Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
His thoughts skittered past Riko’s wild violence, but everything after that was a blur: muffled voices yelling from a thousand miles away, distant road noise on an unending, painful drive, and the scent of cigarette smoke and scotch as a man carried his limp and drugged body into a strange house.
No, Jean thought. No, no, no.
He didn’t want to ask, but he had to. Getting the words out when his heart was lodged in his throat took three tries: “Where am I?”
Renee’s stare was as unwavering as it was unrepentant. “South Carolina.”
Jean swung his legs toward the edge of the bed, meaning to get up, but that hurt so badly he nearly threw up. He gasped for breath, heart pounding in his eyes and fingertips, and was distantly aware that Renee had moved to stand in front of him. He hadn’t even heard her get up, but now she was checking the line of his ribs with careful hands.
“Let me up,” he said, as if he had any control over his body right now. He blinked black spots out of his vision, torn between the fuzzy heat of rising gorge and the dizzying sense of falling. He wasn’t sure which would come first, unconsciousness or retching, but he prayed it happened in whichever order would be fatal. “Let me go.”
“I won’t. Lie down.”
Renee moved one hand to his shoulder and kept the other on his side to steady him. Jean tried resisting for only a second; tensing up his core was a mistake he didn’t want to make again anytime soon. Renee eased him onto his back and pulled the blankets back up to his collarbone. She checked his eyes one at a time, holding his chin between her thumb and forefinger when he tried to look away from her. Jean scowled at her with all the rage his exhausted, broken body could muster.
“He will not forgive you,” Jean said. “Neither will I.”
“Oh, Jean,” Renee said, with a sweet smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I won’t be forgiven for this. Try to get some sleep. It will help you more than anything else.”
“No,” Jean insisted, but he was already falling away.
-
It should have been a nightmare.
If there was any justice in the world, Jean would wake up in Evermore to the master’s impatience and Riko’s hatred. But when Jean next dragged himself out of the depths, he was still in that pale bedroom with only one bed, with Renee keeping watch from the foot of it. She was wearing something new, and the light cutting across the bed was the softer glow of morning. Jean did another mental check of his limbs before painstakingly pushing himself up again. Renee’s gaze was calm, but Jean would never trust her peaceful demeanor again. She’d damned them both.
“Where am I?” he asked, praying the answer would be different this time.
“South Carolina,” she said without hesitation. “More specifically, you are at the home of our team nurse, Abby Winfield. It is March 15th,” she said before he thought to ask. “Do you remember anything from yesterday?”
“I came here yesterday,” Jean said. It wasn’t quite a question, but he looked to her for an answer. He wasn’t sure how badly Riko rattled his brain, and it helped a bit that Renee nodded. He’d lost an entire day past those snatches of bloody memories and the last conversation he’d had with her, but he was willing to write those gaps off as unconsciousness.
Jean carefully slid his legs toward the edge of the bed. His right leg went on its own, but he had to brace his left between his aching hands to move it. Every breath he managed and every inch he moved sent pain shuddering through him. There was deep and lingering damage in too many places. It sank through his chest and gut like acid, eating away whatever was left of him. It hurt like hell, but he’d worked through worse. He’d survive this, no matter what it cost him.
“Jean,” Renee said. “I’d rather you stayed put.”
“You cannot stop me,” Jean said.
“I promise I can,” she said. “It is for your own good. You’re in no shape to be moving.”
“You’re the one who moved me,” Jean snapped. “You should not have brought me here. Take me back to Evermore.”
“I won’t,” Renee said. “If that doesn’t satisfy you: I can’t. Mr. Andritch banished you from Evermore for the time being.”
Jean knew the name, but only vaguely. Renee explained when she realized his silence was more confusion than belligerence: “Your campus president.”
“My—” Jean’s heart hit the backs of his teeth. “What have you done?”
Renee got up and came to stand by his knee as he finally reached the edge of the bed, an unrepentant and unyielding barricade keeping him on the mattress. “I sent him into the Nest unannounced and uninvited.”