Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“No more fraternizing with the prisoner?” I ask once we’re back inside.
He shrugs.
“What is so wrong with speaking to me? Valen isn’t here. I know he wants me to be miserable, but you don’t have to …” I groan in frustration. “He won’t know you dared to tell me about the weather or what’s happening out in the world.” I stare up at him.
He avoids my gaze, his lips pressed firmly together.
“Got it,” I say more snappily than I intended. I was already alone. Him refusing to speak to me doesn’t change anything. Maybe this is more of the Stockholm Syndrome, me trying to make nice with one of my captors.
Suddenly tired, I trudge to my room. The heaviness of Melody’s loss is still weighing on me as I curl up in my bed and write in my notebook. I’ve begun writing smaller, the pages growing thin toward the back. If I run out of room, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get another notebook. Given the way David reacted, I’d say chances are good I’ll go back to not seeing him again, so there’ll be no way to ask. Valen would laugh in my face if I asked him, I’m certain of that. That thought scrapes against the memory of him saving me. My fingertips brush across my ribs, the healed skin tingling at my touch.
Valen literally tore me apart and put me back together. He swore he wouldn’t allow me to die. I believe him. His will dominates everything, as if his blood runs through everyone and everything, compelling the world to bend to his demands. I don’t bend anymore. I think I must’ve broken when I lost my memory. One trauma too much, though I can’t imagine what horrors could top the things I’ve experienced here. The idea of anything worse than the ball turns my stomach.
Because of Valen’s will, my body lives on as I wither away inside. Detached, forlorn, and with no illusions of escape. Doomed right along with the rest of humanity but meeting my fate alone. Locked away like some sort of upside-down Rapunzel, I know my prince will never come. Perhaps it’s better that way, already buried here so I don’t have to watch the world go silent, the humanity I worked so hard to save wiped out. This is when Juno would give me a lecture about self-pity, how indulgent and foolish it is. But Juno’s not here.
It's just me.
Interred.
Alone.
23
Recovered Journal of Dr. Georgia Clark
May 27, Year 1, Emergence Era
I had the nightmare again. Candice. The way she looked at me, silently pleading. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep moving forward knowing what I know. I’m sinking. I’m lost at sea, rudderless and dying of starvation and exposure. I can’t tell the team what happened. I can’t tell anyone. Except Valen. But how can I confide in one of them? Especially him. He was there. He was there and now Candice is nothing more than a recurring nightmare.
The library has no organization system—at least not one I can follow. The bookcases reach impossibly high, and there aren’t any ladders. It’s like a library that was created for looks instead of usefulness. Then again, I suppose if I had wings or vampire abilities, the height wouldn’t be an issue. As it is, I’m relegated to examining the bottom rows.
It took almost a day of screwing up my courage, but I forced myself down to this level again. I intend to stay far, far away from Valen’s private quarters. The library, though, doesn’t feel particularly threatening. No terrible memories in here, at least not yet.
Most of the books are in foreign languages, and some of them are so old that when I touch them, they crumble, their spines rotten and the pages little more than dust.
I sneeze so much that I’ve stuffed a hand towel into my back pocket for my poor nose. It’s been hours, and I’m no closer to finding anything of use. I did discover some books on ritual sacrifice, demonology, gods, and monster of the ancient world—at least that’s what I think they were about based on the illustrations.
I’ve searched only a fraction of the stacks before I plop down in the threadbare armchair beside the lamp. The same book lies on the arm of it. Valen must be too busy killing and maiming to sit here for a bit of light reading. Still, why is this book the one he has at his fingertips?
I open it again, flipping slowly through the pages as if I can somehow break the code he’s embedded in the margins with his notes. Nothing strikes me, nothing new, anyway. I glance at the table, at the books stacked here and there. I grab one, then sink back into the unexpectedly comfortable chair. All it needs is a throw blanket and it could be decent.