I take the little white bottle in my hands, turning it around and listening to the pills rattle inside. These pills have been everything to me. They’ve blanketed me in a haze of numbness for the past five years. They’ve been my crutch ever since my body failed me.
At first, painkillers helped me live. They helped me learn to walk again, and made it possible for me to live my day-to-day life.
Now, I realize that I’ve been relying on them for something different.
It’s not physical numbness I’ve been chasing. It’s the chemical haze in my mind that has attracted me. I shake the bottle again, sighing.
If Ivy can make me feel brand new again, why do I need these?
Maybe the doctors are right, and a lot of my nerve pain is psychosomatic. It’s created by my mind—not my body.
At first, when the doctor told me that the pain might be in my head, I was deeply, deeply offended. How dare he tell me that I’m imagining it? How dare he insinuate that my body was healthy, when I couldn’t even lay in bed without feeling like my spine was being torn apart by a giant’s hands?
I realize now that the doctor may have been right.
It’s not that I was imagining it, it’s that my mind was sick—not my body.
Now, I’m pain-free. Without drugs. Without pills, or weed, or alcohol.
Without Cara.
It hits me like a bolt of lightning. Over the past three weeks, I’ve thought of Cara less than I did in a single day over the past five years. I haven’t felt like gouging my eyeballs out with my own fingernails, or tearing the skin off my flesh one strip at a time.
To put it simply, I haven’t cared about her at all.
Blowing the air out of my lungs, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. I take the bottle of pills over to the ensuite bathroom and unscrew the top.
Frowning, I notice that the seal is broken.
Underneath the cotton ball at the top of the bottle, I pour out a couple of pills into my palm.
Staring at them, something stirs in the depths of my chest.
You should take a couple, for old time’s sake, a voice croaks in my head. Chase the numbness once more. Feel nothing today, and then tomorrow you can give it up. You can stop anytime you want—why not enjoy it one last time?
The thoughts seep into my bloodstream, and I stare at the pills. My hand begins to shake.
Just one won’t hurt. Dump the rest.
I pour the contents of the bottle into the toilet before I change my mind, and then turn my attention to the six pills that remain in my palm.
They feel heavy. All I have to do is angle my palm downward, and they’ll tumble into the toilet with the others.
But I don’t.
I stare at them, listening to the voice in my head.
Come on, it says. It’ll be fun. Get high. Get numb. One last time.
I realize I’m trembling. I look up and see myself in the mirror, shocked at what looks back at me. The hollowed-out cheeks, the dark eyes.
Is this what I look like?
As I stare at myself in the mirror, I know what the voice is.
It’s addiction.
It’s evil, insidious addiction, clinging to me like a monkey on my back. It has its claws sunk deep into my flesh—so deep, in fact, that I thought addiction was a part of me.
The real me.
I close my fingers over the pills, averting my gaze from the mirror.
I’m not an addict. I’m in pain. I had a spinal injury. They told me I was paralyzed. I need these pills.
Need, need, need. I need them now.
Opening my hand back up, I stare at the little, round, white pills. I flip one over, noticing a ’T’ imprinted on the side. Has that always been there? I bring it closer to my face to inspect it, but the closer I bring the pills, the more I want to take them.
The voice in my head screams.
Yes, yes, yes. Take them. Take them now. Get high.
I can’t resist any longer. I throw them into my mouth and close my eyes.
Did they always taste this bitter? For just a second, the pills sit on my tongue. Their coating starts to melt in the heat of my mouth, and I know that sweet release is only a few minutes away.
A sweet release that I haven’t needed at all.
A sweet release that isn’t so sweet when it ends.
A sweet release that isn’t a release at all. It’s a prison that I’ve built for myself, one pill at a time.
Strength wells up inside me from somewhere I didn’t know existed. It starts in the depths of my chest, bubbling up through my veins and pushing the voice out of my head.
Leaning over the toilet, I spit the painkillers out and flush the toilet in one frantic, panicked motion. I pant over the bowl, watching the pills swirl away.
Spitting into the rushing water, I let a string of drool fall down from my lips. My chest heaves and I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears drip into the toilet bowl, and I fall to my knees.
My tongue feels numb. A bitter coating covers my mouth, and I spit into the bowl again.
I don’t remember that feeling with the pills before. Is it because I kept them on my tongue instead of swallowing them down this time?
Reaching for the pill bottle, I read the label.
They’re the same painkillers I’ve been taking for months. I run my fingers over the seal, remembering that it was broken.
Shaking my head, I lean back against the bathroom wall.
It doesn’t matter if they were the same pills or not. They’re gone now.
I probably never noticed the bitterness because I was taking them all the time. I toss the bottle into the trash and lean my head back against the wall…
…and I think of Ivy. She’s the only poison I need. The only poison I want rushing through my veins is her.
Letting out a breath, I squeeze my eyes shut.
A prickling sensation starts in the tips of my fingers and the soles of my feet. I groan, slumping onto my side on the bathroom floor.
You should have taken them. You were stupid, stupid, stupid. Now, you have nothing to dull the pain.
