Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

“Marina,” a voice whispered, pulling Marina to consciousness from her sleep. She barely obtained three hours of sleep, her weary mind continuously awakening her to remind her of her destined doom. Her eyes flickered open.

“Nancy?” Marina mumbled, still highly confused of her surroundings. Nancy towered over her, already dressed and prepared for the day.

“I searched nook and cranny but found nothing,” Nancy said worriedly. Marina fought hard to open her eyes, unsure what her cousin was talking about.

“What?” Marina mumbled. She tried to force herself into an upright position, but found the bed beneath her to be softer and more inviting that ever. Both physically and emotionally, she was beyond exhausted.

“The teabags you wanted me to search for,” Nancy said, waving her hand in front of Marina in efforts to help her remember. The word ‘teabag’ was enough to shock Marina back to reality. Her eyes opened wide in a bout of adrenaline.

“Not a single bag?” Marina asked, her heart starting to race from its rest.

“I searched in dressing drawers, under the bed and every cupboard possible- not a single bag,” Nancy said, her expression just as worried as Marina felt. “Also, I think they might send you to bedlam either today or tomorrow.”

These words awakened Marina even more, but not in any energized way. She was awake in the sense that she was deeply afraid- like a child unable to sleep when afraid of the dark.

Nancy gave her hands a little shake in her own bout of anxiety. “I heard Papa laugh to Mama that it’ll be no time before you’re gone, that the asylum already had been contacted.”

Marina swung her feet from her bed, standing upright. She felt a knot turn in her stomach- a large nausea overcoming her.

“I-I even checked the study, but my father just hoards empty envelopes and lousy books,” Nancy stammered, her voice anxious and a bit frantic. She was babbling, trying to grasp reality herself, but her babbling sparked a light within Marina.

“Nancy, alert the duke,” Marina calmly said as she gripped Nancy by her shoulders, shaking her to stability. “Then, in the study find the last letter, I believe something to be in there.”

Nancy nodded at Marina’s orders, a bit like a soldier being given a command. “Of course, Marina, I’ll get right to it.”

As Nancy left her bedroom, Marina wanted to hit herself through the face from her own stupidity. The day Griffin had kissed her underneath the desk, she was fumbling with envelopes. All were empty except the very last one. But, by the time they reemerged from the desk, Marina’s thoughts were so caught up with the kiss that she had completely forgotten about the envelope.

“Stupid!” Marina muttered to herself, starting to automatically open her closet and throw items onto her bed. If somehow, she could wrap some items in her bedsheet and jump out her window- could she escape? Could she possibly believe that a better life might come on her path- even if she were to be homeless?

The questions twirled around Marina’s head, unsure if she was doing the right thing. But one thing she did know was that anything was better than a life spent in bedlam.

“Night gown, night gown,” Marina muttered as she did laps around her room in search of the item of clothing. It took her far too long to realise that she was stood in the night gown, leading her to hastily remove the dress to put on another. She folded the night gown and a couple other items of clothing into the centre of the bedsheet before tying the four corners together with a knot.

It was a clumsy looking carrier she had made, but it was all she had in her availability. It was all she had to live off of.

“In here,” Marina heard a voice say outside her bedroom, undoubtedly her uncle. She was quick to swing the flimsy bedsheet over her shoulder, but her knot hadn’t worked and left all the clothes tumbling to the floor. Hastily, she tried to place them back.

Before Marina could grab every item, the door swung open, two men in hauntingly white attire walking in. She could spot uncle Josiah grinning from the doorway.

Marina dropped all the baggage she had in an instance, lunging over her bed to reach her window. The men chased after.

For a brief second Marina believed she could run, escape their grasp, but just as she swung one foot over the windowsill, she felt a strong pair of arms pull her back.

“No! No! No!” Marina screamed, her voice cracking from the high pitch she yelled in. She started to kick and swing her arms in all directions, willing to use any tactic to escape the men’s grasp.

“I’m not crazy!” Marina yelled as they started pulling her away with all their might. “I’m not crazy! My uncle is a murderer!”

“She’s going to be a tough one, I could tell,” one man dressed in white said to the other amidst the struggle. “Stop kicking!”

