77

“ H ow does that feel?” I asked her when I finished wrapping her hands with the clean bandage that Koen had left on the bed before going to find Clay. A small collection of broken glass was piled in the center of my shirt, soaked in her blood from her hands, arms, face, and knees. She had sat through each painful piece being pulled from her skin.

The guilt ate at me every time she whimpered.

I had pushed her too far today, thinking that something would break if I beat my fist against the problem hard enough. And something did .

But it was Florence’s mind and body, an outcome I hadn’t wanted or expected.

“Like my body is failing me,” she admitted, and it took everything inside of me to resist holding her as a response. “I’ve spent years healing from everything, almost instantly, Wesley…” She stopped.

I could see the internal struggle going on behind her eyes, like there was a fight for control between two sides of her. She had put together a plan in a matter of seconds and I didn’t have time to interject before she said, “You can do it now, shoot me. It’ll work .”

“No.”

The lack of hesitation made her flinch .

“What?” She breathed out and stared down at her battered hands. “It’s all you’ve wanted to do for months and now, suddenly, you have an aversion? Don’t be a coward. You can end this. You can keep them safe.” Her voice broke and I realized she wasn’t angry. She was exhausted, and devastated. “This is the answer.”

The Manor hissed in the form of tearing fabric as all the curtains in the room came crashing down around us.

“I won’t do it,” I said with conviction, curling my hands around hers.

The movement made her eyes flicker up to meet mine and, even though I had expected to see tears, there were none. I was taken aback by the level of weariful resolution in her emerald eyes. It broke whatever angry resolve I had left buried in my chest.

“It will kill them,” I said to her, trying to help her understand through her own grief and disappointment. It might kill me.

“That wasn’t a concern before! Don’t do this to me, don't do it when there’s finally hope to end it.” She shifted in the bed, bringing herself closer to me, wincing in pain as she cupped my face in her hands. “I need you to do this. That bullet was made for me, and you know it. You’ve known it all along.”

The Manor groaned around us and the wind ripped through the broken window without remorse, protesting her request in physical acts of violence. A fire raged in the fireplace where moments before there had only been embers and the chairs resting around it kicked up against the walls in an explosion of shattered wood.

“Wesley, put me down .”

“No,” I said again. The feeling of my gun against my back was ice cold and her eyes flickered in response to how I tensed at the thought. “ Florence.” I tried to stop her but wasn’t fast enough. Her hand was around the metal within seconds of her realization, and she cranked the pedal with her finger on the trigger.

The barrel pressed to her bruised temple.

“I am miserable,” she cried out, her hand shaking. “You and I both know how this has to end. You can’t save me and them. I’m weak. The house made a mistake; it’s pushed my body too far and I’m breaking down. It’ll work now.”

Her words were cold and suddenly I realized I had fallen into the frozen lake without even noticing the ice had cracked beneath me. Unable to stop her from doing this without seriously hurting her and not knowing how to proceed without hurting Koen and Clay.

Or myself…

“Go get them,” she said quietly. “Drag them out, knock them out. Just get them out and, once I know you’re gone, I’ll do it myself.”

She climbed from the bed, holding her hand out to stop me from following. “This is the answer we’ve been searching for. If I’m dead, you’re free.”

I don’t want to be free.

“If I’m dead, they’re safe .” Her voice cracked as she backed away from me with shaky steps. The gun wobbled in her hand as she retreated to the safety of the shadows that seemed to engulf the room the more upset she became.

“I’m not going to help you do this.” I shrugged and pulled my lip between my teeth. “If you want to kill yourself, do it in front of them! Don’t be a coward. ”

“You’re the coward.” She shifted the gun toward me for a second and pain twisted across her face. “You won’t help me.”

“Because it’s a stupid plan! Why would this work now? How many times have you tried to kill yourself in the past? It’s never worked!” I resisted the urge to surge towards her from my perch on the edge of the bed. “Give me the gun back, Vengeful.”

“No.” She pressed it to her temple again, tears streaming down her face as her chest heaved in any attempt to steady her shallow, ragged breaths. “I’m the heart that keeps this cursed place alive. If I die, then it does, too.”

“We don’t know that.” I stopped her delusional train of thought. “For all we know you could kill yourself and we all get trapped here in your place.”

Her eyes widened in fear and her head tilted upward, hair sticking to her wet cheeks as she listened to something I couldn’t hear.

“Does it talk to you?” I rose off the bed and her head snapped back to me with the movement, eyes wide with fear. “Does the house talk to you, Florence?” As I said it I knew immediately I was right. I took another step towards her despite her trying to halt my progression. “What is it saying?” I asked.

