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“Once upon a time,” he said. “There was a girl who thought she owned the fucking world. She thought she could-”
“No!” I cried out, jumping up from the bed and forcibly pushing him away when his hand came to rest on my shoulder. “No. No more stories, Thorn. I want to know the truth!”
His eyes were dark and stormy as we stared at one another.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I fucked her.”
“Was she…” I tried to process the information, but my words seemed to be failing me. “Was she your Rose?”
“She…” He looked uncomfortable as fuck, but he never looked away from my eyes. “At one point I thought she was, yes.”
It all made sense then; the fucking burial ground of the rose garden, the only rose he’d spared. Now I’d taken her place, and there were only two options of how my time at the Mansion would end – either he’d get rid of me and put me in the ground, or he’d keep me as a prisoner forever.
“Get out,” I whispered, and he stared at me incredulously as I turned my back toward him, unwilling to look into his eyes. “Please. Just go.”
I felt him lingering behind me, wondering and almost hoping he would defy me and invade my bubble like he had so many times before, yet he didn’t. Instead, he sighed heavily and left the room, the door closing behind him with a resounding click.
Once he was gone, I realized I needed to run while I still could.
Time was running out.
Chapter 13
Rose
I woke up with a start, finding a dark figure standing above my bed with my heart pounding and protective instincts kicking in. I tried to scream, but a palm covered my mouth; my eyes widened as I stared at the person above me.
“I’m sorry,” Amber cried softly, pressing her pointer finger to her lips. “I had to wake you. You need to come with me.”
I recognized the urgency in her voice and nodded quickly, tossing the covers off my body. Her hand left my mouth, and we stared at one another with our hearts pounding in our chests.
“This is our chance,” Amber managed to get out. “There are supplies coming in soon. Please, come with me. It could be our only chance.”
I didn’t ask how she got rid of the guard standing outside of my room, but it became obvious once I walked out into the hallway and saw a passed-out man on the ground. I stopped my gasp from leaving my lips then, in nothing but my nightie, grabbed Amber’s hand and ran alongside her, our steps soundless on the floor – one thing we’d learned as dancers.
“How did you do that?” I whispered to her, but she merely smiled in response and kept pulling me forward. We ran down a stairway I hadn’t used, my heart pounding loudly as we evaded the guards, and then we were outside, the free night air and the ground cold under my bare feet. I stared in wonder at the starry sky, but there was no time for that. Amber kept pulling me along until we rounded a corner of the house and saw a large black van with a man unloading things out of the open back door.
“That’s the last of them,” he told one of the maids, who was apparently accepting the delivery. “I’ll be back next week.”
She nodded silently, and the man started helping her carry the things inside.
“This is our chance,” Amber whispered. “We have to get in the back of that van!”
I felt an adrenaline rush going through my body as we raced towards the vehicle and climbed into the back. The interior was dark, and there wasn’t much inside apart from boxes and an old, stained tarp. I covered us both with it, and we shivered, holding each other’s hands under the smelly fabric. I was too afraid to make a sound, my body and mind still recovering from our miraculous exit. Moments later, I heard footsteps, and the doors closed with a slam. Then, the van switched on, and we felt the engine moving under us as the man drove away, clueless about us being in the back.
Amber and I stared at one another, but neither of us said a word. There were no windows in the back, so when I pulled the tarp off us to breathe, we saw nothing but darkness. We held hands like little girls as the van pulled away. I was terrified, more scared than I’d been in my entire life, yet I knew I needed to keep my voice down, to keep my panic for myself if I had any hope of escaping the nightmare I’d found myself in.
We drove for what felt like hours, the van moving from a dirt road to something smoother with sounds of other vehicles joining in as it started to get lighter in the back, a small sliver of light coming through from under the doors.
