Page 4 of Twisted Empire

On the surface, there didn’t seem like much of a point to putting on makeup when I was so close to death, but it made me feel better in a strange, dizzying way. It made me feel like I was transforming into a different girl; a girl who wouldn’t be hunted down like an animal soon. Like I was floating above somewhere, watching a complete stranger, one whose life could be normal and happy.

I dipped a mascara wand into its narrow tube and twisted it from side to side like Mellie once taught me to make sure it didn’t clump. Then I leaned forward and brushed it over my eyelashes. I regretted it instantly, because my eyes suddenly started leaking with tears, leaving black streaks on my cheeks as the mascara ran.

It was hitting me again, all the fear and heartbreak over losing Elias, even though I never really had him. My grief was like a rolling sea, coming in waves, engulfing me in cold darkness and strangling my veins. My heart and head warred with each other, one telling the other to stop right now and the other refusing to believe that things could’ve really gone so wrong for me. There had to be hope… only there wasn’t. I knew that.

Why couldn’t I accept it?

My breathing turned harsh and ragged. I threw down the tube and crumpled to the floor, my hands trembling by my side. I stuffed one in my mouth to stifle my plaintive cries. The walls seemed to be closing in, wrapping me in a cocoon of despair and hopelessness, until finally, my head won the battle over my heart.

Cold reality washed over me. I didn’t belong to Elias. I never did. He wouldn’t change his mind at the last minute and save me just because I was pregnant. He wouldn’t take me away from this lavish hellhole, so beautiful on the outside and so ugly and twisted on the inside.

No, I was stuck here for the rest of my short life, and in two days, I wouldn’t even exist anymore. I would be snuffed out along with the new life growing inside me, and no one would remember me fondly. No one would miss me. No one out in the real world would even know what happened to me.

I closed my eyes and sagged against the wall, my mind drifting away on a wave of finality.

The universe had dealt my hand.

This was where I belonged.

This was where I would die.

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