Page 40 of Kingmakers, Year Two

“I’m sorry,”Claire says, putting her hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought you should know. If your parents aren’t aware?—”

“Thank you,” I say numbly. “I appreciate it.”

I don’t know how to tell her that our father wouldn’t care even if I told him that exact story, even if he believed it.

I’ve been such an idiot.

Zoe has known all along about Rocco Prince. She knew he was a full-blown psychopath. She just didn’t tell me. To protect me—because I’m too weak to handle it.

I hurry out of the dining hall, determined to find my sister.

7

ZOE

Dr. Cross tells me that I can stay in the infirmary as long as I like, but I leave that evening, after a long nap that helps ease the throbbing pressure in my skull.

I think I hit my head when Jasper Webb caught hold of my ankle. But that’s not the only reason for the pounding headache. It’s disappointment, too.

I don’t want to be dead. Not really. But god did I want to escape.

Now I’m back in the thick of my own life, and the weight is suffocating.

I’m exhausted from scratching the walls, banging my head against the locked doors. Everywhere I turn, there’s no way out.

I’ve only been back in my dorm a few minutes when I hear a gentle tap on the door.

“Zoe?” Cat calls softly.

I open the door to see my sister anxiously waiting, her dark eyes huge in her delicate face.

“There you are,” she says, pushing into my room with a sigh of relief. Then she gets a proper look at me in the lamplight and her face crumples up. “What happened?” she cries.

I touch the tape high up on my cheekbone, which I know fails to cover the beginnings of a nasty black eye.

I open my mouth to give some excuse, to downplay what happened. Instead, I find myself bursting into tears.

I never cry like this. I’ve never fallen into my sister’s arms, sobbing. I’m so much bigger than her that I almost knock her over. I’m instantly ashamed of myself, but I can’t seem to stop. My whole body is shaking and I’m making an awful, animalistic sound, a ragged howling.

I never wanted to dump this on Cat. But I can’t seem to stop. I’m crying and crying as if my insides are liquefying and pouring out through my tear ducts.

After a long time I realize that Cat has sat down on the bed, and I’m laying with my head in her lap, while she gently strokes my hair.

This is something I did for her many times when she was sick or sad. Especially after our mother died.

I’ve never been the one in this position before.

The feeling of her gentle little hand on my head is incredibly soothing. It’s hard to accept comfort when you feel that you should be the one giving it, never demanding anything in return. It’s hard to trust that it might be okay to receive solace, just this one time.

Once my body stops shaking, once I’ve relaxed, the words come pouring out of me just like the tears—without moderation or control. I tell Cat everything Rocco has done to me, everything he’s said, from the moment I met him in the garden of our villa. Up to what happened this morning on the ramparts.

Cat listens silently, absorbing it all. I can feel her legs getting more and more rigid under my cheek, but she doesn’t interrupt.

When I sit up to look at her, her lips are so pale that I can barely see them against her skin.

“What can we do?” she asks me.

“Nothing. There’s nothing we can do.”

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