Helena sleeps for three days. I have a doctor and a nurse on the island and I’m keeping vigil over her. She was so dehydrated that if we’d been even hours later, she wouldn’t have made it.
They left her down there, underground in that forgotten level of our building.
As beautifully restored as the upper floors are, so is that space the opposite. Uninhabitable.
I didn’t even know Lucinda had a key to the chamber she locked Helena in.
Her body was ice cold and she could barely open her eyes. Covered in vomit, piss and something I don’t want to think about, she was left there for four days without water or food.
She was beaten without mercy and left in that pitch-black hole and every time I think about it, I want to kill Lucinda. I want to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze until her eyes pop out of her head. I want to choke her and watch as life drains out of her.
I’m standing at the window, looking out at the water, at the dock where one boat is missing.
The sun is breaking the horizon, but I can’t enjoy its beauty. I’m still anxious. And I can’t get the image of Helena lying there out of my head. I can’t get the feel of her wrapping her arms around me, clinging to me, clawing into me, out of my head.
“Fingers and toes accounted for.”
She’d joked about that.
Well, not quite joked.
I turn back to look at her. She’s lying in my bed, looking smaller than before, lost under the thick duvet, and all I can think is she could have died.
I’m an idiot for not seeing the extent of Lucinda’s hate.
Going to her with my offer, wanting to spare Ethan the pain and confusion of finding out he isn’t who he thinks he is, it backfired. And it could have cost Helena her life.
A movement beneath the heavy blankets has me holding my breath.
I go to her as she lets out a small groan. She’s been heavily sedated up until now while they rehydrated her, fed her through a tube, dressed her wounds. I didn’t want her awake to feel the pain she must have been in down in that room.
Those marks will take time to heal and I know there will be scars. Lucinda broke skin this time. Too much of it. In comparison to this beating, she’d been gentle that first time.
Helena blinks open her eyes and I exhale. She looks up at the ceiling and I see the moment recognition returns and she startles, her eyes going wide as she jerks up to a seat, wincing, clutching the duvet to her.
She looks at me for a moment, it’s like she doesn’t recognize me.
Like she’s afraid of me.
Silence hangs heavy between us and I’m holding my breath. I think she is too. Her eyes fall to the bandage around my upper arm and I see her confusion.
“Sebastian?” she asks. Her shoulders slump and her forehead creases.
“You’re safe, Helena.”
She looks like she doesn’t believe me. She shudders, draws her knees up and hugs the blanket closer.
“Where are they?”
“They’re not here,” I say, I know she means Lucinda and Ethan and I need to ask her one thing, but I don’t want to. I don’t know if I can take the answer. “Lucinda and Ethan aren’t on the island. You’re safe.”
I take a step toward her but stop when her eyes go wide again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, putting up my hands, refusing to wince at the pain in my shoulder.
“I know,” she says. She looks around the room. My room. “How long was I in that place?”
“Four days.”
I see her knuckles go white as she fists the blankets closer.
“You’ve been back on the island for three.”
“Seven days altogether?”
I nod. “I asked the doctor to keep you sedated.”
“Why?”
I go to her, sit on the edge of the bed.
“We needed to get you rehydrated and fed. And with what she did to you, Helena…I didn’t want you to hurt. I’m sorry.”
She watches me for a long time and I hear my own words.
“Why are you sorry?” she asks, her tone different now.
“That’s a strange question.”
“Is it?”
“I’m sorry I let this happen. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to keep you safe from her. From them.”
“My aunt is dead. You’ve known all along.”
I take in a deep breath. I nod.
“Why did you keep it from me? Why did you let me go on and on and give me hope that you’d let me talk to her?”
I have no excuse.
“Why, Sebastian?”
“When I first found out, it was in the beginning. When you were first here.” I pause, force myself to keep my gaze on hers because I am guilty. Here, I am guilty. “And I didn’t care, Helena. I didn’t care.”
She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, then rubs them and when she pulls them away, the skin around her eyes is wet.
“I care now,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I was wrong to not tell you.”
She studies me, gives an infinitesimal shake of her head and turns her attention to that strange ring which is still on her finger.
“It’s bone,” she says when she looks up to find me watching her turn it.
“Bone?” I ask.
“Human bone. Scafoni bone.”
I peer closer, meet the empty eye sockets of the skull, feel a cold chill run along my spine.
“The missing finger,” she says.
Her face is unreadable, head cocked slightly to the side, studying me.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“She told me.”
“She told you?”
She nods.
“Who told you?”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Lucinda told me things too.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“She said you chose this. She said you could have stopped it at any time. That you still can.”
I don’t want to answer this question, so I ask another one instead. “I need to know something, Helena.”
She folds her arms across her chest and waits.
“I need to know if Ethan…if he hurt you.”
“He didn’t lay a finger on me. Like you said. He knew you’d be mad if he did so instead, he…” Her face crumples and again, she wipes away tears and I know she’s trying hard not to cry them. “God, I need a shower.”
She pushes the blankets away, but I stop her before she tries to get out of the bed.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re clean. I cleaned you. It’s okay, Helena.”
She tugs away from me.
“It’s not okay, Sebastian. She beat me and ordered him to rape me and the only thing that kept him from doing it was his fear of you. Of your wrath. And as grateful as I am for that, I don’t understand why he’s so afraid of you. What did you do to him? What more are you capable of?”
I stand, take a few steps away, run a hand through my hair before turning back to her.
“Why is he so scared of you?”
“It’s not important. It’s important he didn’t touch you.”
