Chapter 3

A sound tore from my throat.

It wasn't a scream or a sob. It was a raw, broken laugh, laced with hysteria and utter despair. Tears streamed down my face, but I was laughing. Laughing at the monster my husband had become. Laughing at my own stupidity for ever believing in his love.

"You would do that?" I asked, my voice a ragged whisper. "You would really do that?"

Blake' s eyes were cold stones. He didn' t need to answer. I saw it on his face. He would do it, and he would feel nothing.

The fight went out of me. The rage, the hate, the will to resist-it all drained away, leaving a hollow shell.

"Alright," I said, my voice numb and detached. "I'll do it. I'll wash her feet."

I pulled away from the bodyguards, who released me with looks of pity. I walked, stumbling like a drunk, toward the kitchen. I felt nothing. It was as if I were watching a movie about some other poor, pathetic woman.

I filled a porcelain basin with warm water, my hands moving automatically. I carried it back to the living room. Celesta was now seated on a plush velvet armchair, looking every bit the triumphant queen. Blake stood beside her, his hand resting protectively on her shoulder.

"Kneel," Celesta commanded, her voice dripping with satisfaction.

My body trembled. Every instinct screamed at me to throw the basin in her face, to run, to fight. But the image of my father's grave, of his final resting place being torn apart, paralyzed me.

I closed my eyes, took a ragged breath, and sank to my knees on the cold marble floor. The humiliation was a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs.

My hands shook as I reached for her feet. They were soft and perfectly pedicured. I submerged them in the warm water. My tears fell silently into the basin, mingling with the water I was using to wash the feet of my tormentor.

Just as I began to gently scrub, Celesta kicked out.

The basin flew from my hands, crashing against the floor. Water and porcelain shards scattered everywhere. A wave of warm water drenched the front of my clothes.

"Useless!" she shrieked, her face contorted with rage. "You can't even perform a simple task! The water is too hot! Are you trying to scald me? You did that on purpose!"

The water was barely lukewarm. It was just another excuse to torment me.

"She deserves a real punishment, Blake," Celesta said, turning to him with a pout. "Something to make her remember her place." She leaned in and whispered something in his ear.

Blake nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on me with a chilling lack of emotion.

"Celesta is right," he said. "Your disobedience is becoming a problem. You need a lesson in discipline." He turned to the guards. "Take her outside. She will kneel in the courtyard until dawn. And she will repeat, out loud, 'I am unworthy. I am here to serve.'"

My blood ran cold. It was the middle of autumn. The nights were freezing.

"Blake, please," I whispered, the words catching in my throat. "It's cold. I..."

"Then perhaps you'll think twice before upsetting Celesta again," he said, his voice utterly devoid of warmth.

The hate that had been extinguished flared back to life, a desperate, burning fire. I looked at him, at the man I had once loved with all my heart, and I saw nothing left to save. His soul was gone, eaten away by this woman and his own weakness.

My eyes, I'm sure, reflected that hate. I saw him flinch, just for a second.

He hardened his expression immediately. "If you refuse," he said, his voice low and menacing, "I'll make that call about the cemetery. Right now."

The fire died again. The light in my eyes went out, leaving only a dead, gray emptiness.

I didn't say another word. I let the guards pull me to my feet and drag me outside. The courtyard was paved with stone, already slick with evening dew. They forced me to my knees. The cold seeped through my thin clothes instantly, a sharp, biting pain.

The sky was a dark, starless canvas. A fine, misty rain began to fall, cold and relentless.

I closed my eyes and began to chant, my voice a robotic monotone.

"I am unworthy. I am here to serve."

The words were meaningless. They were just sounds I was forced to make while my spirit retreated to a place deep inside where they couldn't touch it.

I knelt all night. The rain soaked through my clothes, plastering my hair to my skin. The cold settled deep in my bones, a painful, numbing ache. My knees were raw and bleeding against the rough stone. My voice grew hoarse, then cracked, until it was just a rasping whisper.

"I am unworthy. I am here to serve."

Over and over. The hours bled together. The world narrowed to the cold stone, the freezing rain, and the humiliating words. My body shivered uncontrollably. My teeth chattered. A fever began to creep through me, making my head feel light and my thoughts drift.

Sometime before dawn, the world went black. I pitched forward, my face hitting the cold, wet stone, and knew nothing more.

I woke up to the clanging of a metal door.

For a moment, I was disoriented. I was lying on a cold concrete floor in a small, dark space. The air smelled of damp and dust. As my eyes adjusted, I saw bars.

I was in a cage.

It was a large dog kennel, set up in a storage room in the basement of the mansion. A thin blanket had been thrown in with me. My body ached with a deep, consuming chill, and my head throbbed with fever.

A housemaid, a young woman named Sarah who had always been kind to me, appeared at the bars. Her face was pale, her eyes filled with pity.

"Mrs. Wallace," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Miss Norman said... she said you had a fever and needed to be quarantined so you wouldn't infect her."

Quarantined. Like a sick animal.

Sarah pushed a plastic bottle of water and two white pills through the bars. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, tears in her eyes, before scurrying away, afraid of being seen.

I curled up on the cold floor, pulling the thin blanket around my shivering body. I looked at the pills and the water. It would be so easy to just give up. To let the fever consume me. To just... stop.

But then I thought of my father. I thought of his dignity, his quiet strength. He would not want me to surrender.

With a shaking hand, I reached for the pills. I swallowed them with the cold water, the action a small, desperate act of survival.

Then, I wrapped my arms around myself, closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me again, a silent, tearless laugh echoing in the hollows of my broken heart.