Page 46

Reign

A ngelique is an hour late to rehearsals.

She should have been here hours ago. She promised she’d come straight here after the cemetery, and she left to go there early this morning.

It’s dark outside while I pace the rehearsal corridor at Imperium, ignoring the stage crew trying to get my attention, my pulse pounding harder.

She promised she’d be here. She’s the whole reason we’re even having this rehearsal today because she said she wanted to run the pas de trois one last time before opening night, and I believed her. I needed to believe her.

“Hey, have you seen Angelique?” I ask one of the corps dancers.

She shakes her head. “No. Not since yesterday.”

I spin around, eyes scanning the hallway just in time to see Lando sprinting toward me, his face drained of all colour.

“Reign—” he chokes out, waving his phone in the air. “She sent me something. I think it’s a goodbye text.”

My stomach drops so violently, I stagger. He shoves the screen at me, but I don’t even read the words because the fact that it ends with ‘ I’m sorry’ tells me enough .

“Fuck,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”

I dig into my duffel bag with shaking hands, pulling out my phone and unlocking it. There’s a missed call from her and a voicemail. My pulse stutters as I press play and lift the phone to my ear, holding my breath as her voice crackles to life.

“Hey…”

There’s a long pause and I can hear her shaky and uneven breathing.

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say. I—I just needed to say thank you. For everything. For loving me. For staying. For fighting for me when I didn’t think I was worth it.”

Her voice breaks, and when she speaks again, it’s barely more than a whisper.

“You made me feel safe… wanted… even when I couldn’t stand myself. But I can’t do this anymore, Reign. I’m so tired. I feel like I’m dragging you down with me, and I can’t be the reason you hurt anymore.”

Another pause as she lets out a soft sob.

“I love you. God, I love you so much it hurts. But I need the pain to stop. I just… I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

The message cuts off with the sound of her crying and my vision goes red.

“Fuck! ” I roar, my voice tearing out of me like a wounded animal, echoing through the rehearsal studio as my phone clatters to the floor.

“Where would she go?” Lando panics beside me. “Where would she—shit, do you think she’s at the guesthouse?”

“Call the estate security,” I growl, already dragging him toward the back exit .

We burst through the doors into the pouring rain outside, and I don’t wait for him to buckle in before I slam the car into reverse and peel out of the Imperium lot, gravel spitting beneath the tires.

Lando’s still trying to breathe through the panic. “Come on, come on…” he mutters into the phone. “Yes, hi, this is Lando Harrington. Can you check if Angelique Sinclair is at the guesthouse right now? It’s an emergency.”

There’s a pause on the other line that feels like an eternity before Lando looks at me with wide, terror-stricken eyes.

“She never came back after this morning,” he whispers.

I floor it, feeling the panic rising tenfold.

“Where the fuck is she, Reign?” Lando demands, twisting in his seat. “Think. Where would she go? Do you think she’s still at her father’s grave? The bridge? The station?—”

My fingers tighten on the wheel as my chest constricts. I don’t know how I didn’t think of it sooner.

The bridge.

Marlow Bridge. Her dad’s favourite spot.

The bridge that overlooks the spots we sat at, re-building our trust and our love.

Where the water runs high and fast and cold.

My blood turns to ice as I think back to all the times we sat near it, and every single time she’d just stare off at the bridge without a word.

“She’s at the bridge,” I whisper.

“What?”

I whip the car around the corner so fast we nearly lose traction. “She’s at the fucking bridge. Call 999!”

Lando fumbles for his phone, hands shaking. “I’m calling—I’m calling?—”

We fly through town like hell’s chasing us, every red light, and every slow pedestrian a fucking obstacle. I don’t stop though, not until we hit the narrow lane that runs parallel to the Thames.

“She says they’re dispatching someone,” Lando says, his voice thin with panic. “But they said ten minutes, maybe more.”

“We don’t have ten fucking minutes,” I snap, my heart about to split open in my chest.

And then I see her silhouette on the ledge, her arms out slightly, and as we get closer, I can see that her eyes are closed, like she’s finally at peace.

Lando gasps beside me. “Oh, God?—”

But I’m already out the door.

“Angelique!” I scream, bolting toward her. “Don’t you dare!”

She jolts, eyes snapping open as her body stiffens. She turns slightly, wind and rain whipping her curls across her face.

