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Looking out the window, I realise we are winding through country lanes up a small hill in the middle of nowhere. When I look back at Nova, she’s gone quiet and pale as she stares outside.
“Nova?” I murmur.
“It’s been ten years since I ran down this road. It took me hours, and I tore up my feet. It was freezing, and when I finally managed to find someone willing to give me a lift . . .” She shakes her head. “Ten fucking years, and it still hasn’t been long enough. I can already feel the evil he poisoned this place with leaking into the car.”
“You’re not alone though, Nova,” Dimitri reminds her. “We face this together.”
“D is right,” Nico says, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Ten years is a long time, Nova. It’s time to face your fears. That is all that exists there now: your own fear and memories. He cannot hurt you here anymore.”
“I’m betting he will find a way,” she mutters. “One last barb, one last ounce of pain wrung out of me . . . That was his style, and you know it.” She turns away and looks out of the front window. “I swore I would never come back to this place.”
Unsure what else to say, I reach for her hand, Nico takes the other, and Isaac’s palm lands on her shoulder, offering support. Dimitri turns, setting his hand on her thigh, and even Louis reaches back with one hand, squeezing her knee for a second.
In that moment, we are like children huddling together in the dark, looking to each other for comfort from the big bad monster.
But we aren’t children anymore, and at least now we have each other.
Louis stops the car then turns his head to meet her eyes. “Tell me to turn back now, and we will.”
“What?” she asks.
“Tell me you can’t do this, and fuck orders, we will leave. We will find another way. You’re more important than what is in your head.” There’s an impatient beep behind us from the SUVs. They’re probably wondering what we are doing, but Louis pays them no mind.
She jerks at that, her mouth opening and closing before she swallows. “I can do this,” she finally answers. “I can. Just don’t leave me, okay? We do this together.”
“Of course, and any time you want to leave, we will.” He nods. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she responds, and without waiting, Louis turns forward and drives down the narrowing road to the driveway leading to the estate we can now see.
Within five minutes, we are before the huge wrought iron gates. The black paint is chipped and peeling in places, and the golden crest of Dr. Davis’s family sits proudly in the middle of the designs. They stand close, with a guard station to the right which is empty.
“He never had guards because he never wanted them to know what we were doing here, not until the end, but I always knew there was no escape. He kept me here out of fear, not out of lack of freedom . . . fear for my sister.” Her whisper reaches us all, and we jolt.
He kept her here by threatening her innocent, untouched sister. Nova endured all that pain and torture for her sister, Ana, and now she wants nothing to do with her for saving herself? For finally running?
Selfish bitch.
If she knows, then she’s worse than her father.
The gate doesn’t open, so Dimitri gets out, noticing a control panel. “Do you know the code?”
“It’s the first four digits of pi,” Nova snaps. “The pretentious bastard.”
Dimitri nods and puts in the numbers, and with an audible beep, the gates start to swing open. The groan of the worn metal is loud as he gets back in the car. We wait for them to fully open before Louis drives through them, followed by the SUVs, which have been tracking us this entire time.
The drive winds through the estate’s grounds. Upkept grass lines the driveway on either side with flower borders, and to the left, we see what must have been the servants’ quarters in a separate building. When we turn into a circular gravel driveway, a large water feature with two small girls in the middle is switched off, the grey brick green from time.
Nova and Ana maybe?
Either way, it’s nothing but a reminder for Nova as we park before the huge estate. Her hands clench ours, but we don’t complain, as she stares at the old, towering brick manor where she was abused by her father.
She gazes at the large, ornate bay windows downstairs then the small balcony up top. Gargoyles are poised on the pointed roof of the three-story manor. The entire structure screams old British architecture, and the dark, ominous feeling about the place is only confirmed by Nova’s fear of it.
It could have been beautiful once, but it seems like Dr. Davis didn’t care about the upkeep, so he let it begin to rot away, like his mind.
“We don’t have to go in,” I start, but Nova climbs over me, kicks the door open, and slides out as if she doesn’t do it now, she won’t at all.
Nova is facing her fears head-on.