Sucking a breath in through my teeth, I push myself up and stand. Stripping down, I walk into the shower and turn the water on as hot as it’ll go. I wash myself and think of Ivy until the prickling sensation goes away, and the voice quiets down.
When I walk out of the shower, steam billows around me and fogs up every surface in the bathroom. Wiping my hand across the mirror, I stare into my own eyes again.
Clear.
My heart feels calm. I look down at the empty pill bottle, discarded in the trash can, and a smile drifts over my lips.
The fog in my own mind has cleared. With a towel hanging around my hips, I walk out into the bedroom and stare out at the bright sunshine streaming through the window.
For the first time since as long as I can remember, the monkey isn’t on my back. Addiction’s claws aren’t embedded in my flesh.
I’m free.
25
Ivy
Margot’s face is a scary shade of grey. White, frothy spittle gathers at the edges of her mouth. Her hands are curled near her chest where she lies at the foot of the bed. Drag marks in the rug make it look like she’s crawled there from the window.
I freeze.
It’s only for a second—less than a second, even—but it feels like an eternity. I stand at the door to my sister’s room, trying to make sense of the scene before me.
My blood turns cold. There’s a tingling in my lips, and I lose sensation in the tips of my fingers.
Then, a scream sounds, and after a moment, I realize it’s coming from me.
I dive toward Margot, grabbing her shoulders and screaming her name. I slap her face—harder than I intended—and her head lolls to the side.
My throat is raw. My stomach has dropped so far down I almost expect to see it in a bloody heap on the floor.
Sheer, white terror grips my chest, like barbed wire tightening around my lun
gs. I scream again, scrambling to find my phone. I realize it’s downstairs in the kitchen, and despairs starts to tear me apart.
I scan the room, but the edges of my vision are going black.
That’s when I remember to take a breath.
I suck in some air through gritted teeth, teetering onto my feet as I look for my sister’s cell phone. Lunging for it, I grab it from the bedside table. It slips through my fingers and goes flying across her rug.
“Hang on, Margot,” I rasp, crawling to the phone.
My fingers tremble so hard, I misdial the emergency number the first two times I try. Finally, it rings. I hold the phone between my shoulder and my ear and scoot back to Margot, cradling her head in my lap.
A calm, female voice comes on the other side of the line. Her words sound hazy, like she’s speaking to me from far away. All I can see is Margot’s skin, grey and listless, and the way her eyes are rolled back in her head.
Somehow, I manage to tell the emergency services where I am. I think I put Margot on her side, following the woman’s instructions.
It’s a blur.
All I know is that when the paramedics burst through the room, Margot still hasn’t breathed.
The paramedics ask me a thousand and one questions, and suddenly my sister’s bedroom is a flurry of activities.
“Jim,” one of the paramedics says to the other, holding up a syringe and a little bag of powder. I frown, staring at the two items.
A syringe.
Whitish-brown powder.
A syringe.
Whitish-brown powder.
My eyes flick from one item to the other, not understanding what I’m looking at.
“Heroin. Might be laced with something,” the man says.
Jim, the other paramedic, nods. “OD. I’ll get the naloxone.” His hands move as he speaks, pulling out a sterile syringe from a pocket of his bag.
“OD?” I repeat. “Heroin?”
What the hell is going on?
The paramedics brush me out of the way with surprising gentleness, and I stand by the wall to watch them work. I have to look away when they inject my sister with the drug, lifting her shorts up to deliver it to the muscle of her outer thigh.
“What’s that?” My voice trembles as I squeeze my eyes shut.
“It reverses the effect of opiates,” Jim answers. The two paramedics work on my sister, speaking to each other in curt, professional voices.
It’s a normal day for them. Work. Another day on the job.
Me, on the other hand?
My world is shattering all around me. It’s like someone taking a sledgehammer to a snow globe, pulverizing it into a million pieces as I watch.
Opening my eyes again, I see one paramedic put his fingers to Margot’s neck, listening for a pulse. He looks at his coworker and nods.
“Got it.”
Jim looks at his watch. “Three minutes until the next injection. Let’s get her on the stretcher.” He looks at me. “Ma’am, would you like to ride with us?”
I nod, unable to speak.
This isn’t real life. This is a dream. A nightmare. This isn’t happening.
Everything is a dream. Ever since the very first night Margot went to the castle, I must have been asleep. This can’t be real.
Heroin?
My sister?
As the paramedics carry her out of the room, her body firmly strapped to a board, I glance around my sister’s room. The paramedics have taken the bag of drugs with them. Whether it’s as evidence or just to be able to identify the drugs at the hospital to treat Margot, I’m not sure.
The rest of her room looks normal.
This is wrong. This isn’t her. Something else happened.
I stumble on the steps on the way down. My legs are heavy. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, and I’m having trouble seeing straight. When the paramedics motion to the back of the ambulance, I stumble on the way up and smack the side of my head on some equipment.
“Oopsie-daisy,” Jim says, pulling me into the ambulance. “Sit.”
Oopsie-daisy?
He gives me a piece of gauze and instructs me to hold it to the side of my head while he clicks a seatbelt over my lap. Then, he and his partner secure Margot into the ambulance, and the sirens go on.
