Page 73 of XV (Fifteen) (War of Roses 1)

Someone grabs my chin and pries my lips apart to shove a warm object between them. Something metal containing a liquid I let roll off my tongue, even as my stomach lurches in desperation. I taste nothing. Feel nothing.

Just…rage, so palpable that it stings like a physical blow.

“Damn you.”

More wetness. Cold. When I don’t swallow, a torrent of fluid drips down my nose and rolls down my chin.

Again, I’m left alone with Marnie. She doesn’t acknowledge me, even now. She merely lurks around the edges of my consciousness, always out of reach.Four days.

The count remains the same when I’m disturbed by a soft hand brushing my cheek—not Mischa’s. The fingers are too small. So is the face staring back at me as I force my eyes to focus.

No.Not her… Mischa is a cruel, unfeeling bastard. Hatred for him is the first tangible emotion I’ve felt in days. It burns through my sore, wasting limbs, too weak to direct itself toward anything in particular.

Nicolai’s girl watches me with an unreadable expression. Her brown eyes stare blankly, even as she pats my chin and guides a utensil toward my lips with her free hand. A spoon.

The urge to refuse is nearly impossible to resist. I’m so close. Marnie feels nearer than ever. A few more days and I’d finally find her again. Touch her. Be near her with no one to come between us.

But guilt is a terrible, persistent thing. Marnie may have been immune to it at the end of her life, but I’m not. When the girl nudges my lips with the spoon, I part them and swallow the liquid gathered on it. My shriveled taste buds fail to discern a flavor. I just drink each mouthful woodenly, emptying the bowl. Upon setting it aside, the girl reaches for a bottle of water and silently urges me to finish it next.

Someone’s cleaned her up and brushed her hair, having plaited it into two small braids. They dressed her as well, in a clean pink shirt and jeans. Vanya? Only he would be kind enough.

Has he sent her to me?

No. Most men aren’t selfish enough to use a child to do his bidding—but a monster would be. Not even because he cared about my welfare.

He just wasn’t finished with me yet.

When I gulp down the last drop of water, the girl gathers up the bowl and the bottle and exits the room, leaving the door open so that a sliver of light can penetrate my prison. It’s a silent gesture that conveys an unmistakable request.

Four days of filth waft from my skin. What little waste I managed to expel is in a bucket in the corner of the room. Mischa never locked the door himself—my imprisonment had been self-imposed. Leaving now would be a harrowing defeat.

But if I don’t, he’ll send her again, forcing her to feed my emaciated frame.

Forcing her to watch me die.

With a groan, I unfurl my sore limbs. Weak with disuse, my legs refuse to fully support my weight. I have to cling to the wall with both hands just to rise to my feet, and leaving the room is a slow, painful ordeal.

Somehow, I make it up the stairs to the first floor. I pass no one, not even the girl. Not Mischa. I can’t escape the feeling that he planned it, this silence that chases me through the halls and into the red room beside his.

I choose it solely for its familiarity. Nothing else.

After wrestling the door closed, I lock it. Then I stagger into the bathroom and lock that door as well. The sunken tub is a tempting escape. I draw the water scalding hot and collapse in the center of it, letting the warm wetness consume me.

How pathetic. I always thought I was above such an act: suicide. Marnie took her own life, but even after years of torment, I’ve never done the same. Not even when Robert showed me his worst. Not even when he made me wish for death.

I’ve never been desperate enough.

Or brave enough.

Am I now?

The answer eludes me as the water level rises. I lie here motionless, letting the moisture seep into my nostrils and lap at my parted lips. Just as my lungs start to burn, I tilt my head toward the ceiling and inhale the humid air.

Only now do I hear it. Thunder? No.Pounding.

In the end, I don’t know how long it takes him to break the door down. He appears in the room amid a sound like thunder, his chest heaving, his eyes a flashing amber. He deflates when he sees me in the tub, still alive, his hands flexing in and out of fists.

Meeting his gaze, I force my dry, cracked lips to part and address him for the first time in days. “Mention my mother again and I’ll kill myself.” The falling water adds an ominous backdrop I couldn’t have planned on my own to the threat. “You’ll have to send my body back to Robert, stillhis.Always.”

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