Marina ignored their command as they dragged her down the hallway, still flailing and kicking as hard as she could.

“Leave her!” uncle Josiah shouted, making Marina believe that perhaps her uncle, briefly, had a moment of realization.

But, to Marina’s disappointment, the command from uncle Josiah hadn’t been directed toward the men restraining her- it had been toward Nancy.

“No Papa! How cruel are you to do such a thing!” Nancy cried, grabbing at one of the men who were dragging Marina.

“Nancy, off!” uncle Josiah yelled before Marina heard a large clap from behind her and the men. Josiah had slapped Nancy so hard that she had fallen to the floor.

As she was carried outside the main door, Marina briefly turned around to see Nancy sitting on the floor, crying in defeat as she looked at Marina being carried away. Her eyes as broken as her heart.

Outside, the carriage awaited Marina to carry her off to her demise, but next to the carriage, stood an unlikely sight. Griffin and two constables.

“Your Grace, I believe the lady to simply be crazy,” the taller constable spat, annoyed that Griffin dragged them over to stare at a clearly manic girl, kicking and screaming as she was dragged out.

“No!” Griffin yelled, his heart racing in distress as he watched Marina being escorted away. “That man is a murderer!”

Griffin pointed at Josiah who was stood looking at Marina being thrown into a carriage, unaware of the presence of the constables and himself.

“Perhaps the carriage has another seat for you, Your Grace?” The shorter constable joked, starting to work on Griffin’s nerves. They thought him to be crazy in his statements.

“Look around the property or some sorts!” Griffin yelled. “For once, just do your job!”

Griffin left the constables, starting to act more upon anger than his brain. He ran straight for the open door, past the crying Nancy seated on the floor and straight into the presence of the horrid Earl of Lyford. Josiah stared at him in surprised.

“Come to save your damsel in distress, I see?” Josiah snickered, looking at how the men in white were strapping marina into a seat, practically holding her hostage.

“We both know you are a murderer Josiah, and I make sure to prove it even if it is with my dying breath!” Griffin screamed in a fit of rage. He leapt to strike Josiah, but instead he felt himself being lifted by his collar, his back striking a wall.

“It’s ‘My Lord’ for you!” Josiah hissed, spitting at Griffin. Griffin squirmed in disgust, unable to move as he pressed against the wall. Old as Josiah might be, he still had a ton of strength to Griffin’s surprise.

“You poisoned them all with Belladonna, deadly nightshade, didn’t you? Made a tea from it and gave it to your victims. You even gave it to a poor man and his two daughters- I’m sure that’s a direct sentence to hell, ‘My Lord’!” Griffin yelled, chuckling as he found pleasure in berating the scum of the earth called Josiah.

Josiah removed him from the wall, before slamming him back into it with a large blow. Griffin’s face contorted in pain, a slight painful moan escaping his lips.

“Oh, yes indeed! I killed your filthy father because he didn’t pay the price he promised. Tell me, the Duke of Darrington, did you know your father was busy with adultery? Your poor mother unaware?” Josiah laughed, finding pleasure in the injuring of Griffin. “The man couldn’t even be blackmailed properly so I ended his misery for him. I killed them, indeed! I rid their useless bodies from the earth!”

“You’re horrible! Horrible!” Nancy cried at her father, still sat on the floor.

“Shut it, you wrench! I never even wanted you!” Josiah yelled at Nancy, silencing her and causing her yes to produce more tears.

“I’ll see you jailed for this!” Griffin cried from his breathless state. He tried nudging himself from his constrained position, but failed under the hands of Josiah.

“Sure you will, we’ll both be dead before you find a slither of evidence!” Josiah laughed as he dropped Griffin to the ground, his knees caving in as he fell.

Griffin stared at Josiah from the floor, feeling hopeless yet enraged like never before. He was sure Josiah was going to kill him then and there, but as Josiah glanced over to the window, he left Griffin and ran outside. Griffin looked at Nancy.

“Constables?” she muttered, peering out the window. Griffin lifted his sore body to stand beside her, see what caused Josiah to go running.

The constables were nearing a hidden are. The area where Leilah had taken Griffin the day she gave him the teabag.