The Darkest Deception

10 | The White Dahlia

The room is a blanket of darkness with the scent of terror, stale, and the metallic of blood.

Cold sweat beads on my brow and my limbs shiver uncontrollably. I lie on the icy concrete floor and try to keep myself distracted from the fever threatening to poison my body—or from the bloody images filtering through every time I close my eyes. Not that it matters whether my eyes are closed; the room is pitch black with not a thread of light.

Running my fingers across the bottom edge of the wall—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth—I try to remind myself that I once survived longer in this pit of darkness and feverish hell. I can do it again. After all, it's only been thirty-two hours exactly.

I count sometimes, when it gets bad. It can drive a person to madness if they allow their mind to slip and not keep it sharp and coherent in a room of darkness and eerily silence. Especially alone.

I raise my head from the floor, slipping my arm underneath for cushion. After a moment, I reach out with a fingertip and blindly draw a rose with the dirt from the cold ground, even if I can't see it I know the flower well. My lips curve into a small smile. Mamma told me once why her flowers are so important to her. Perhaps I need to plant to keep the monsters away, too. At least, that's what works for her.

It keeps him away.

My smile falls. I would be lying to myself. Nothing could keep him away. I'm his heir—his future right-hand. I'm like a bird imprisoned in a gilded cage with wings slowly being clipped shorter and shorter until one day they'll be shorn away.

At least mamma has her flowers, one of us should be able to leave our cage. Even if it is temporary.

The lock on the door slides open then, and blinding light floods my small prison. It's four feet, ten inches on the west and east wall and six feet, five inches on the north and south wall. I counted that too, once.

Three sets of footsteps fill the silence. Two are my fathers personal guards standing by the door outside, and the second, is my father walking in.

He crouches down, stroking a strand of hair from my sweaty forehead. He wouldn't appreciate me flinching away, so I don't. I don't make myself look weak or fragile. I stare up at the monster that is my creator and master with the flicker of strength I have left in my fevered body.

"Do you understand why I did what I did, Arabella?" His voice as cold as the damp floor against my frame.

A nod all I'm capable of as her screams penetrate through the mental wall I tried to build to block out her torture, her agony. But mostly, selfishly, to block out the knowledge that it was my fault he did what he did.

"Emotions and feelings are an allusion that cloud judgments and perceptions. I did not raise you to fail—I raised you to rise. To win. To succeed past impossible expectations that Made Men lay down for women. For you." He says authoritatively. I can only stare at the blood coating his shirt. I bet he wore white intentionally. "What happened to that maid was on you. Live with that knowledge or move on. That is up to you. I will not allow my only heir to become weak in the heart—" he grips my chin with a punishing hold. Fury burning through his eyes. "—you would not survive. However. You will with a merciless heart. For there is nothing more powerful than being able to contain and control your emotions. Heed my warning, Arabella."