Page 56 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
The sound is scratchy and halting, so I try again, stronger this time.
No one answers. Maybe he went to a different bedroom. Or to his office. There are a hundred places he could be in this house, a thousand valid reasons for him to be absent from his bed. Why did I wake up? Did I hear something? Did the house shift?
A sense of urgency propels me to sit up. I need to find him.
I push the heavy blankets aside, suddenly finding them suffocating.
My feet touch the carpet for the first time in a week. My toes curl in pleasure at the softness, trapping the fibers beneath them.
That’s when I see the bedside table.
The gleaming white castle sits there, all by itself. It definitely wasn’t there the night before. And there’s no reason for it to be separate from its set, except as a message.
I pick up the piece, fingering the smooth marble. It’s almost a surprise. For some reason I expected to find it shattered. Maybe there would be lines in the stone where it had been glued back together, not quite right. But it’s as perfect as ever.
A folded sheet of vellum remains on the nightstand. I open it, feeling oddly weightless.
My little virgin,
My estate is the safest place in the city. It’s yours.
You have beaten me thoroughly, and with more mercy than I deserve. I’ve lost the thing I care for most—your heart, your smile. Your presence. And I can’t even regret it, because the more I came to love you, the more I want you to win.
That’s when I know what strength is—not surviving. Not even fighting.
Sometimes strength is moving forward, another checkerboard, a single step.
“Stay,” I whisper.
Only there’s no one to hear me. I run out to the stairwell, shouting for him. “Gabriel! Where are you? Gabriel.”
Mrs. B comes out of the kitchen, looking flushed and disheveled. “Avery?”
“Where is he? Did he leave yet? Please tell me he didn’t—”
And then through the high arch window above the front door I see it. The black limo, pulling away from the circular drive, picking up speed down the pebbled path.
My heart lurches.
I stumble down the curving staircase and out the front door. Stones bite into the soles of my feet, but I don’t slow down. I can’t slow down. I must look wild, completely insane, wearing only a thin tank top and sleep shorts, my hair a disaster. Nothing matters except stopping that car.
How can a person on foot catch a moving vehicle?
How can one small woman shouting reach the inside of a heavily padded limo?
It’s impossible, like everything about me and Gabriel Miller, which is exactly why it works. The only way it would happen is if he looked back. The limo comes to a smooth stop, its black paint gleaming in the sun like marble.
Gabriel steps out of the back, an incredulous look on his face. “What are you doing?”
There are only a few pieces left on the board. Only the two of us in the endgame. One of us has to die so the other can win—and so Gabriel knocks over his king. It’s both a gift and a loss, a sign that something finally matters more than winning.
“Stay.”
Hope flickers across his face, doused by stoicism. “That isn’t how the game is played.”
“I’m done playing.”
“So am I.”
“I love you.” I’m out of breath, the words falling like gasps.
“What did you say?” he demands, taking a step closer.
And something matters more to me than losing. “I love you, Gabriel Miller.”
He takes another step closer, almost compulsively. And stops. “God. Don’t.”
“I really do.”
“It’s suicide. To love a man like me.”
“Then what is it to love a woman like me?” My laugh sounds maniacal even to myself. “Hearing voices. Chasing cars. I’m a little bit insane.”
“You’re a queen, little virgin.”
I throw myself into his arms. Of course he catches me. “Then you’re my king.”Chapter Thirty-TwoMy teachers are kind enough to extend the deadline for my final thesis.
When it came to choose my thesis for my Gender in Classical Greek Literature class, there were too many topics to explore. Beauty and exploitation. Shame and oppression. Sexuality and the tangled web of female agency. I had decided on motherhood, the examination and expectation of the role as caregiver. It was an homage to my mother, a person who I love without ever having known, more myth than fact—like the literature I was to examine.
When I return to my laptop a few days later I know I need to start over. There’s something else I need to examine, a subject I know intimately but that remains a mystery—virginity. The auction changed the course of my life. It ruined me. It saved me.
How could such a small strip of skin so greatly affect me?
Why does the lack of experience mark me as somehow more valuable?
