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“Jesus Christ! We’re the reason you’re caught in this bullshit?! My God, Morrigan! You should have said something! We could have gotten you out of this!”
I smirk and shake my head. “I tried speaking with Father once, and all I got was a hard slap across the face. Plus… it’s not just that. Ryan holds something on me, something that could land me in jail for a very, very long time.”
Cillian furrows his eyebrows.
“Do I dare ask?”
“If I ever end up getting out of this situation”—I wave around me—“maybe I’ll tell you. Although… the fewer people who know, the better. However, what are you going to do now that you know all of this?”
“The problem is that the most recent events have pulled all resources away to find the missingman. I’m unsure when my backup returns. But rest assured, sister, one way or another, you will escape this.”
Suddenly, a hard knock sounds on the door and my body goes stiff, but Cillian runs out of the bathroom to check it out.
Mrs Holt appears in the door frame, sighing with such sadness in her eyes and I can’t help but match it.
“I thought you got out…” She walks toward me, stopping a foot away. “I was told to come help you get ready for… the ceremony.” Those words seem to hurt her. I’ve never seen Mrs Holt quite like this, but I guess once you crack the door open, letting some feelings out, it’s hard to close it.
“I thought so too…” My mind drifts to the night I escaped. Or better yet, when I was helped to escape… Maddox and Vincent under the stairs come into my mind, yet it’s only Vincent that I see vividly.
And I may never get to see him again.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
MORRIGAN
The woman looking back at me in the mirror, covered in the hideous, sparkly, princess style wedding dress, looks nothing like me. Like it’s someone else’s reflection. She’s living a nightmare. Her green irises shine too bright from dried tears, her eyes so red and swollen that even the rushed bridal makeup doesn’t succeed to mask it.
Mrs Holt left my wavy red hair loose, only pulling together two thick strands from my temples, braiding them at the back and fixing a long, thin veil into it with a sparkly comb.
The hair… it’s the only thing I like.
“You look beautiful,” she all but whispers, and I look at her reflection, standing behind me. We haven’t spoken a word since the moment she walked into this room. Until now. Nothing would have been appropriate for the situation, the atmosphere too tense, sad and somber.
I still have trouble believing this is the same woman I met years ago. It seems like whoever she used to be has slowly died, as the belief that her son killed her husband has strengthened.
I want to answer her, be polite, but… the will doesn’t come.
This whole time I spent with her in here, getting ready for this ridiculous affair, I’ve dissociated deeply, caught somewhere in the recent memories made at Vincent’s house. In his bed, between his sheets, in his shower… in the woods, where it all began for the last time.
A tear forms and falls too fast for me to blink it away, and I watch in the mirror as it pulls with it some of the makeup that covers my face. I don’t bother fixing it. Mrs Holt doesn’t either. She simply puts her head down and turns away.
This day would have gone to plan if Vincent wasn’t missing… or potentially dead. Not anymore… There’s no one else to save me now.
Even the anger is gone and all that’s left behind is this… hollowness.
Only it can’t truly be called hollow if anguish and grief reside there.
I hold on to some twisted hope that the pact we made must be fulfilled… through some hellish intervention, he must keep his word.
He cannot break the covenant.
He cannot…
A familiar burn begins in my eyes, straining in the middle of my chest, my breathing staggers, and I have to turn and brace myself on the back of the chair that sits in front of the window. I wrap one arm around my middle, my head down as I will myself to calm, because I know that what would come otherwise… will be almost impossible to stop. I cannot break, even if he will not save me, if he will never return… I cannot break. Eventually, I will save myself. When I’ve devised a plan that won’t land me dead or in jail, I will find my freedom.
I’ve been through worse.
Have you?
