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I turn back to look at her. She’s lying in my bed, looking smaller than before, lost under the thick duvet, and all I can think is she could have died.
I’m an idiot for not seeing the extent of Lucinda’s hate.
Going to her with my offer, wanting to spare Ethan the pain and confusion of finding out he isn’t who he thinks he is, it backfired. And it could have cost Helena her life.
A movement beneath the heavy blankets has me holding my breath.
I go to her as she lets out a small groan. She’s been heavily sedated up until now while they rehydrated her, fed her through a tube, dressed her wounds. I didn’t want her awake to feel the pain she must have been in down in that room.
Those marks will take time to heal and I know there will be scars. Lucinda broke skin this time. Too much of it. In comparison to this beating, she’d been gentle that first time.
Helena blinks open her eyes and I exhale. She looks up at the ceiling and I see the moment recognition returns and she startles, her eyes going wide as she jerks up to a seat, wincing, clutching the duvet to her.
She looks at me for a moment, it’s like she doesn’t recognize me.
Like she’s afraid of me.
Silence hangs heavy between us and I’m holding my breath. I think she is too. Her eyes fall to the bandage around my upper arm and I see her confusion.
“Sebastian?” she asks. Her shoulders slump and her forehead creases.
“You’re safe, Helena.”
She looks like she doesn’t believe me. She shudders, draws her knees up and hugs the blanket closer.
“Where are they?”
“They’re not here,” I say, I know she means Lucinda and Ethan and I need to ask her one thing, but I don’t want to. I don’t know if I can take the answer. “Lucinda and Ethan aren’t on the island. You’re safe.”
I take a step toward her but stop when her eyes go wide again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, putting up my hands, refusing to wince at the pain in my shoulder.
“I know,” she says. She looks around the room. My room. “How long was I in that place?”
“Four days.”
I see her knuckles go white as she fists the blankets closer.
“You’ve been back on the island for three.”
“Seven days altogether?”
I nod. “I asked the doctor to keep you sedated.”
“Why?”
I go to her, sit on the edge of the bed.
“We needed to get you rehydrated and fed. And with what she did to you, Helena…I didn’t want you to hurt. I’m sorry.”
She watches me for a long time and I hear my own words.
“Why are you sorry?” she asks, her tone different now.
“That’s a strange question.”
“Is it?”
“I’m sorry I let this happen. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to keep you safe from her. From them.”
“My aunt is dead. You’ve known all along.”
I take in a deep breath. I nod.
“Why did you keep it from me? Why did you let me go on and on and give me hope that you’d let me talk to her?”
I have no excuse.
“Why, Sebastian?”
“When I first found out, it was in the beginning. When you were first here.” I pause, force myself to keep my gaze on hers because I am guilty. Here, I am guilty. “And I didn’t care, Helena. I didn’t care.”
She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, then rubs them and when she pulls them away, the skin around her eyes is wet.
“I care now,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I was wrong to not tell you.”
She studies me, gives an infinitesimal shake of her head and turns her attention to that strange ring which is still on her finger.
“It’s bone,” she says when she looks up to find me watching her turn it.
“Bone?” I ask.
“Human bone. Scafoni bone.”
I peer closer, meet the empty eye sockets of the skull, feel a cold chill run along my spine.
“The missing finger,” she says.
Her face is unreadable, head cocked slightly to the side, studying me.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“She told me.”
“She told you?”
She nods.
“Who told you?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Lucinda told me things too.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“She said you chose this. She said you could have stopped it at any time. That you still can.”
I don’t want to answer this question, so I ask another one instead. “I need to know something, Helena.”
She folds her arms across her chest and waits.
“I need to know if Ethan…if he hurt you.”
“He didn’t lay a finger on me. Like you said. He knew you’d be mad if he did so instead, he…” Her face crumples and again, she wipes away tears and I know she’s trying hard not to cry them. “God, I need a shower.”
She pushes the blankets away, but I stop her before she tries to get out of the bed.
