Page 100 of Degradation

“How long?” I ask, “How long will it take?”

He lets out a sigh. “I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe a month.”

“A month?” I hiss. I can’t survive that, not when every second here feels like an eternity already.

“Ssssh,” he says quickly.

“I can’t….”

He buries my face against his chest as if he doesn’t want to hear the words either.

I can smell that old familiar scent of him, the hint of tobacco, and cedarwood, and something that always felt too close to home for me to want to explore it further.

Exhaustion seems to take me, I lay there, pressed against him and for what feels like hours, we don’t speak, we don’t utter a word.

Antonio has more power than Gunther. Gunther maybe a Chapter Lord but Antonio has the ear of our Grand Masterhimself. If he says he can get me out, I have to trust him, I have to believe it.

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” I sound so pitiful as I ask that question, but it’s one that’s been repeating in my head over and over. Why didn’t he? Why did he let any of this happen in the first place? He’s meant to be my guardian. He’s meant to protect me.

He draws in what sounds like an angry breath of air. “Your mother is the reason.” He states.

“What?”

“Your mother pulled some strings, got me sent back to the US. Almost set off a full bloody civil war.”

My entire body reacts as he says those words. I thought she was on my side. I thought it was Pearce pushing this.

“Why?”

“Because she wanted to make sure nothing got in the way of you marrying Gunther. She wanted to ensure you became Chapter Lady.”

I can hear it, her words, I can hear what she said, how she all but promised me that Gunther was old, that he was sick, that he could be managed. I can hear that argument too, all those months ago, back in our house, when she’d made the same justifications to Antonio too.

He’d scoffed then. He’d mocked her. And I’d been too damn naïve to realise the danger I was in.

I bite my lip, wondering if that concerned parent act she had going last time was just another rouse. We always felt like allies, like she had my back, like she was giving me all the tools I needed to survive in this world, even though she knew she wasn’t meant to.

“Will, will she try to stop you helping me?” I ask.

He doesn’t say anything and that tells me everything I need to know.

With his fingertips he brushes the long gloves back, seeing the bandages that are still hiding the evidence of what I tried only a few days before.

“Did you do this?” He says.

I gulp back, unable to confirm it. It’s not like he doesn’t know anyway.

“That’s not the answer.” He murmurs.

“You don’t know what I’ve gone through, what he’s done.” I hiss.

He reacts in a way I can’t see but he’s tracing the pattern that Devin made, the one he carved into my skin.

“Don’t do it again,” he says. “Trust me, trust that I can get you out.”

“And if you can’t?” I don’t want to ask that question and yet it slips out anyway.

He tenses for a moment, before pulling me in again, telling me to sleep, to get some rest. That he will make everything right, he will fix everything. And God do I want to believe him. I need to. I cling to his shirt, shutting my eyes, telling myself that Antonio is my saviour, Antonio will save me. I just need to hang on.