PENUMBRA (how the flowers grow)

11. Eyes

Note: This chapter has a lot of violence and a panic attack.

On some level, Sabina knows something is off amid the panic- the room is too empty and the world is so fuzzy- but her mind is too frenzied to deduce exactly why. She can't think, not when Arthur is sitting on the end of her bed like that, cane casually resting on his knee. The red jewels on the handle sparkle.

She doesn't know how he got here. All she knows is she woke up to him there and he's here, oh Gods, he's here.

A deep sense of puzzlement is there inside her, swirling around with the abject terror that shakes her bones and rips through her body so hard it's a physical pain. She crawls backward on the bed and presses herself up against the headboard, knowing she's made a great and terrible mistake.

She meets his eyes by accident and is afraid to look away, because she knows he doesn't like it when she avoids him like that. He never has; she's been on the receiving end of a verbal beating numerous times for looking at the floor and it seemed like she wasn't paying attention. Arthur has that stormy look on his face, the one she's only seen a few times when she's done something in particular to piss him off, like after a failed mission or that time when he caught her on the rooftop.

Other than that, he looks the same as he always has, graying hair and wrinkled skin and watchful eyes. There's no blood on his throat, trickling down and staining his jerkin. There's no scar on his neck, of course there wouldn't be. Vess could fix something like that.

I knew he wasn't dead. I knew it. I knew it. How could I ever let myself think he was?

"Sabina," Arthur says pleasantly. Chilled, Sabina flinches inadvertently, no sense of bravado anywhere in her. Arthur smiles. It's tense, forced. "I'm extremely disappointed in you."

She wants to apologize, beg, because she knows that if she wants to live, that she will have to. It might make him lessen the impending punishment. As she is, she can't get her body to comply. Her mouth doesn't open and no words force themselves out of her.

"Do you have even the faintest idea how much of a hassle it's been to track you down? Especially when I shouldn't have had to." Arthur gestures wildly in the air. "You know that upon my death, you would be given to Vess, not released. The contact says as much." He sighs intensely. "I suppose I can't fault you for seizing the opportunity, but that doesn't make this situation any better."

Sabina stares, not daring to breathe. If she doesn't breathe, maybe she'll disappear. Maybe she'll pass out.

Please go away. Please leave. I don't want you to be here. You're supposed to be dead.

(I'm so stupid I'm so stupid i'm so stupid i'msostupid)

Please-

"You're probably wondering about your little friend," Arthur continues.

Tuluvey. Oh, Gods, Tuluvey.

"Don't worry about him. He's been taken care of. You don't have to worry about any more distractions, as fun as I'm sure your little adventure was."

Tell me you didn't hurt him, she wants to scream. Please tell me you didn't hurt him.

She knows that he did.

"Vess will fix those spells right back up, so don't worry about that either," Arthur tells her. "Now get up and stop cowering like a dog. I raised you better than that. We need to get this over with."