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Nancy came toward me and stared into my eyes. A daisy crown appeared on her head, quaint, fragile little flowers weaving through her fiery strands. Didn’t matter they were an illusion, they seemed real and far too delicate for this place.
“She definitely looks out of it.” Nancy snapped her fingers in my face.
I didn’t flinch.
Didn’t have the energy.
“She hasn’t said a word since Ruby Tears.” Peter sighed.
“Uh-oh.” Both girls looked at one another. “I know how much that gutted me the first time.” They shared matching grimaces. “You just need to give her time, Pete. You can’t rush her. She’ll deal with it in her own way.”
“She needs to do something,” Peter muttered. “Her silence is freaking me out.”
“What do you want her to do?” Kirk snapped. “Scream?”
“If it will help…then yeah.”
“Nothing will help.” The blue-eyed, black-haired slave who’d been Victor’s choice at the orgy-dinner appeared. Behind her trailed in four others. Two boys, two girls. All of them in various states of nakedness and sleep.
One of the boys said, “Come on, let’s go to bed. The sooner she falls unconscious, the sooner her mind will come to terms with what happened.”
Peter marched into his band of surviving jewels. A discussion sprang up. Some heated words broached higher than a whisper.
I ignored all of them.
I bowed my head at the silent dragon still puffing in the corner and let the sparkling gems seduce me.
A large pendant of snowflake obsidian caught my attention.
Snowflake obsidian.
Formed by volcanic eruptions in Italy, Scotland, and other wonderful far-off places. A stone believed to help heal trauma, shock, and dissolve both physical and spiritual pains.
I clutched it tight and kept walking.
So many.
Too many.
A crypt full of memories from those who’d worn, revered, and appreciated these gemstones.
A tomb of dead jewels who would never be found.
I dropped the snowflake obsidian.
My palm burned.
It belonged to someone else.
Someone who’d been tortured, brutalised, and murdered.
My eyes stung.
My breath caught.
My insides twisted into a million knots.
But I didn’t cry.
Didn’t cry.
I moved to the next basket and ran my cold-frosted fingers over hundreds of beaded bracelets. Just like mine. Too much like mine.
I would never be able to tell which were the ones Victor had taken off me, and I didn’t want to. They hadn’t worked. They hadn’t protected or saved me.
The weight in my chest grew and grew.
The pressure in my head swelled and swelled.
The dragon hissed, and my heart fissured.
Just a crack.
But it caused a gaping abyss in my chest.
But I didn’t cry.
I stayed dry-eyed and silent.
I didn’t think about what Henri had done.
I didn’t think about what he would do next.
I just kept praying to the mountains of jewels and—
I froze.
My heart stopped.
Resting in the last basket on the top row.
Glinting green and placed just so, rested my aventurine pendant from Krish.
For a second, I had no reaction.
The pressure inside me, the tears I refused to shed…they didn’t get worse or better.
But then the crack in my heart gorged agonisingly wide.
An earthquake shook me.
A soul-shake.
A heart-break.
The crack became a chasm.
And my spirit fell out.
Screaming.
I gagged on despair and fear and loss. Horror waterfalled and flooded me until my faltering heartbeat roared in my ears.
I reached for my pendant.
The flower of life stone slipped elegantly off the pile of gems.
Slipping, slipping, as if it’d been waiting for me to claim it, and my inner breaking destroyed it.
With a sharp wail, I lurched through the illusion of the dragon and ran headfirst into crippling, clotting agony.
With quaking hands, I snatched up the stone.
I ran my thumb over the emblem that I knew better than my own face.
I saw Krish’s smile as he gave it to me.
Felt his unconditional love as he secured it around my throat.
Heard his wise, quiet voice telling me I was special. So special.
And I broke.
I didn’t cry.
Didn’t cry.
I sobbed.
Falling to my knees, I pressed the last piece of home to my chest and splintered.
A wounded noise fell out of me.
Breathless and tragic.
A gasp, a rock, a gag, a grunt.
And then, I was nothing but tears.
Gushing wet, ugly, violent tears.
I wasn’t aware of hands tugging me away from the shelves.
I wasn’t conscious of an embrace given by the one slave who’d done his best to save me.
I lost myself to grief.
I cried and cried and cried.
I wailed.
I screamed.
I purged every cut and siphoned every droplet.
I couldn’t suppress Henri’s relief at being free.
Couldn’t forget the change in him or the loss at his downfall.
All my hate.
All my worry.
All my fear and pain and terror poured out of my eyes and all over the floor.
I cried and cried.
I cried into dawn.
I cried into hell.
I kept crying until…I couldn’t cry at all.
Chapter Four
………………………….
Henri
I BASKED IN THE SUNRISE.
With an unlit cigar in one hand—courtesy of Victor after our perfectly rare-cooked steak—and a glass of rich merlot in the other, I bathed in the brilliant colours of nature.
