Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Maybe I’m just making things up to justify my bad luck, or whatever. Maybe I’m making myself more important than I should. Maybe this is my ego, trying to explain things in a way that puts me in the center. Trying to force it all to make sense and have purpose.
But I don’t think so.
I think his gut feeling was true. That I was meant to be number one from the very beginning and the whole reason all the girls were called into that tower was because Aldo cheated and made me nine. And that god took it personal.
So this is nothing more than my destiny, finally being fulfilled.
“What will you do, Finn? What will you do with the rest of your life once I’m gone?”
His response is immediate. “What will I do? I will get revenge, Clara. I will fuck that god over six ways to Sunday and I will make him pay for taking you away from me.”
This is the end of the conversation. Even if he didn’t tug me up close to his chest and let me bury my face in his neck, it would still be the end.
Because there’s really nothing more to say.
It’s over.
It’s well and truly over.
We sleep for a little while. Doze, really. I have a million things running through my mind, so sleeping isn’t even possible. And even the dozing comes with weird half-dreams filled with nonsensical images feeding off my fear and sadness.
But eventually, the peace we’ve created for ourselves here in my rooms comes to an abrupt end when someone pounds on my door.
Finn gets out of bed, carefully, like he thinks I’m asleep and doesn’t want to wake me, and I open one eye and watch him pull his pants back on. He answers the door, barely opening it a crack.
There is a whispered conversation that I can’t really follow, then he reaches out with one arm and a garment bag is draped over it.
It’s my dress for tonight.
I expect him to let the attendants in—I am always dressed by attendants. But instead, he closes the door and turns back to me. “I told them I would help you get ready.”
At any other time, these words might make me blush. Would certainly make my heart beat faster with the thought of Finn helping me into a gown. Standing behind me, pulling my corset tight. Adjusting me. Making me perfect.
But right now, it just makes me sad. It makes me think of all the years we had, and now we don’t. How there will be no children. No home of our own. No plans, nothing.
This is it.
He will dress me. We will go to the ceremony. We will feast, and dance, and walk to the tower—probably holding hands.
And then the clocktower will strike midnight and I will walk through those doors, never to see him again.
“How?” I ask, my voice low and husky.
He drapes the zippered-cotton garment bag over the back of an overstuffed chair and turns to me with a face of confusion. “What?”
I struggle, looking for the right words. “I… just… don’t understand. Help me understand. How? How could you ever send me in there?”
His frustration comes out as an arrogant huff. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry? What’s not fair? The fact that you get to live another day and I don’t? Or is the prospect of guilt what’s tripping you up?”
“I thought we went over this, Clara. I can’t not send you into that tower. You’ll go whether I send you or not. It’s not me! It’s not up to me! And if I resist—”
“I get it.” I sneer these words out. “I do. I get it. I’m just one woman. Nobody in the grand scheme of things. But…” I huff now too. “How, Finn? How will you live with yourself? Because if the roles were reversed, I could not. And I would not spend your last day pretending everything is fine. I would not”—I nod my head to the dress—“pretend like this offer to dress me is anything other than ritualistic preparation. I would not lie to myself. But you…” I shrug up one shoulder and shake my head. “You are not only lying to yourself, you’re doing it so casually and with such indifference it’s blowing my mind. It’s making me question everything about you. About us. Because the man I thought I knew, the one I grew up with, my best friend for as long as I can remember—he would at least try and fight for me.”
“Even if he knew he would lose? Even if he knew this display of pointless valor would kill people? Is that the man you want? The one who weighs the soul of one against the souls of a hundred, yet still chooses the one? Is that romantic, Clara?” These words come out as seething rage.