Page 11 of Sick Like Me

Chapter 6

Ostara

It’s nine-pm when I head into my father’s house. The halls are empty, my sisters are absent and as I make my way to my father’s office as instructed by the doorman. We have a plan, Cal and I. I’m safe now, he’s not going to let anything happen to me, he’s not going to let me be locked away again.

Even still, sickness churns in my belly, intestines twisting, stomach heavy. An omen. Fearful apprehension is a physical thing. Sweat beads along my hairline, a single drop dribbling down my temple, running down my cheek and dripping down my neck at the juncture where my earlobe attaches just above the corner of my jaw.

The house is silent and a low buzzing hums in my ears, louder and louder, as I get closer to Colin’s office. The door is open wide, everything a deep, dark mahogany, the smell of expensive bourbon and leather polish is ripe in the air, and the man I fear above all others is sat behind his desk.

Back straight, shoulders squared, he smiles at me as I appear in the open frame, a slash of violence across his thin lips, curled up at the corners like a circus clown.

“Ostara,” hetsks, still smiling, but like he’s severely disappointed in me.

Caelus is three minutes from here in a car with his brother, nothing is going to happen to me. I will not be locked up again inside this house.

I chant the thought like a mantra, reassuring myself of my safety. The thin, plain, silver band hugging my left ring finger feels foreign and suffocating. Marriage. It feels like too much, even though, at the same time, it feels freeing.

Caelus Carnell would never lock me away.

That statement alone is truth.

“Your blood results came back, and I wanted to talk to you about them,” he says then, the smile falling into some sort of frowning concern.

But it isn’t real. If it is, it’s certainly not aimed at me and my welfare, I’m nothing but a pawn, I know the risks of using poisons and toxins, my father only has the family doctor test me so often so that he can keep me around for my killing skills. If I died, he’d have one less weapon in his arsenal, but also one less problem. Suppose he’s not really that bothered either way.

“You haven’t killed the Carnell cunt yet,” he states, as if, I, myself, am wholly unaware of my failed mission.

“It goes against the treaty,” I swallow, watching his face remain impassive, that’s always when he’s the most dangerous, plotting, all seeing, all knowing. “The entire Carnell clan will come for me; I’ll never be safe. How will I continue my role in the family if I can’t ever be safe outside of these walls?” I’m quietly spoken, my words soft, and I don’t believe I’m safe inside this house as much as I wouldn’t be outside of it, but he doesn’t know I’m not a Stone any longer.

Being a Carnell puts me in even more danger inside this house, but outside of it, I think I’ll be safer than I have been in my entire life.

I know my father knows all of this, everything that I said. That’s what has me even more worried. He didn’t cut me off, hedidn’t interrupt, he let me speak as though it were the last words I’d ever be able to voice.

“Are you sure that’s the reason you haven’t gone through with it, Ostara?” he asks me coldly, “fear?” a single brow lifting high. “It has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve been fucking the Carnell cunt and are carrying his baby?”

There’s suddenly a buzzing inside my brain, corpse flies descending to feast. Everything falls away around me, like the earth is one big sinkhole, swallowing me deeper and deeper. Gravel laps overhead, like a foamy sea wave of grave dirt, and I’m not sure I remember how to breathe. How to do anything but stare unseeingly ahead and tremble.

Hishmphof dark laughter has me blinking, my blurry gaze finding him, bringing me back to the room, as my body sways and my fingers cling onto the back of the chair before me to keep me on my feet.

“This is really something, Ostara,” he chuckles deeply, his belly jumping with the heavy sound. “You didn’t know,” he states it on a wheeze, the chuckle becoming real humorous laughter now. “I thought that was why you brought the boy with you, because he was protecting his heir.”

Panic squeezes my lungs, choking me as the sickness in my belly rushes up the back of my throat, filling my mouth, and I’m bending over, throwing myself to the carpet. Just in time to scrabble my way to the waste paper bin in the corner of the room on my hands and knees and expel the contents of my stomach.

Colin cocks his head at me as I fall back onto my bum, heaving for breath, and propping my back against the wooden cabinet doors at the bottom of the bookshelves. I stare up at him, the way he is oh-so comfortable in his position above me, so he can look down at me, and I’ll know my place.

His smile wide with teeth, he says, “But that’s not what’s going to be happening here tonight, daughter.” He rises fromhis chair, unfolding his tall, pudgy body from the squeak of the leather chair before he crouches down in front of me, pinching the fabric of his slacks just above the knees and pulling them up. “First,” he starts, licking his lips, “we’ll wait to hear the explosion-”

“Explosion,” I repeat, interrupting, hearing the word fall from my mouth but sounding absolutely nothing like myself.

“Don’t interrupt, Ostara,” he tuts casually, “As I was saying, we’ll wait to hear the explosion and then we’ll get you downstairs for Doctor Butler to take care of this little problem. Then, Ostara,thenyou will be marrying Matthew Griswold as arranged. You think your little boyfriend could deal with that so easily?” he laughs again and it’s haunting, the way I feel the evilness inside of him drilling into my bones. “All that’s done is change which Matthew Griswold you’ll be marrying.Senior,which is probably perfect for you, a much older man, he has a firm hand, he’ll knock you into shape in no time.”

It takes seconds for this all to sink in, but it feels like water running off of my skin, nothing sinks in, nothing really penetrates, not until the house shakes, the entire foundation vibrating, and then I hear it. As my father grabs my upper arm, dragging me to my feet and yanking me out into the hall.

Deafening finality.

The boom.

Chapter 7

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