“Don’t you dare make me live in a world without you,” I yell, my voice shattering. “I already barely survive in mine.”

Her lips part, trembling. “You’ll be better off without me, Reign,” she says, voice shaking. “I’m just the supplementary pages of your life story. You’ll find someone that’s good for you. That isn’t so hard to love or understand. Someone who isn’t so broken.”

I let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as I stumble forward and fall to my knees on the concrete, drenched from the rain, hands shaking.

“You could never be the supplementary pages, Angelique,” I breathe. “You’re the whole plot.”

She stares at me for a long time, rain running down her cheeks like tears, and then smiles softly.

“You know…” she says quietly, turning her gaze back to th e water. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said my name.”

Lightning flashes somewhere in the distance and she startles, wobbling on the ledge while my lungs seize.

“Angel,” I beg. “Come back to me. Please baby, come back to me.”

I barely hear Lando’s footsteps pounding the pavement behind me over the roaring blood in my ears, but then his voice cuts through the night like a fucking blade.

“If you jump,” he shouts, “I swear to God, Angelique, I’ll seance you every fucking night and make sure you never have a peaceful afterlife.”

The sheer desperation in his tone guts me. She turns sharply toward him, startled, her eyes wide and wet and full of disbelief.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” she cries. “Neither of you were supposed to find me here.”

Lando’s already walking toward her, recklessly, because fear has torn through every ounce of caution, and I’m too torn up to stop him.

“You’re stronger than this!” he yells.

“No, I’m not!” Her voice sounds so raw it barely resembles her; it comes out like a wail instead of a shout. “I’m weak in here!” she screams, jabbing both fingers into her temples.

“I can’t cope with what I went through. I can’t cope with the fact that my mom doesn’t care, and that everything else in the world matters more than me in her eyes.” She’s sobbing harder now, shoulders shaking violently, and I’m so scared she’ll fall over the edge without even meaning to.

She gasps out the next words like they’re choking her. “I can’t cope with the fact that just existing puts Reign in danger.”

My heart… my fucking heart splinters in my chest, because I’ve known she was hurting. I’ve seen it and I’ve held her through it. But this? This depth? This darkness that’s convinced her she’s not just broken, but dangerous to love? That, I didn’t know.

Lando doesn’t back down though. His voice cracks, but his eyes stay locked on hers.

“Wanting love from the people who are supposed to give it freely doesn’t make you weak!

” He lets out a wild, bitter laugh and throws his hands up.

“If you’re going to trust anyone on that, trust me!

My own fucking father doesn’t love me, my mom left me, and my brother only started talking to me again because of you! ”

I turn to him, guilt punching straight through me.

His gaze cuts to mine. “Don’t even try to deny it,” he growls.

And fuck, he’s right. I don’t have the energy to argue because he’s absolutely right.

I’ve spent years shutting Lando out, and I let my silence mean something it never should’ve.

I made him feel invisible in the one place he should’ve always felt safe.

My throat works around words I don’t know how to say.

Sorry doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing does.

Lando looks back at her now, everything in him softening except his voice. “You are the only constant in my life, Angelique.”

He takes a slow step forward, rain dripping from his lashes, voice trembling now. “Please don’t do this.” He keeps going until he’s reached the ledge, holding his hand out for her to take. “Please,” he whispers. “Please don’t abandon me too. Not you . ”

The rain’s falling harder now, soaking all three of us but I can’t move. I can’t speak. My heart is in my throat, suffocating me, while I pray she reaches back. She doesn’t move for what feels like hours but then she suddenly looks straight at me.

“Please, Angel…” I whisper. “Baby, please. ”

I hold my breath as she stares at me like I’m her final tether, and when she finally takes Lando’s hand I let out a strangled breath, sitting back on my heels, watching while Lando grips her tight and eases her down.

The second her feet hit the ground, he pulls her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her like he’ll never let go again, and she buries her face in his shoulder and sobs.

I lower my head, gasping, hands gripping my own thighs, the relief so big it rips me apart.

Because we were one second away from losing her.

One second.

The cold wind whips around us as the rain lets up, but all I hear is the echo of her voice saying she’s weak…

that we’d be better off without her. I stand up, moving slowly, and take one step at a time until I’m right beside them.

Lando glances at me over her head and nods, his eyes red-rimmed and soaked with tears.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry like this.