Chapter 25

The smell of percolating coffee clouded my head with jittery nerves. I could hear it from the kitchen, that odd, sharp burbling noise only coffeemakers made.

Aunt Ruth sat in her favorite armchair, the floor lamp beside her casting a warm glow over her brown hair as she studied something on her laptop screen. Her reading glasses, propped on her slim nose, reflected a white spreadsheet.

Before she could notice my gaze, I bent over my notebook, a thick calculus textbook beside it on the coffee table. Sitting on the floor hurt my back, the tight waist of my designer jeans cutting in my stomach, but Ruth liked to see me working.

Her ward must be smart. Must be polite, demure, perfect.

Ruth didn't think I was any of those things. I was stupid, rude, pathetic, weak. But I had to look perfect or it would reflect poorly on her. Not too perfect, though. I couldn't look better than Ruth, or I'd pay even worse for that.

The coffeemaker let out a loud gurgle, and I scribbled random numbers across my homework. Tonight was the last night. I wouldn't have to be afraid after this. In no time at all, she would be dead and I would be far from here, alongside the boy I'd fallen in love with.

Tonight, I would finally learn his name.

Excitement buzzed through me, and I understood why he'd wanted to wait. The small, sweet pleasure of learning his name was so easy to focus on. It calmed me. It reassured me.

Ruth closed her laptop lid. I struggled not to tense as she rose, straightened her cashmere sweater over her slim hips, and walked into the kitchen. The clink of a mug. The clatter of the carafe sliding off the hotplate.

My nerves buzzed, adrenaline spiking. I'd slipped the poison into the carafe shortly after she'd started the coffeemaker. Her drink was already tainted. All she had to do was swallow a few sips.

I hoped I'd added enough. The minty smell had been so strong. I didn't want her to catch a whiff of it.

Ruth reappeared, a steaming mug in her hand. She set the mug on the end table beside her armchair and sank down. Pulling her laptop onto her thighs, she opened it and tapped in her password. The spreadsheet reappeared, reflected by her glasses.

I hid my shaking hands in my lap as I pretended to read my textbook. She studied her document. Her hand lifted. She picked up the mug and lifted it to her lips.

Paused.

Looked at me.

"Rose, did you complete your food journal for the day?"

She refused to call me by my first name, always using my middle name instead.

"Yes, ma'am." Did my voice sound too thin?

She lowered her coffee mug a few inches. "And you kept under a thousand calories?"

"Yes, ma'am." My aching stomach confirmed it. She always found out when I lied. "Nine-hundred and seventy calories."

"Good. I won't have an obese whale in my house. Left on your own, you'd eat like a heifer with her first calf."

"Yes, ma'am."

Her attention returned to her laptop. She lifted the mug back to her lips and blew on the hot coffee. I forced my gaze to my textbook, watching from the corner of my eye.

"Rose," she murmured, still focused on her spreadsheet. "Tell me, what are your plans for the future?"

Startled, I looked up. "The future?"

"Yes, stupid girl. Answer my question."

"I—I'd like to go to veterinary school. They're competitive, but my grades—"

"Veterinary school? Please. Who would put the life of their pet in your incompetent hands? Any idiot can pass a test, but even an animal doctor needs at least half a brain, which is far more than you possess."

Not responding was disrespectful, so I forced out another "yes, ma'am."

Drink the coffee.

"Real intelligence," she continued, the steaming mug in her hand, "is more than memorization or basic math."

Just drink it.

"It requires deductive ability. Logic. Reasoning. An innate cunning, if you will."

One sip. Just one.

"You, however." She lifted the mug to her mouth. "Your ability to reason your way through a problem is utterly crippled."

The mug tilted. She swallowed a large gulp.

My stomach dropped with a mix of terror and elation. I gripped the edge of the coffee table, terse, waiting. Less than a minute, he'd said.

"For example." She took another large gulp. "When someone deceives you, you're hopelessly dense."

I stared at her face. The first symptom was numbness. How would she react?

Pushing her laptop aside, she stood, mug in hand, and crossed the spacious living room to stand beside me. Her cold brown eyes gazed down at me.

"Poison, as an example."

My brain stuttered. My limbs seized.

"Did it occur to you that a deadly poison isn't likely to smell like peppermint oil?"

Paralyzed, I stared up at her as something inside me turned as brittle as newly frozen ice.

"Did you even question it?" Laughing, she upended the coffee mug over my head. Scalding liquid splashed over me. "Did you test the so-called poison first? Did you use your brain at all?"

The mug swung down, shattering on top of my head. I jolted sideways—then her foot slammed into my side. As I fell over, she picked up my heavy calculus textbook, snapped the sturdy cover closed, and raised it over me.

"Stupid—traitorous—whore."

The book hit me. Again. And again. I curled into a ball, arms shielding my head.

