Page 74 of Tainted Serenity

I cannot go back there; cannot be a fucking doll once again. As my nails scratch my wrist, I feel the skin tearing apart, and something liquid is left behind. Blood.

The looming walls of the castle come into sharper focus in my field of vision, the silhouette of cobblestone gradually gaining clarity. They sit in an uneven pattern that appears to be close to falling apart, and I am sure that the castle has stood here for several hundred years.

But just about how long has it been since they started using it as a dollhouse?

I barely want to think about that. With one last hard gust of wind, I come up to the door we exited about thirty minutes ago, but there’s still no trace of Grey.

With a deep breath, I try the door and to my huge relief, it opens again, allowing me to enter the morgue. It’s even colder here now than it was before, as if the temperature in the room is influenced by an ominous presence, amplifying the eerie atmosphere.

I swallow down the nausea as I walk the same way I did with Daxton and Grey. It is even more unnerving to walk these halls alone, and I can’t help but feel as if my heart will soon be ripped out of my chest. Every drop of water from a distance that falls to the ground in a slowdrip, drip, dripsound makes my body flinch and my pulse quicken.

Words cannot describe the sheer terror that fills me, knowing that this is it. There is no way out of here with the guards blocking the gates, frantically searching for me.

Eventually, I will be caught, and there is nothing I can do about that.

I only hope Grey has managed to escape with Daxton, since he knows the grounds of this place better than we ever will.

The air grows impossibly cooler when it sounds as if someone taps on the pipes hanging from the ceilings. My shoulders are pulled up tight as I try to accept my fate.

But how can one accept the fact that you are going to die in the coming hour? There is no way of accepting that, even if it was my strongest dream to die many years ago, a time before Grey. He’s the morally twisted man who turned my world upside down; the toxicity in him made me thrive and survive.

A clock chimes far away, and the sudden sound makes me gasp, I’m too fucking paranoid. I hurry up my steps, continuing through the basements, and feeling lucky that no one is close by. I reach the spiral staircase, the weight drooping over me like a burdensome stone.

The floor creaks beneath my feet as I ascend the stairs, every sound making me turn my head around in an attempt to see if anyone is here with me.

Terror courses through my body like a living, breathing force that is ready to drown me. My breathing is the only thing that can be heard, but still, it feels as if someone else is behind me, breathing down my neck.

And then I finally reach the top of the stair that leads me to another corridor where I turn right, knowing I cannot go back to the staff’s quadrant in case they are there.

I have to stay hidden as long as I can. I have to bide my time so that maybe, just maybe, Grey and Daxton will have a better chance at escaping.

Suddenly, a hand slams over my mouth, a scent filling my nostrils that makes me groggy, sleepy, yet still conscious. I’m unable to move my body or think properly as I’m pressed against a chest, a vanilla scent overwhelming me.

“There you are. I have been looking for you,” a voice says, its breath brushing against my ear.

My heart stops, a chilling sensation taking over as the betrayal becomes a crescendo in my head, tinged with bewilderment. Esther looks at me while holding me secure to her, a sinister smile proudly playing on her lips.

“Awe, don’t look so shocked.”

A laugh slips from her throat, all the while my emotions swirl as if taken by a tornado. My mind has a hard time comprehending the events unfolding as confusion clouds my mind and better judgment.

I’m restricted from doing anything but accept whatever is happening, making panic claw at me. The light shifts, hinting at us arriving in a different room. It feels as if hours pass before I’m put against a hard chair, and a leathery scent fills my nostrils before memories flood my mind.

Dankworth Institute when Emilio Ricci and that nurse strapped me to the bed. And the day my mother left me strapped to a hospital bed with the only scent surrounding me being that of leather.

My head hangs low, and it feels heavy to hold up, yet I still see Esther in my periphery. She’s dressed in a vintage dress, the bodice pressing against her upper body until it forms an uncomfortable figure. She waves at me, her smile wide and eyes filled with a glint of malicious intent. I try to speak to ask her what the fuck is going on, but my words are slurred, making no sense at all.

Esther seizes me by my hair, forcing my head to look straight ahead, and what I behold sends my stomach plummeting. I want to struggle against the restraints, but the drug she made me inhale renders me powerless.

With his arms crossed, Arthur stands a short distance from me, staring at me with a sneer on his lips and a look of disappointment etched on his face. The sight of him has me recoiling, igniting a violent urge to fucking drag a knife through his abdomen and watch him bleed.

Esther skips over to him with a playfulness to her movements, and I stare in shock at the sight of him raising his hand to pat her head in a gesture meant to be rewarding. She gives him a smile, and it’s not until now that I see the striking resemblance between them—a chilling connection that sends unease trickling down my spine.

Their eyes are uncanny, harboring a shared calculation and darkness. They give off the same aura, resembling facial features that I never thought about before. Though their hair colors differ, both hairstyles accentuate their faces in an eerie way. Suddenly, the kind aura I once sensed from Esther the time she sacrificed herself for me is replaced by one that is haunting, and I realize the depth of their connection.

Like father, like daughter.

That revelation makes all the more sense the longer I think about it, remembering the evil gaze Esther gave me when Daxton and I fought at the ball. I realize that Esther helping me that time during the hide-and-seek game was nothing more than a ploy meant to make me not suspect anything, but what motives?

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