Page 3 of Chain Me
“Are you all right, hun?” someone asked as I made my way to the nearest elevator. A woman, her gaze on my shaking fingertips. A tiny figure clung to her hip, clutching a ratty doll that had seen better days. Paces away a man eyed a wristwatch and sighed impatiently, but as his gaze shifted to the woman before me, all traces of impatience faded from his expression.
“Do you need to sit down?” the woman asked.
For someone so nosy, she should have been older. A gnarled biddy with nothing better to do than butt her nose into other’s affairs. But she was young—my age, if I wanted to be generous. A healthy woman who didn’t sport blood dripping down her chin and wasn’t trembling on her feet. Someone who possessed a family, and security, and all of those pesky things my money couldn’t afford.
Someone who seemed conjured by the universe as if to spite me with an eternal truth:you’re alone, Eleanor.You’re probably dying, Eleanor. Stop pining over him, Eleanor.
“I’m fine,” I replied with a smile, though the small family didn’t seem convinced. The child stuck her head out from around her mother to gape at me, her tiny eyebrow raised.
Who cared? I was past letting strangers comment on my health.
Once I had made it to the front of the hospital and climbed into the back seat of my family’s Rolls-Royce, I closed my eyes—only to be thwarted again in my quest for peace.
“How did it go, miss?” my driver inquired.
I peeled one eye open, observing him with a frown. He was a new hire who had come highly recommended. To most, he probably ticked all of the right boxes—overly friendly, sufficiently charming. He was even pretty for a man, with dark, curly hair and eyes the color of chocolate.
I onlyslightlyhated him—he wasn’t Harper, my long-time confidant and friend. But Harper was probably dead, so this man would have to do.
“It went fine,” I replied, closing my eyes again. “I’d like to rest, if that’s all right.”
As requested, the rest of the journey to the house passed in silence, broken only by the crunch of gravel as the vehicle turned onto the driveway. I startled to awareness, taking in the desolate landscape awaiting me beyond the window with a strange sense of guilt.
I had some damn nerve peddling my money and my resources to hospitals rather than spending it on the only thing my parents had ever deemed important: our supposed legacy. After months of neglect, Gray Manor had certainly seen better days. The house itself loomed above acres of untouched fields and overgrown weeds, as imposing as ever.
Spring had blossomed over the rest of the city, but my familiar home was a landscape clinging to winter. Perhaps it hadn’t been a prudent decision to fire most of the gardening staff on a whim?
Make thatallof the gardening staff.
At least the lack of salaries kept the family fortune intact; Mother would certainly thank me for that.
“Have a nice day, miss,” the driver encouraged as I slipped from the car.
Even though he’d been under my employ for nearly a month, I had yet to learn his name—though it didn’t matter.
I would fire him eventually. Once I got over my fear of driving, that is. I’d fired everyone else.
There was no butler to greet me as I hastened up the front walkway and mounted the topmost step of the front stoop. I had to fish a key from the depths of my handbag and fit it into the lock myself—a fact that would have scandalized my poor parents. To get the solid oak door to budge, I had to basically throw myself against it.
Maybe firing the handyman hadn’t been too smart an idea, either?
A minor inconvenience. One couldn’t put a price tag on silence—and I had the lion’s share as I wandered the deserted foyer. Cold, drafty desolation lingered between the wooden floors and the cavernous ceiling despite the sweltering heat outside.
Home sweet home.
My breath painted the air white, but there was no one around to adjust the heating system, and I didn’t know how. Perhaps Georgie—my estranged sister who belonged to a secret society of vampire hunters—did, though it wasn’t like I could ask her.
ScreamingGet the hell out!at everyone around you tended to have that desired effect. They scattered, no arguments. No desperate pleas to stay.
It was like magic, screaming—and I refused to regret the action one damn bit. Why, when I could strip my coat and leave it right there at the foot of the staircase with no one to stare?
No one to judge, or nag, or patronize.
When I crept into my room, there was no maid to snipe about my rumpled bedsheets or to sigh in pity as I crawled onto the mattress and buried my head beneath the covers. There was no one to witness the shiver that ran down my spine as my stomach contracted. There was no doting chef to care that I hadn’t eaten a solid meal in nearly two weeks, despite a ravenous hunger that plagued me almost as violently as a near-persistent bout of nausea.
Nothing was wrong with me.
Nothing but the invisible creature ripping my insides apart, contorting my body in agony.
