didn’t order anything but I was too tired to think properly so when I got in, I opened it and that’s when I saw it.
The plastic bag fell right into my lap.
