Page 91 of Devil's Riches

“Wow. That sounds cool.”

My left thigh suddenly started to prickle with pins and needles. I winced and reached down to give it a light slap under the table.

Edward looked at me curiously. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s just my leg,” I replied. “You know when you sit in the same position for too long and you start to feel weird and tingly?”

He nodded. “It’s nerve compression. Just shake it a bit. That’ll remove the pressure.”

I tried to do what he said, but my left leg wouldn’t budge. It seemed as if the connection between my brain and body had been severed. “What the hell?” I muttered.

My right leg was tingling now, and within seconds it was just as immobile as the left. It felt like my lower body didn’t belong to me anymore; like it had been transplanted from another person.

Edward looked over at me again. “Is something wrong, Alexis?”

I stared down at my lap, pulse racing. “I… I think so. I can’t feel my legs.”

“What do you mean? Have they gone numb?”

“No. I can’t move them. It’s like… I’m paralyzed.”

He nodded slowly. “Ah. It’s probably the sedative I gave you.”

I lifted my chin and stared at him, certain I’d misheard him. “What?”

“The sedative,” he repeated calmly. He paused to slice up a potato with his knife and fork. “It’s the strongest kind available. A few drops of it could knock out a horse.”

My stare turned into a mask of frozen horror. “I… I don’t understand.”

“I would explain, but judging by the symptoms you’re displaying, you don’t have enough time to hear the whole story.” He took a small bite of his food, chewed it, and swallowed it, face remaining coldly impassive the entire time. Then he looked at me again. “Don’t worry, dear. It won’t take much longer.”

His words bounced around in my skull as pinpricks of discomfort built in my arms, filling me with a hollow terror.

“Please tell me what’s happening,” I said in a ragged voice.

Edward smiled. “Like I said, I really don’t have time,” he replied. “You’ve got about one minute left until you lose consciousness. Maybe two or three, if you’re a real fighter.”

I could feel the paralysis taking complete possession of me. My limbs were motionless, and I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t see properly, either. Whenever I tried to focus on anything, the details were shaky and juddery, like an old film coming off its reel.

“How did you drug me?” I managed to say in a panicky whisper. “We ate the same food.”

Edward picked up my half-empty champagne flute and swirled the bubbly yellow liquid around. “You drank it, my dear.”

“But we drank the same stuff. I watched you pour it,” I said. “And I only had half a glass. You had half a bottle.”

His thin lips stretched into a cruel smile. “The sedative was in the glass. Not the bottle.”

My heart was pounding so hard my chest ached, and I heard deep, gasping breathing that I soon realized was my own. It was getting harder and harder by the second to fill my lungs. “Please…” I choked out. “Stop it.”

“I can’t.” Edward glanced at his watch again. “Go to sleep, my dear. It’ll be over soon.”

My forearms and hands were the only part of me that I could still move. I tried to use them to pull myself forward so that I’d fall off the chair and land on the carpet below. That way I could drag myself to my purse and get my phone. With any luck, I’d have a bar of service again, like I did earlier in the evening when my texts to Nate were still sending.

Edward sighed as he watched me drag the dead weight of my body forward, painstakingly slowly. “Just give up, Alexis.”

I was fading fast. I’d never make it off the chair before I lost consciousness.

In a last ditch effort to save myself, I brought my hand to the edge of the table and used it to flip open my Fitbit watch. If I could somehow hit the digital interface at the right angle, it might turn off or do something else that Nate would find suspicious if he checked the app on his phone.

Before I could try to hit the digital face, my hands lost their ability to move, and they fell into my lap, limp and useless. I tried to draw enough breath for a scream, but a raspy moan escaped my mouth instead. My vision was turning dark, and my lungs felt as if they were on fire.

I gasped once, and then everything swirled into oblivion.

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