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How can he keep that stare so fixed, those irises glowing like blood in the dying sunlight?
“You swore you’d protect me.” The words come out on a shaky whisper.
“And I will. This has nothing to do with it.”
I’m trapped. The world weighs on my shoulders. This group of rich bastards might as well have snapped cuffs and shackles around my wrists and ankles, because that’s what this is. My breath comes in gusts, and it gets harder to control it by the second. I know I should ask how this is supposed to happen, maybe ask for at least some time to get ready, but the air is too heavy. I can’t be here anymore, under their merciless scrutiny.
With the hardness of Sade’s sculpted face, the evil satisfaction on Gertrude’s, the sleazy triumph on Dogg’s and the contempt oozing from Romano, my very foundations quake. The only sliver of compassion comes from Micah–the icing on the shock. He looks around as if he’s considering sliding out one of those blades and slashing all of their throats but his brother’s.
I have to get out of here, or I’m going to fall down to my knees in front of them. I summon all the energy I have left and break into a run, racing past the large wooden doors that now seem to be crawling with all the figures carved into it.
I must look manic because members of the staff throw themselves out of my path, and I almost collide with some of the first guests. Couples. Gentlemen in expensive suits and ladies in flowing dresses. Bitterness crawls up my throat as I emerge out onto the patio where Dogg first found me, wondering if those men have double faces, too, finger-fucking their maids in the ass and sending videos of that to their friends before they come home to kiss their wives and kids.
I bend down, gulping in deep breaths with my hands on my knees, but some of the guests have already started finding their way outside. For many, this is an opportunity to explore the Royales mansion. Lights come on, bathing the patio in a welcoming glow. Jazz music filters from the glass doors, drifting off into the garden, past the neatly cut hedges and rose bushes towards the forest beyond.
Such marvelous things, this mansion and the forests surrounding this area. People have gotten lost in them before, along with their dreams–and their troubles. That’s where I need to go. That’s where I can hide. Find a place where I can just scream out this rage inside, this powerlessness in the hands of these wealthy sharks. I’ve never felt this filled with hatred in my life, poison seeping into my mind. Changing me.
“Justine?”
My back stiffens. Mrs. Jones again.
“Are you all right, sweetheart? If you’re done with the master, then you could–”
That word–the master. That’s what Romano thinks he is, master over a world of slaves.
I can’t stay here, I can’t let anyone see my face. Tinted with the crimson of both rage and shame because, let’s face it–whatever is asked of me, it is because I opened the door. Fucking Flying Dutchman, I sure hope that Dean is lying at the bottom of a lake.
I break out into a sprint, ignoring Mrs. Jones’ calls.
“Tell Dad I’m fine,” I all but scream over my shoulder. “I just need to be alone for a while.”
Dad. I don’t want him to worry about me, but I don’t want him to see me like this either. It would destroy him.
Any one of tonight’s guests would get lost in the maze of hedges, but not me. I’ve hidden here to write often enough that it’s a second home to me. I know exactly how to get to the black gate at the back of the property, made of wrought iron with thorny roses coiling around its snaking bars. It used to feed my imagination, like a gate to a different world in which neither class nor Sade’s fucked up past stood between us.
I grab the old handle, blackened by time, ready to yank it open. Looking forward to its raven-like creak that will release me into the wild forest beyond.
But a strong hand wraps around my elbow, yanking me back with the force of a vortex. My back knocks into a wall of muscles.
No, not this time.
I struggle against him, but his arm snakes around my middle, plastering me to him. His whole body seems to wrap around me like a shadow as he puts his mouth to my ear.
“Where do you think you’re going, pretty poet?”
“As far away from you as my legs will take me,” I spit out, kicking my legs, my fingers digging into his black-clad forearm. All I accomplish is hurting myself until I cry out in pain. The fabric of his top slides over snaking granite.
“I thought you and I were going to put up a show for our friends on campus.”
I throw my entire weight against him in a fit of rage, slamming my feet into the gate for balance. My sneakers skid on the iron, making it impossible to find my footing. The sadistic rich boy behind me only tsks calmly.
“When are you going to understand, Justine? You are mine. The only way you’re ever getting rid of me is if you kill me.”
“A tempting possibility,” I croak.
“Hmm, we both know you don’t mean that.” Keeping me hostage with one arm, he cups my chin with the other, almost gently. Tenderly. But no one would be fooled by that touch. The power contained in it is far too obvious.
“Why do you go still, pretty poet?” he muses, and it sounds almost like he’s hurt. “Do you believe I could ever harm you?”