“Because only you get to dictate who touches me, right?”
“Helena—”
“Right?”
I remain silent as she rages.
“Is it true, what she said? That you can stop this, right now?”
I feel my eyes narrow, feel the tightening of my face. “It’s not that simple.”
She shakes her head. “Yes or no. Sounds pretty simple to me.”
“Lucinda is a liar.”
“And you aren’t?”
I shake my head, turn away.
“You told me to trust you. And I did,” she starts. “I didn’t believe her when she said you were feeding me piecemeal and I just fell for it. All of it.” She stops, bites her lip. “I fell for you.”
I go to her, take her by the arms. “Helena—”
She shoves me away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Lucinda will do anything to hurt me. To hurt you. To hurt us.”
“What us?”
“Don’t let her win.”
“She didn’t lie—”
“You don’t understand, Helena. There are things you don’t know.”
“What things? What things do I need to know that can redeem you? That can make me forgive you? You’re the reason my aunt died. You’re the reason I’m here. You’re the reason every time I move, every part of me hurts. You’re the reason I almost died. You. It’s all you!”
“Your aunt was old.” It’s a stupid thing to say. I hear it myself.
“Oh!” She shoves the covers off, swings her legs off the side of the bed. Stops. Squeezes her eyes shut and grips the edge of the nightstand.
“Stay in the bed, you’re too weak.”
It takes her a minute, but she opens her eyes and forces herself to stand. I go to her, take hold of her arms and catch her as her knees buckle.
“Get back in the bed, Helena.”
“Did you drug me? Am I drugged?”
“So your body can heal.”
She drops to a seat on the edge of the bed and shrugs my hands off. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want your hands on me.”
I hear her words but I don’t let myself feel them.
She covers her face, rubs her eyes. When she looks up at me, accusation burns into me.
“You’re right. She was old. And she was holding on until this reaping because somehow, she knew it would be me. And then that time came, and I never even got to say goodbye and you just kept lying to me over and over and over again.”
She stands again, takes a step, stumbles.
“Get back in the bed, Helena.”
“I don’t want to be in your bed.”
She takes another step, and this time, her legs give out. I catch her just before her knees hit the carpet.
“Get back in the goddamned bed.”
I put her in it and hold her down when she tries to get up.
“Stay in the bed or I’ll make you stay,” I warn.
“I don’t doubt you will. What else are you lying about? What else is there?”
“I almost lost you, Helena.” I step backward, hearing my own words.
“You never had me, Sebastian.”
Her words hit me like a fist to the gut. I watch her, rub the scruff of my jaw, see her suck back a sob.
“You’re tired. You need to sleep so you can think clearly,” I say.
I walk to the door.
“I want to go home.”
“No.”
“Let me go home. I want to go home!”
I turn to her, take a step toward her. “Home?” I snap. I don’t mean my voice to come out like it does. “Home to what?”
She flinches like I’ve hit her.
I force myself to stop, to keep away from her before I shake her to make her understand.
“End this. You can end this!” she screams.
“Lucinda’s a liar, Helena.”
“You’re the liar, Sebastian!”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“Just let me go!”
I slam my fist into the wall. “No!”
Helena startles, her eyes go wide. I see the fear inside them.
She’s afraid of me.
“Why not? Why won’t you let me go? Why do you want to keep me when I don’t want to be yours?”
I feel my jaw tighten. Feel the weight of cement in my gut.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I mean it.”
“You’re tired. You need to rest. I’ll send the nurse in to give you a sedative.”
“I don’t need a fucking sedative.”
She pushes the blankets away again and this time, when she gets out of the bed, I wrap an arm around her middle and force her to lie back.
“Nurse,” I call out, my voice level again.
“Let me go!”
“Don’t push me, Helena. Not now.”
“Now’s not a good time for you?”
She struggles, and I have to be careful not to hurt her.
“You need to rest. Get better. Then we’ll talk.”
“I’m finished talking. I want out.”
“You can’t have out.”
“Please!”
“Don’t make me tie you down.”
“You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
“There are things you don’t understand. You have to trust me—”
“Trust you?” she laughs, stops her fighting. “I don’t trust you. I’ll never trust you again.”
The nurse steps into the room and picks up a needle from the medical tray on the dresser.
Helena looks at her, watches her prepare the injection.
She turns to me. “I just want to go home,” she says to me, her voice softer, pleading, tears filling her eyes.
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull her onto my lap, cradling her tight to me.
She begins to cry, to sob.
“I’m sorry, Helena. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
The nurse steps toward us.
“I don’t want that,” Helena says, looking at the syringe. “I don’t want anything.”
She’s squirming on my lap, trying to free herself. My arms lock her to me, keep her close.
Helena’s eyes are wide and she’s shaking her head frantically as I nod to the nurse.
“I don’t want anything. Please!”
“Be still now. It’s just to help you sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep.”
But it’s too late. I keep her arm still as the nurse pushes the needle in, and it works fast, the medicine. Helena’s already going limp before the barrel of the syringe is fully empty.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she tries again.
I stand, lift her up and lay her down, tuck her in. The nurse leaves, closing the door behind her.
“You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
“I won’t.”
“You will. It’s just for a little while longer,” I say, brushing the hair from her face as she struggles to keep her eyes open. “Just a little while.”
I walk to the door.
“Sebastian?” she calls out, stopping me.
I turn, my hand on the doorknob.
“Am I still the Willow Girl?” she’s on her side, her eyes half-open.
“What else would you be?”