Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
What the hell was I doing yesterday, letting myself cuddle up to such a violent man? He’s blackmailing my father. He tied me down yesterday. This is not normal or sane.
I keep running. I have to get the hell out of this place. Screw everything I thought was keeping me here. This guy’s a madman. He’s fucking chasing me down like an animal. He’s been lying to me. He wants things I don’t understand, can’t comprehend. I can’t do this, any of this—
I see an exit, two double doors made of colorful panes of glass. Now that I’m back above ground, I can hear that the thunderstorm I suspected earlier is now in full swing. Lightning flashes through the windows. Good. Maybe it’ll distract the Beast and I’ll be able to get away. I need all the camouflage I can get.
I grab the long-handled knob and push through the door and out into the storm. It’s mid-morning but the dark clouds overhead make it look like forbidding twilight. Rain lashes my face but I don’t stop. I run down the stone steps and into a vast garden.
At least I think it’s a garden… Until I stumble and slip on the mud as I enter through an iron lattice archway and find myself in…another fucking labyrinth.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I shout into the rain right as thunder booms overhead. But maybe I can hide inside, wait out the storm, and then escape? That’s totally a possibility, right? Right?
In the heat of the moment, it makes sense to my frenzied mind, and besides, I’m already running and stumbling through the maze of bushes.
Rose bushes. They’re freaking rose bushes. A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. Of course they’re rose bushes. Sagging under the weight of the raindrops. Red and white and pink blossoms flash on the periphery of my vision as I continue to rush headlong deeper into the labyrinth, turning left and then right, right, choosing at random whenever I come to a fork in the path.
“Daphne!” I hear the Beast’s shout somewhere behind me, barely audible above the storm. “Stop this. It’s not safe out here. Call out to me and we’ll go inside!”
I scramble forwards at the sound of his voice, right into a rosebush. Thorns tear at my flesh and I yank back, only scratching myself worse as I try to disentangle myself from the brambles. The pain only adds to the sense of disorientation from the storm and the crazy adrenaline pumping through my veins. I stumble back and start running again. I thought adrenaline was supposed to make my mind think clearer. Where’s my fucking clarity?
I don’t know how long I keep running and stumbling through the maze but I never come to the end of it. I’m probably going in circles without even knowing it.
“Daphne! Stop this! It isn’t safe, let me—” Thunder drowns out the rest of whatever he says. But he sounded closer than before.
I look over my shoulder…and my sweater catches on another rose bramble. Dammit! I rip my sweater to get away, again the thorns tear at my flesh. Lightning flashes right overhead and almost simultaneously, thunder booms.
That means the storm’s right on top of us. I come to another fork in the path, sheets of rain coming down so hard that even if I hold my hand over my eyes, I still barely make anything out. The squelching mud beneath my feet tugged off my socks a long time back and my toes sink into the freezing mire.
I blink, suddenly dizzy, and so, so cold. How long have I been out here? My chattering teeth are a rat-a-tat-a-tat snare drum in my head. Have I ever been warm in my life? With the rain lashing me from above, and the sinking mud from below, it’s suddenly hard to remember if I have.
Maybe when my mother was alive. But she’s been gone a long time.
Dead. She’s been dead a long time. Cold in the ground. She’s so cold and I did nothing to save her.
I failed her. I’m still failing her. I’m failing everyone. I try so hard but it doesn’t matter. Every day I wake up and think, maybe this will be the day, but it never is and now— Now—
I sink to my knees in the mud, and then lower. I drop my forehead to the mud, the forceful rain lashing my head from above forcing me even lower. Maybe I’ll just finally join her and give up all this struggling. I can only fight for so long.
And suddenly all the fight’s gone out of me. I’m as weak as a kitten. Even the thought of trying to get back up again and take another step feels like trying to climb Mount Olympus.
The cold creeps up my legs, from the outside in. I’m coming home, Mom. I’m sorry.