“It wants me to kill you.”

There is still anger in the blunt confession, but I can see that her fear is overriding it. The house’s influence and her emotions fighting over control.

“Do it then,” I said to her. “If you’re so ready to give it want it wants, kill me and then kill yourself, if you think it’ll help.”

Her hand shook around the handle of the gun, her finger so shaky that, every time she twitched, I thought she might set it off by accident. I couldn’t bear the thought and stepped forward further. I just needed to get into arm’s reach.

“I can’t.” She shook her head.

“Why not? You hate me. I hate you. It should be easy.” I taunted her, if only she would just pull the gun away from her head.

“I won’t… I don’t… hate you,” she confessed, at war with herself, between her own feelings and the ones the Manor was forcing on her. Who the Manor wanted her to be and who she truly was.

“Yes you do, remember yourself. You hate me, I hate you. The monster and the man.”

“Fighting...” She mumbled, her hand shaking but not pulling the trigger.

“Who’s the coward now, Florence?” I asked her.

“Be quiet!”

“Me or the house?” I questioned and reached out to her trembling body as she cowered against the wall.

“ Please .”

The plea was different; before it had been a demand. This whole time she believed I had wanted her dead, to silence her with a bullet. She wasn’t wrong . At least, that had been my intention in the beginning, but slowly she had changed my mind.

“ Please , Wesley,” she cried, arms growing weak and her posture slumping in defeat.

The sound of Florence begging me to kill her blew a hole through every single wall that I had put up against her. They cracked and crumbled, leaving my heart exposed for her to get in. ‘There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, Wesley.’

Everything was wrong about the way she was looking at me, praying that I would act on the darker urges she knew existed within me. She wanted my help but the weakness that was falling in love complicated every simple decision.

“Wesley, end it.” She pleaded with me to end her life. “I need you to…”

“They need you .” I need you. I cut her off and invaded her space before she had time to react. She watched me in confused agony as I hesitated at first but slipped my hands around her throat and cupped her jaw. “I know it hurts.” I lowered my voice. “I know you’re angry and tired.”

Better than anyone I understood.

“It feels good to fight back, to make everyone feel how you feel. Desperate, defeated, and pissed off,” I explained because I had been there. I had been the weak, forgotten, and angry one holding the gun to my head. For weeks after Wyatt’s death, the only person there to pull me out of it was Koen, with his dumb, hopeful eyes and childish smile.

He was why I was alive today and I wouldn’t disappoint him.

Florence’s finger twitched. I closed my eyes and held my breath, but the bang never came.

When I opened them the green in her eyes looked so deep and endless that it rivaled the depths of any dense forest. Excruciatingly sad. The urge to kiss away the devastation that stained her usually delicate features was violent and selfish. I brushed a thumb over her wet cheek, the barrel of the gun still firmly planted to her temple, but I refused to let my eyes wander to it.

“But you are not a monster. Do you hear me?” I said it, and I made sure she heard me. “You are not a monster. I—I was wrong ,” I whispered, my gaze softening on hers as her eyes flooded with painful-looking tears. “ The Manor wants you to believe it because it makes you weak, it breaks your spirit and your mind, but that is not who you are. You are…” I stopped, my breath hitching as I dared to press my lips to her soaked, frozen cheek.

“Gentle, and kind,” I said, kissing her again softly. “Empathetic, a fighter, a protector,” I whispered with another carefully placed kiss at the corner of her mouth. “A romantic, a reader, a dreamer.” This time, I pressed her lips against mine, every ounce of gentleness and understanding I had never allowed for myself, transferred through that kiss. “A pain in my arse,” I joked and, for a split second, I thought her lip curled in amusement, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

“You are not a monster, Florence. You are anything but.”

“We’re all going to die,” she whispered.

“Don’t give up on them yet,” I urged her.

“You want me to give them hope, but I don’t know how…” Florence said.

“Yes, you do,” I reminded her. “You do.”

“Orchid Manor will have its way,” she sobbed, and the gun slipped from her hand. I caught it and shoved it back into my pants as she repeated it over and over—a haunting chorus. “We’re all going to die. It’s never going to let me go.”

I pulled her against me and pressed my lips to her hair. The floor creaked behind me and I turned to the door to see Koen standing there, his chest pumping wildly, his hand curled around the door frame with white knuckles.

“Thank you,” his words came out in a whisper, his green eyes glassy as he watched me carry her back to bed .

“Go help Clay,” I instructed and he nodded, leaving without question as I crawled into the bed with Florence and let her cry herself into some semblance of sleep.