VIOLA
When I wake up, I’m stiff and my head is throbbing. So is my wrist. I’m also dying of thirst.
The first thing clear from the sounds and smells, is that I’m not at my father’s estate. I’m in a bedroom with hideous mirrored furniture and monochrome walls. I’m wearing nothing but my underwear and the splint on my wrist. The tracker is still around my ankle, but the light is green.
I have no idea where the fuck I am. But I know I’m not at home. My father sold me to Kristian. That’s all I remember. This must be the Vice residence in Chelsea. Adrien must have given Kristian the device that controls the tracker so he could move me from the estate.
There’s a sound of classical music and…soft sobbing coming through the walls. I get out of bed, holding my wrist because its fucking killing me now, and walk over to door. It’s locked. Of course it would be. I peer through the keyhole and try to see outside the room I’m in but all I can see is the floral wallpaper of the hallway and not much else.
I want to try kicking the door down but if I do, I’ll alert Kristian to the fact that I’m awake, and I want to assess my situation before I have to fight him a little more.
I don’t believe for a second Dante and Lorcan are dead. They may have walked into a trap, but I know Dante—he’s been in worse situations.
Dino is fine because he’s Kristian’s brother.
And Jude, I hope is still safe and sound in juvie.
Since when did I start collecting people to care about?
I glance about the room looking for something to use as a weapon. There isn’t anything but a bed, bedsheets, a chest of drawers, and a bathroom off to the side. There’s nothing in the drawers and the bathroom has the minimum—toilet paper and sanitary towels. Nothing else.
Voices in the hallway bring me back into the main room. There’s shouting and banging, Then a door slams and someone walks away. The sobbing continues, getting louder. There’s someone in the next room. I put my ear to the wall between my room and theirs and listen.
It might be Lily. But I never pegged her for the crying type.
“Shut the fuck up. Stop whining, you’re driving me crazy,” a female voice hisses.
Okay, that’s Lily. I give a knock. “Lily, is that you?” I say in a low voice.
The crying suddenly stops. “Cousin V!”
It’s Lily alright. The fucker brought her here? Why? The deal was for me alone. The buzzing under my skin is back. I don’t know if I’m angry about Lily being here, or just that I’m stuck here as helpless as my mother was. All the same, I feel the urge to do some violence.
Some absolute fucking carnage.
“Are you hurt?” I force myself to speak, breathing in and out.
“No, we’re not hurt.”
We. She’s not alone. “We? Who is there with you?”
“There’s two of us. Some girl I don’t know who won’t stop fucking crying.”
“Pascal,” says a second voice with a higher pitch.
“Your name’s Pascal?” I hear Lily say.
The girl must nod, because I don’t hear anything after that.
“Is there anything in there you can use as a weapon?” I say through the wall to them.
“I already looked. Nothing,” Lily answers.
What does Kristian want with an underage teenage girl?
The sobbing starts up again as footsteps resound in the hall. Someone is coming. The girl in the room with Lily begins to whimper. I hear Lily tell her to stop being a little bitch just as the door to my room unlocks and swings open. I’m still on the floor next to the wall so I back up into a crouch. Kristian strolls in, an evil looking smile on his face.
Red hair, sparkling blue eyes—he looks so much like Dino, it’s sickening.