Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Then she turned her ire on Walker. “And you. You know the stress the Elders are under, but you still let her come gallivanting in here?”
Walker looked down at his plate, ashamed. Which made me angry. It wasn’t his fault. He tried to tell me it was dangerous and that I should leave. Both times. But then, well, things just got out of control. And the absinthe and LSD made us take leave of our senses—or well, the opposite. We were only our senses and our bodies. I had just wanted to touch and be touched. And be free. It was our brains and upper processing that took leave.
But here Mrs. Hawthorne was, chewing us out anyway. I reached underneath the table until I found Walker’s hand and clasped it. I saw the brief surprise as he endured Mrs. Hawthorne’s tongue-lashing, and he seemed to sit up a little straighter even as he continued nodding his head.
We might’ve made mistakes, but they were innocent ones. I, at least, didn’t understand I was entering a snake den.
Mrs. Hawthorne’s harangue ended with her banging a pristine white box on the table. “Now I hope you’ll both be more careful and considerate going forwards. You aren’t children anymore. So stop acting like it.”
And then she swirled out of the room. But I didn’t let go of Walker’s hand.
He let out a loud breath. “Well, that’s Mrs. H for you. She hasn’t chewed me out like that since I was a kid. Let’s see what’s in the box.”
I missed his hand when he let go of mine to reach for the box.
He pulled it close and then lifted the lid. I had to go up on a knee in my chair to look over the edge to see inside. I frowned. “What…” I started at the same time Walker said, “Well, it’s better than what I was afraid of.”
I reached inside and grabbed out the heavy, medieval-looking pair of shackles. They had to weigh twenty pounds.
“This is better?” My voice was an octave higher than normal. “Then what on earth were you afraid of?”
He just shook his head. “You don’t want to know. This just means they want to restrain you. That’s pretty normal stuff. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
He averted his face as he hopped up to walk over to the breakfast cart. “Now let’s see what they brought us. Whatever it is we’ll face later, we don’t want to do it on an empty stomach.”
It was twisted, them giving us that box at breakfast. Because then there was nothing to do all day except think about what might be coming later. I didn’t think I was going to appreciate all the clever ways they had come up with over the years to “break” me.
Because the more hours I had to stare at those damn shackles, the more I felt eminently breakable.
Most belles had to survive over three months of this? One hundred and nine days? All I had was a three-week sentence and I was near to hyperventilating.
Walker could see I was anxious, but that didn’t make him helpful.
Thirty minutes before we were supposed to go down, I was still wearing my leggings and soft shirt, and he dropped the news: “Uh. What they put in the box is what they want you to wear. And it’s, um, the only thing they want you wearing.”
My mouth dropped open. I was supposed to walk down there in front of all those men I’d grown up with completely buck naked?
Of course that was what they wanted, my brain registered at the same time I started shaking.
Walker came up to me. “You don’t have to do this. We can go down there right now, tell them to go fuck themselves, and walk right out the front door.”
Not this again. I pushed my hands against his chest and shoved him away from me. “That’s not helpful! You know we have to do this.”
I glared at him, and he ran his hands through his hair. He turned away from me, pacing back and forth in the bedroom. Which is what he did for the next thirty minutes until it was time to go downstairs, not speaking a word.
Which was fine because I was pretty sure all he’d do was try to talk me out of it again. He was too gallant. Too much of a man who wanted to ride in to the rescue.
And I was pretty sure that having to do CPR on me to bring me back from the brink of death had freaked him out even more than it had me, if that was even possible.
So I was gonna have to be the strong one here. At least insofar as getting us down those damn stairs. Because I was pretty damn sure I’d need his strength to face whatever was awaiting us once we got there.