Jim sits beside me, peeling the gauze off my face. I stare at Margot, seeing nothing.
The paramedic’s touch is gentle as he cleans the wound on my forehead, patching it up with a small bandage.
“Shouldn’t need any stitches,” he says with a sad smile.
“What’s going on?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s scratchy, like my throat has been ripped to shreds from the inside. I motion to Margot, shaking my head. “What’s… How…”
Tears sting my eyes, and I don’t have the energy to brush them away.
“Your sister overdosed,” Jim explains. “We’ve been seeing more and more of these in the past few weeks. Fentanyl has started making its way into the heroin supply in Farcliff. We think it’s coming up through the border with the U.S.”
“My sister doesn’t do heroin,” I spit, even though the evidence in front of my face suggests otherwise. I shake my head. “She doesn’t.”
Jim lets out a sigh, patting my knee. The ambulance lurches as we speed through the streets.
Tears fall from my eyes, but I don’t feel them. I don’t sob. The only reason I know I’m crying is because the tears drip onto my lap, my hands, my arms. I hug my stomach, staring at my sister.
Jim’s watch goes off, and he swipes a sterile wipe on Margot’s leg. Then, in a practiced movement, he injects her thigh again.
“What’s that?” I croak.
“It’s the same drug we used earlier. It doesn’t last forever, so we need to make sure her heart keeps beating until we get her to the hospital.”
We have to make sure her heart keeps beating.
Because she took heroin.
Laced with fentanyl.
And overdosed.
Closing my eyes, I try to keep the bad thoughts at bay. The whispering, evil voices that tell me I should have seen it. I should have stopped it. I should have known.
The voices that tell me I was too busy worrying about my virginity and the Prince to notice my own sister was in trouble.
The slithering, hissing voices that tell me it’s my fault. If I wasn’t so jealous of her, I would have seen the signs. If I didn’t resent my own sister so much, I could have saved her.
If I wasn’t so selfish, I would have seen this coming.
When we stop outside the hospital emergency department, I follow the paramedics inside and shield my eyes against the glare of the fluorescent lights.
The smell of rubber, sanitizer, and that unique smell of hospital hits me. A nurse puts her hand on my arm and says kind words, but all I can hear is the voice that tells me this is all my fault.
26
Luca
Breakfast is served in the casual dining room at Farcliff Castle. ‘Casual’ might be the wrong word for it. I’m greeted by a long banquet table laden with silver platters, piled high with all manner of treats and delicacies. There aren’t as many priceless paintings on the wall as the formal dining room, though, and the chairs are more comfortable.
When I walk into the room, Beckett’s head whips toward me.
“L-Luca,” he stammers, unable to contain his shock.
I arch an eyebrow. “Surprised to see me?”
Scanning the long table, I look for the special cinnamon buns with little chunks of apple in them. Not seeing them right away, I walk the length of the table.
Beckett’s eyes follow me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.”
I glance up at him. “No?”
His face looks dark. His eyes are nearly black.
I look away from my little brother, not wanting him to dampen my spirits. I don’t have time for his moodiness this morning. I’m too happy for that.
Not seeing the c
innamon buns, I opt for some scrambled eggs. I nod to the chef in the white hat, standing behind a portable stove. He cracks a couple of eggs and starts whisking them with a pair of chopsticks right in the pan.
Beckett appears by my side. “How are you feeling?”
His eyes search mine, and unease crawls up my spine. I turn away from him, ignoring the sour taste that coats the back of my throat.
The chef hands me a plate of steaming scrambled eggs, which I accept with a nod.
Beckett’s eyes follow me as I find a seat at the edge of the room. Finally, when I refuse to meet his gaze, my brother stalks out of the room with his shoulders hunched.
I shake my head, turning back to my eggs. At least he’s leaving Farcliff tomorrow. I won’t have to deal with his moods and irrational jealousy about Margot LeBlanc.
When I look up again, Prince Damon is standing in front of me. He’s wearing a broad smile. The Prince sits down across from me, stretching his legs out and sipping a cup of coffee.
“I’ve organized a tour of the hospital for today, if you’d like to join. We’ll start in the pediatric ward. Dahlia and I would love to have you around—the kids at the hospital might be a good audience for our tour. They tend to be a little more forgiving than adults.”
I nod. “Sounds good, Your Highness.”
“I think we’re on a first-name basis now,” he grins. Damon turns his head when Dahlia enters the room, and his face lights up. “Got to go,” he grins. “I’m giving Dahlia some bike riding lessons this morning.”
“She doesn’t know how to ride a bike?”
“Don’t ask,” he grins. “The car will be ready at noon to take us to the hospital.”
Watching them leave, something tugs at my chest. It’s the same thing that always happens when I see Damon and Dahlia together. A hint of jealousy and longing. I want what they have.
I know exactly who I want it with.
After breakfast, I wander down to the kitchens. Glancing inside the dessert room, I frown when I don’t see Ivy. The head chef pushes the door open and bows to me when he spots me.
“Have you seen Miss LeBlanc?” I ask.
George shakes his head. “Non, Your Highness.” His French accent gives his voice a musical lilt. “She didn’t come in for work today. Her téléphone number isn’t working, either.”
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