Abandon - Meg Cabot [23]
When he glanced back up again, his own eyes were bright. Brighter even than Dad’s throwing stars. But his voice was gentle. “I promise you, Pierce, in a little while, you’ll see, it’s not so bad here. You have everything you could possibly want. All the comforts of home…”
It was the worst thing he could possibly have said. All the comforts of home…except everything — everything — I loved.
Now I wasn’t frozen anymore. I was melting. The tears started pouring out so thick and fast, everything, including him, disappeared before my eyes.
“I’m sorry.” I hid my face in my hands. This was terrible. I was dead, and now I was being tortured as well? “I can’t stay here. I can’t.”
“Don’t,” he said. Now the thunder sounded as if it was right over our heads. “Don’t cry.”
He’d reached out as he said it to lay a hand on my shoulder — to comfort me, I suppose — but I sprang away at his touch, recoiling as if he’d scalded me, and retreated to the hearth, where I collapsed.
Forever? I was going to be trapped here with him forever?
And why? Because of some arbitrary rule? Something called a Fury? He had to be joking. I could only imagine what my dad would say if he were here. Don’t you know who I am? he’d bellow.
Though I felt completely numb inside, I could still sense the heat from the flames against my back. How could I be dead if I could still feel? How?
A second later, John was beside me, saying, “Here. Drink this. It will help.”
He put a cup of something hot in my hands.
But I couldn’t drink.
Then he sat down beside me on the hearth. After a while, I noticed he was speaking again.
“I know it seems bad now, but it gets better, I promise. Soon — not right away, but eventually — you won’t even mind. Or at least, you won’t mind as much. It’s not the same as not minding at all, I know. But at least you won’t be alone. That’s the important thing. That was the worst part. Being alone for so long.”
What was he even talking about? I lifted my bruised gaze and let it wander around the room, until it finally came to rest on the bed. It was only then that I noticed how huge it was. Built for two, really.
Oh, God.
Stay away from the pool in the wintertime, Pierce. Even with the cover, it isn’t safe.
This was the price I was paying for not listening to my mother.
I never thought it would be this high.
It couldn’t have been a coincidence that at that very moment, I noticed an open doorway through an arch across the room, just beyond the bed. Through it I could see a long hallway lit by elegant wall sconces. Two stone staircases curled from it. One led up.
The other led down.
I hadn’t noticed it before, I was certain, because I hadn’t been wearing the necklace. He’d said himself that the diamond protected its wearer from evil.
It was already working.
There was really only one question in my mind: Which staircase would lead me as far away as possible from here?
I was just going to have to make that decision when the time came.
“Well,” I said, realizing that if I didn’t distract him somehow, I was never going to get a chance to make my escape at all. “I guess you’re right. I’m…I’m just being silly.”
He stared down at me, seeming a little shocked at my abrupt change in attitude. “Really?” he asked. “Do you…do you mean that?”
“Of course,” I said. Somehow, I even managed a watery grin.
Then I lifted the cup he’d given me as if I was actually going to drink from it.
That’s when he did something he’d never done in my company before that moment. Something terrible. Something that showed that, despite what he’d said earlier about knowing my nature so well, he didn’t really know me at all.
He smiled.
And then I did something that still causes my heart to twist in my chest whenever I remember it. Something that still haunts my dreams. Something I can’t believe I did and, to this day, really wish I hadn’t.
Except that I had to. The way that bed was sitting there, and the way he was sitting there, and…well, what other choice did I have?
It’s just that whenever I remember that smile, my heart