Chapter 6

I don't remember how I got out of that house. My back was on fire, my mind a chaotic storm of pain and Eleanor's cold words. You have to accept the consequences.

The memory of her wedding proposal, so full of promises and supposed love, was a cruel joke.

I was walking down a dark street when it happened. A burlap sack was thrown over my head. Strong arms grabbed me, and the world went black.

I woke up to the sound of waves and a man's angry voice on the phone.

"I have them, Eleanor! Both of them! You want them back? Ten million dollars. Cash."

My head was throbbing. I was in a damp, dark warehouse. And tied to the chair next to me was Hudson Stewart.

The man on the phone turned around. It was Daniel, Eleanor's younger, useless brother. A perpetual screw-up, always in debt, always in trouble.

"You stay out of this, Byrd," Daniel snarled at me when he saw I was awake. "This is between me and my bitch of a sister."

Hudson started cursing at him, threatening him with the power of the Stewart and Horton families.

"Shut up!" Daniel screamed, kicking Hudson's chair. "She cares more about you than her own family. Now she's going to pay."

Eleanor arrived within the hour, two largebriefcases in her hands. She looked frantic.

Daniel counted the money, then laughed. "You know what? I changed my mind. I'm so sick of her choosing him over everyone else." He pointed a gun at us. "You can only take one. The other one dies. Choose, Eleanor."

I almost laughed. I knew who she would choose. I closed my eyes, ready for the end.

"I'm taking both," Eleanor said, her voice shaking but firm.

I opened my eyes, stunned. Hudson was stunned too.

"I'd die for you, Ellie!" Hudson cried, then slammed his head against the back of his chair, a dramatic, pathetic gesture.

Daniel, enraged, rushed at Hudson. Eleanor screamed and threw herself in front of him, shielding him with her body.

In that moment, I saw it. A glint of metal in Daniel's hand. A knife. He was going to stab his own sister.

I didn't think. My body moved on its own. I lunged, shoving Eleanor out of the way.

The knife plunged deep into my abdomen.

No, wait. Not me. I had pushed her too far. The knife sank into Hudson.

He gasped, his eyes wide with shock, before slumping over.

Eleanor stared, her face a mask of horror. Then she turned on me, her eyes blazing with a lunatic fire.

"You did this!" she shrieked. "You did this on purpose! You wanted him dead! You murderer!"

She cradled Hudson's head, whispering to him, ignoring me completely. She looked at me one last time, her face twisted with a hatred so pure it stole my breath.

"I was wrong about you," she spat. "I should have chosen him from the start."

She and Daniel carried Hudson out, leaving me tied to the chair in the dark, empty warehouse.

My phone, in my pocket, vibrated. A calendar alert. One day left.

A strange sense of peace washed over me. It was over. I was finally, truly free.

I don't know how long I was there. Eventually, someone found me. I made my way home, a ghost in my own house. I wrote a short will, leaving the five million from Hudson to the foster home I grew up in. I called the hospital to arrange for my body to be donated to science.

Then I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes, ready to die.

But they didn't let me.

The door burst open. Bodyguards. Eleanor's men. They dragged me out of bed, out of the house, and threw me into a car.

They took me to a private hospital. Eleanor was there, her eyes red-rimmed and frantic.

"Hudson is losing a lot of blood," she said, her voice ragged. "He needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match."

"Eleanor, no," I begged, the last of my strength draining away. "I'm dying. A surgery like that... it will kill me."

"Don't be so dramatic!" she snapped, grabbing my arm. "You've been living off my family's money for five years. You owe us this. It's just a little bone marrow. You'll be fine."

She promised she would make it up to me. She would give me anything I wanted.

They wheeled me into the operating room.

As they were about to put me under, the door to the adjoining room opened. Hudson Stewart walked out. He wasn't pale or dying. He was perfectly fine, a cruel, triumphant smile on his face.

"It was all a lie, Byrd," he sneered. "Ellie is so worried about me, she'll do anything I say. And I say you've lived long enough."

He looked at the doctor. "No anesthesia. And don't stop until he's empty."

The doctor, a man bought and paid for by the Stewarts, nodded.

A thick needle, cold and sharp, was plunged into my spine.

I screamed. A raw, animal sound of pure agony. My body arched in a spasm of unbearable pain.

Hudson laughed. "Don't worry," he said, leaning close. "I'll take good care of Eleanor for you. We'll remember you. Fondly."

My vision blurred. My life, my love, my pain... it was all being drawn out of me, drop by drop.

I thought of my life. A short, sad story of a boy from a foster home who dared to love a princess.

A final tear rolled from the corner of my eye.

Goodbye, Eleanor, I thought. We will not meet again.