Page 80 of House of Pawns
“Get some sleep, Anna,” I tell her, more a command than a request. “We’ve all had a long few days. You’ve earned it.”
She studies me for a long moment, and I think she knows. She understands. But she will let me do what I will do.
“Alright,” she says, and I hear the hesitation in her voice. But she steps toward the door. “Sleep well, Alivia.”
I only nod to her, and slowly, she closes the door behind her.
I need to stop this. Everything. Jasmine. The King’s presence here. The constant threat of so many deaths because he and his Court are here. I need to stop prolonging the one thing I have control over.
I lock my door. It would never keep out a single person in this house. Any one of them could force their way inside with a simple shove. But it’s for me. Locking the old away.
The marble floor in my bathroom is freezing. It sends a wave of goose bumps over my skin as I walk into it. I shed my beautiful dress that Lillian made me. I pull on a long nightgown. It’s beautiful and I’m sure old. White and gauzy. It floats around me, letting too much frigid air caress my body.
But it won’t bother me much longer.
I go to the cabinet that holds the small amounts of medicationI possess. And my eyes lock on the bottle that appeared in it three months ago.
It has no label. No descriptor of what it is. There is only one single, black pill inside the small orange container. But I have no doubt what it is.
Or who placed it there.
Rath has loved me so well and been so loyal. He’s taken care of me in every possible way.
My hands tremble slightly as I reach for it. My heart races and gallops before my fingers finally close around it.
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
The bottle is suddenly open. The pill is in my hand.
I look up at myself in the mirror. Studying myself.
The hazel eyes. The dark, long hair. The flaws in my skin.
All I see is someone who is utterly alone.
But what other way is there for this to happen?
Don’t think.
The pill is between my lips, and I wash it down with a swig from the faucet. Wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, I stare at myself in the mirror again.
Goodbye, human Alivia. Goodbye to turning twenty-four. Goodbye to being old.
A small creaking sound pulls my attention from myself to my bedroom.
I know the sounds of my door. And that wasn’t the right sound.
My feet pad over the cold marble, and I peak around the corner, back into my bedroom.
Ian climbs through my window, letting in a flood of gray light, and lands on the floor withouta sound.
Shock and horror fill my expression.
Him. Here. With everything that’s happened. With the King in the next bedroom over.
“Liv,” he whispers. And there’s everything in his expression. All the fear, the lust, the anger, the desire. It threatens to break his face. He crosses the room to me in a blur of a movement. Instantly, his hands are on my hips, his eyes just a breath away. “I know what I’ve said before and I just…I just can’t let you stay here and die. Leave with me. Today. Tonight. Let’s just go, right now.”
