Page 85 of Reign

I’m not stable. I’m not safe.

True fear grips my insides.

“There you are. Our newest Virtue. Over here!”

Sabine’s voice floats from the docks of the boathouse, and my eyes dart toward the sound. She’s not far, maybe two yards away, but for a person who’s had only a handful of swimming lessons?

It’s an impossible distance.

Her smile under the single lamplight crosses the space between us, seeping into my very airways. “How was your nap, darling?”

Every movement in my expression brings a shot of pain to my right temple. A feeling like dry, cracked paint sticks to every pore.

The dried blood cracks into a million tiny fractures on my face when I voice a guttural, angry scream at her in response.

“Now, now,” Sabine trills, her long, golden cloak sparking against the night like a beacon I will never drift toward. “Don’t lose your voice so early on in our game.”

“Murderer!” I scream, my voice echoing through the quiet bank of trees. “You can kill me, drown me if you want to, but that won’t change what I’ve already done. Everyone knows, Sabine,” I bluff. “You tried to make me a Virtue to silence me, but the Virtues who broke from your rule won’t stand for your deceit. The Nobles you haven’t managed to stick in your pockets will talk to their parents and friends. Then those parents and friends will talk to the press. The police. You’ll make national news by the weekend.”

Sabine chuckles. “Please. You think I’m worried about your little team of avengers and your pathetic attempts at out-maneuvering me? Both Emma and Eden tried before and failed. Dear Emma was willing to lose her life, and her family, for her cause. What makes you think you’ll succeed in her place?”

“Because I have the blood you’re desperate for,” I seethe. “And the legacy prince who will lead the Nobles. You may have manipulated his father, but you failed at bringing him to your side.”

“On that, you and I agree.” Sabine lifts a hand, gesturing behind her to the boat bay. “James, dear, can you bring out our second problem? I believe Callie needs a slight push in the right direction.”

Sabine turns back to me, her face an expressionless mask, her beauty both wasted and wanton as she stands on the Briarcliff dock in the dead of winter as she guides the teenagers she’s worked years to coerce into her waiting hands.

“You killed my best friend,” I continue. “For nothing. I’ll never bend to your wishes or do your bidding. Ever!”

“Hold that thought, dear.” Sabine clucks her tongue into the shadows, as if calling her most trustful canine, and in a way, she is.

James comes out of the darkness, dragging a furious, struggling Chase down to the end of the dock.

My heart hurls itself into my throat when Chase comes under the paltry light, his black, Noble cloak billowing behind him. A breeze hits the hem, throwing it up into the air, and I notice his hands bound behind his back, just like me.

But unlike me, he’s gagged. As he comes closer, I make out the Briarcliff colors on the tie shoved between his teeth.

His eyes are frantic when they land on mine. Stretched and urgent.

Violent shivers overtake my body, as if the fear upon seeing him adds to the cold of being left out at sea, but I keep my back straight. My hands clenched.

I’m confident if Chase is pushed into the lake as some kind of threat to me, he’ll untie himself. He’ll hold his breath and break the surface easily.

This is his lake. He has to.

“I’m feeling rather benevolent after losing another princess so suddenly,” Sabine says, her voice soft but her gaze hard as she follows Chase’s reluctant path to the edge. “I’m giving you one last opening, Calla Lily. You’re one of us now, so you have a rare choice. Stand by my side. Join me in my efforts to continue my Virtue reign, or…” Sabine glances at the water surrounding me. She shrugs.

“You wouldn’t,” I say.

Sabine smiles. “Are you still underestimating me, child? I’m fully aware you can’t swim.”

I keep the shock from rippling across my face. “You can’t hurt me—my accusations are too public. If anything happens to me, it’ll all point to you.”

“Yes, well, you’re very distraught, dear girl. After writing an unsubstantiated email of that nature, then being threatened with expulsion by your headmaster, goodness. You’ve about reached the end of your rope. And with your past… do you know I have a camera recording of you in a New York City intersection with Lynda Meyer’s newborn? You rushed into traffic, Calla Lily. You tried to kill that baby. If it weren’t for that man behind you…” Sabine tsks. “There were so many warnings, yet the guardians in your life refused to see them. They wanted you to be good. They were desperate for you to be okay. You’d suffered so much already, what with walking in on your dead mother. Yet, they really should’ve known you were a danger to Blair. I have eye-witness accounts, too.”

“I never tried to hurt Blair! You’ll answer for my mother!” I scream, jerking forward, her accusations swirling into a wrathful tornado in my head, my words collapsing into fragments, the people I love breaking to pieces.

The boat tips dangerously, and I freeze.

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