"After I took you in. Paid for the best education. Bought you a wardrobe of beautiful clothes. Made your ugly face passable. Fed you."

The blows rained down. It didn't stop. Wouldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. It hurt, hurt too much, hurt like I was dying.

"After all I've done for you, you'd try to kill me? Ungrateful bitch."

She kept ranting but I couldn't hear her. Couldn't fight her. Couldn't stop her. Couldn't do anything but cower and shake as she beat me. On and on, the worst beating she'd ever given me. It wouldn't stop, wouldn't end, and my entire world became pain.

Slowly, distantly, I realized it was quiet.

No more blows. My thoughts were fuzzy, my stomach twisting. The taste of vomit in my mouth. Slowly, agonizingly, I turned my head.

Ruth was back in her armchair, tapping on her laptop, her hair smooth and expression undisturbed.

I pushed myself up, arms shaking, and spat the bile and blood from my mouth. Choking back a whimper, I crawled toward the kitchen.

"Your bedroom is the other way," Ruth remarked, not bothering to look up from her screen.

I kept crawling toward the kitchen.

"Are you running away?" She snorted. "Go ahead, then. Find your little boyfriend. Get it out of your system before you come crawling back."

In the kitchen doorway, I levered myself to my feet. Every gasping breath sent spears of agony through my ribs. I staggered into the kitchen.

"Beg for my forgiveness," Ruth called after me, "and I might reconsider selling you to the Wolfsbane."

Her cruel laughter followed me out the patio door.

I couldn't take a bus looking like this, and I didn't have my wallet anyway. So I walked. What else could I do? I had nothing but the clothes on my back and… and the switchblade in my pocket. Always in my pocket. I liked to play with it. I would spin it and flash it around like I was so tough.

But I was too much of a coward to use it. Not on Ruth.

I walked. I stopped. I cried, and I walked more. Minutes to hours. The night crept by. It hurt so much. Every step hurt, but I kept going, because we'd promised.

Something with our plan had gone wrong, something awful, but he would be waiting for me. We'd figure it out. He'd help me. I wasn't alone.

I wasn't alone.

I wasn't alone.

The streets were quiet, the deep of night holding the city in its spell. I staggered to the crime den, the hated building where we'd first met, then turned toward the opposite sidewalk. Limped across the road. Stepped into the dark alley.

Empty.

I staggered all the way to the end before stumbling back. Sinking down to sit on the dirty asphalt, I leaned gingerly against the wall and stared out at the street. Waiting. We'd promised.

A raindrop plopped on my head. Another hit my nose. Patter, patter. The rain fell, soaking me in seconds, and I tucked myself into a tight ball. No jacket, but the cold water numbed me a little to the throbbing, burning, stabbing pain that was everywhere.

I waited.

Dizzy. Nauseous.

I waited.

Tired. Cold.

I waited.

Hurting. Hurting so much.

My face was buried in my arms, legs pulled up to my chest, raindrops drumming on my head, when I felt the shift. The sour, tainted energies of the city swirled as someone more than human approached.

I lifted my head.

He stood ten paces away. Long jacket, hood up. Face in shadow. Watching me like he had that first night, so still, so ominous.

Then he moved. Slow strides. Closer, closer. Three feet away, he stopped again. I couldn't see his face through the shadows of his hood. My heart throbbed in my chest, rain running down my face.

His hand slid from his pocket. A chain hung from his gloved fingers. He tossed it down.

A clatter on the pavement. My river-stone pendant lying on the wet, muddy ground. Raindrops splattered on the rune carved into its face.

A deep, ugly crack split the rune.

My eyes wouldn't move from that crack. Couldn't move. Couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I dragged my stare up to his shadowed face.

He turned and walked away.

The soft rain became deafening thunder in my ears. My vision fractured. His dark silhouette receded farther and farther. He didn't stop. Didn't pause. Didn't look back. Then he was gone from my sight.

From my life.

From my future.

Sitting in the rain, I shuddered. Whole body. Violent. Shaking as the brittle parts of me broke apart. The shards cut me, cut deep, punishing me for my weakness, my naivety, my stupid, stupid hope.

I sat there as I was sliced apart from the inside. Sat there until the pain crystallized into something else. Until the shards started to grind against each other in my chest.

Not anger. Not rage. Not hate. Something colder and deeper and utterly unquenchable.

Uncoiling, I pushed to my feet. The pain was distant. My fear had disappeared.

I stepped over my broken pendant, the last vestige of my past, and walked away. Walked all the way back to the grand house with its manicured lawn and expensive furnishings, where Ruth waited in her armchair.

When dawn broke, I was sitting on the living room floor. I was still sitting there hours later when the front door clattered, when the housekeeper's horrified scream rang out, when she vomited in the doorway.

And I was still sitting there, drenched in Ruth's blood, my christened switchblade in my hand, when the police arrived to arrest me.