Page 47 of Nothing Left
Through the haze of pain, I feel her drag me away from the burning mansion. The estate is completely engulfed in flames.
Valeria drops me onto a patch of damp grass and collapses beside me, panting heavily. But even as she can barely breathe, she reaches into the pocket of her stolen staff apron. She pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Stepping dangerously close to a piece of burning debris that flew from the house, she uses the roaring fire to light the tip.
She takes a long drag, smoking even as coughs rattle her frame. She slides a second cigarette between my trembling lips, using her own to light the tip.
The harsh nicotine hits my throat, and I instantly break into a coughing fit. I smoke with her anyway, having a feeling that this is going to be the last time.
“We can’t do this anymore,” I whisper.
Valeria blows the smoke through her nose, staring at the fire.“No. We can’t.”
“We trigger the absolute worst in each other, Valeria,” I say, my tears finally drying against my dirty skin.“We can never be in the same room again. We literally destroy each other.”
Both our voices are almost unrecognizable.
“I know,” she murmurs.“You’re his now, Maya. And I have nowhere left to go but that asylum. The second your psycho gets here, he’s either going to put a bullet in my head or drag me back there.”
She’s right. There is absolutely no way Graham is ever letting Valeria walk away from this. He will hunt her to the ends of the earth.
I look down at my crossbody bag, still securely looped around my frame. I unzip it, searching past my mother’s locket until I FIND the book William gave me. I pull out the papers.
My escape route. My ultimate out. My plan B if something ever went wrong with Graham.
It’s my gift to her now.
I push the papers into Valeria’s lap, along with the diamond necklace and bracelet I wore this morning. This erases any backup plan I ever had of escaping Graham. I am locking myself in his world forever, voluntarily throwing away my only key. But I can’t let him kill my sister.
“Take these,” I command softly.“You need to run right now, before his cars block the perimeter.”
Valeria looks at me with wide eyes, the dark roots of her hair framing a face that finally looks peaceful. But there’s determination in it. And I know my sister well. Nothing good ever comes from that face, to anyone but her at least. I’m glad it’s not directed at me.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispers.
“Because you’re my sister,” I say, a bitter smile breaking through my busted lip.“And because I forgive you. And I hope that you can forgive me too. Now go. Run.”
She shoves everything into her apron and takes one last drag of her cigarette. Without a final goodbye, she turns and disappears into the dark.
I got my answer. She forgave me. Or else I wouldn’t be breathing right now.
None of the guards or staff notice me yet because they’re too busy trying to find me and the other survivors inside. Headlights begin to cut through the driveway—Graham has arrived.
I close my eyes, waiting for my devil to find me in the ashes.
24
Graham
The grey that consumed my entire life before her doesn’t come alone this time. It comes with a blackness that coats my ankles, dragging me down under the asphalt, and a searing red that burns my skin with every single touch.
Valeria. That fucking psychotic bitch somehow escaped the psych ward and torched the mansion. With Maya inside.
Two of my own guards chose to walk straight into the flames and die in pursuit of her rather than face what I would do to them if she burns. They chose the fire over my wrath.
I can’t breathe. I swerve violently, narrowly missing a car that honks at me, the world blurring past my windows into streaks of blood and smoke. My throat is seizing up, and a paralyzing terror hits me that my state right now is mirroring hers—trapped in a blinding fire.
I haven’t told her I love her. She might die not knowing that she brought me closer to love than any human being on this earth ever could.
The moment I slide the car to a screeching halt in the driveway and see the size of the inferno, my knees completely give out. I drop into the gravel.
