• • •
Linda’s stomach turned with rage. Deja had sworn to show her in a positive light, to not only wipe clean her slate but to help her build a new reputation. Linda wanted to confront her, to quit, to tear things apart, to hurt her, but that would only give Deja more fodder for the villain narrative she had constructed. So, Linda walked, hoping one of her steps would slow her speeding pulse.
As Linda arrived at the first door, she expected to find a servant’s bedroom on the other side. But when she opened the door, she found a room full of sticks. She could hardly see into it. She reached one hand inside and felt the closest branch. It was slick, like the trees in the orchard. Someone had filled the room full of wood, cut from outside. The room reeked of rot, like mold on an old trunk. She sneezed.
Linda tried to adjust to the dark, but she couldn’t make out the contents of the room beyond the ocean of branches sticking up in every direction, as tall as the ceiling. She shut the door and moved on.
The next room was also full of sticks piled to the ceiling—and so was the next, and the next. Linda’s knees shook as she stood in front of the fifth and final door. She opened it. It was full of sticks. They were all the same. She turned and sprinted back down the hall, shut the door behind her. She leaned against the door and wheezed.
Even if ghosts didn’t haunt the eerie manor, it was haunted by the memory of a family who didn’t behave as other people behaved. Linda understood that kind of family. It didn’t feel safe, but it felt familiar, and there was a comfort in that. She stretched, letting her shoulders pop as she lifted them above her head, and when she brought them back to the floor, they were once more clenched into fists.
Her goal hadn’t changed: she would rise above and refuse to give Deja the breakdown she hoped for. She sat there until her nails dug into her palms hard enough to leave little half-moons of blood, then finally let her fingers uncurl. She wouldn’t give in, she repeated. She wouldn’t.
Chapter Seventeen
Sabrina
After seeing Tristan rolling around with Marion on video, Sabrina rushed from the shrine room, aware of the way her hair blew behind her, a cinematic touch she wasn’t unhappy about, even if she was running too quickly for the single cameraman to follow. As her feet pounded the floor, the house moaned in response. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, only that it was away from the video playing against the wall. Away from her friend. How had she missed the signs that Linda was the villain? Maybe it was editing magic, or maybe the woman she had trusted held inside her a darkness that came out only when Sabrina wasn’t looking. Maybe the man she had trusted was a slut.
She broke into the silent room near the parlor, the one with the electric lights that buzzed overhead. She was less scared of seeing that form in the walls again than she was of her own mind feeding her false information. Her sister had told her, over and over, that she was a terrible judge of character. Why couldn’t her sister be here with her? Sabrina needed Morgan to advise her. She needed Morgan to tell her what to do.
As she fell to her knees in the middle of the floor, she let herself cry. She had thought that sleeping with him meant she was his number-one, that he was most likely to choose her at show’s end, but he had chosen Marion, too. Maybe Sabrina was the exotic second place.
The lights flickered. Sabrina ignored it. She lay on the hard floor and recalled the soft touch of Tristan’s hands on her shoulders, his big hands massaging her when she needed it most. She’d been an idiot. Worse, she’d branded herself as one of the slutty ones.
Suddenly, hands closed around the edge of her shoulders. She screamed as she struggled away.
“Sabrina, it’s me,” Tristan said. He sat crouched on the floor, his hand suspended in the air where he had groped her a moment prior.
“What are you doing here?” she spat out.
“I heard crying again,” he said. “Has it been you the whole time? Since we got here?”
“You think so little of me?”
“Crying isn’t weakness,” he said. “What’s so wrong that you’ve been sobbing every night?”
Sabrina screwed up her forehead. “I haven’t been crying every night. Just now.”
Tristan chewed his lip. “And what has you so sad right now?”
Sabrina folded her arms. “You.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Slept with Marion.” Sabrina swallowed hard.
“What? How—” Tristan stuttered. “Why do you think that?”
“I saw it, Tristan. In the footage.”
Sighing, Tristan stood. He held his hand to her, but she refused to take it.
“I saw you. I thought I had a chance of winning, but Deja was right, wasn’t she? I’m here to be drama fodder.”
Tristan stroked his chin. It wasn’t a typical gesture for him. “Yeah. I did sleep with Marion.” He checked the room for cameras. Sabrina wondered how he was alone. “You have to understand, I can’t choose a wife without knowing if we’re compatible in bed. So, yes, I slept with you, and I slept with Marion, but it’s because I know it’s going to come down between you two. Not because I’ve already chosen her.”
Sabrina’s stomach twisted. He seemed genuine.
“No modern man in his right mind is going to choose a wife without sleeping with her first. That would be crazy, Sabrina. Don’t you think?”
“Sex is important to you,” she said.
“Duh,” he said. “It’s important to you, too. I’ve seen it. You’re as sexual as I am.” A boyish grin spread across his face. “Admit it.” His voice was strong, dominant. Her cheeks grew warm. “It is,” she admitted.
“Then what’s the problem here?” He offered his hand again.
This time, she took it, letting his fingers trap hers. “Nothing,” she said, and she meant it. Her anger, her jealousy—they had faded the instant he told her she was a serious contender. “So, you really like me?”
“Sabrina, I’m falling in love with you.” When she rose to her feet, he clamped his hands once more on her shoulders, forcing her to remain still as his eyes bored into her. “You’re a smart girl. Surely, you know that.”
“I don’t,” she whispered.
“Then you don’t know men as well as you think you do.”
He pulled her to him, his lips catching hers in a feverish embrace. As he forced his tongue into her mouth, she yielded to his strength. Holding her against him, she felt like he might be her fate, after all.
When the lights flickered again, he pulled back.
