Chapter 87: Pass Them The Ball
ADRIEN’S POVEverything feels heavy.
My eyelids feel like they’re made of solid lead, glued shut by a thick, dark fog that refuses to lift. I try to pull myself toward the surface of my mind, but the darkness is a heavy weight, dragging me right back down into a bottomless ocean.
Then, a sudden jolt shocks my body.
My mind cracks open, just a tiny bit, letting in a blinding splash of consciousness. I don’t open my eyes, but my senses start to flicker back to life, raw and disorganized.
The first thing I register is a low, continuous rumble that vibrates straight through my skull and deep into my aching ribs.
A car. I’m in a moving vehicle.
The air smells like cheap air freshener, damp leather, and the bitter tang of old cigarette smoke. I try to move my tongue, but my mouth is bone-dry, tasting like copper and chalk.
I want to lift my hand, to reach out and feel my surroundings, but my arms are completely useless, pinned to my sides by a heavy, invisible force.
The fog shifts in my brain, and suddenly, memories start crashing into each other like a pileup on a freeway.
I see the three jagged cracks on the basement ceiling from when I was seventeen. I see the dark, swirling liquid in the glass vial Alice placed on the desk. Then, the memory snaps violently, and I am back in the church hallway, staring into Leon’s dull blue eyes right before the sharp prick of the needle pierced my neck.
"You should have taken my hand then."
His last words echo in my mind, loud and distorted, as if he is shouting them underwater. The memories move entirely too fast, spinning in a chaotic, dizzying wheel.
I see a flash of Orion’s dark, hungry eyes in the janitor’s closet, then a flash of Louise’s ice-blue winter gown, and then my father’s heavy leather shoe coming down toward my face.
It’s too much.
The sheer speed of the thoughts makes my brain ache, the past and the present blurring together until I can no longer tell where the flashbacks end and reality begins. I groan, or at least I think I do, but no sound escapes my throat.
The heavy darkness rushes back in, dragging me under once again, extinguishing the memories before I can even begin to make sense of them.
The state of drifting is an agonizing kind of torture. I’m conscious enough to know that I’m helpless, but too heavily sedated to do a single thing about it.
My mind is a prison, locked inside a body that refuses to obey. I can feel the smooth fabric of my suit jacket rubbing against my neck as the car sways, a contrast to the internal chaos tearing through my sanity.
I try to focus on the rhythm of the road, counting the seconds between the bumps in the asphalt, desperately trying to build a timeline, but the numbers slip through my fingers like water.
Every time I feel like I’m about to grasp onto a clear thought, another memory intrudes. I’m back at the academy, walking through the grand courtyard while the children of elite families look down at me from up high.
I can hear their laughter, sharp and mocking, blending perfectly with the hum of the car engine.
I see the way Orion used to watch me from across the room, his gaze a physical weight that always made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He never looked away. Even when I glared back with all the venom I could muster, he just stared, tracking every breath I took.
Why did he look at me like that? Why did he spend ten years in total isolation, untouched by anyone, only to come back and hunt me down like prey?
The questions circle my brain, loud and relentless, but there are no answers in the dark. Only the steady, rhythmic thumping of the tires against the road.
The next time I drift back to the surface, the rumble of the car is much louder.
I still can’t open my eyes, but my head feels strange. It is tilted at an awkward angle, propped up against something solid yet slightly soft. I focus all my remaining energy on that sensation, trying to figure out what I am leaning against.
It’s a shoulder.
There is a person sitting right next to me, holding my limp body up so I don’t slide off the seat. I can hear the faint, steady sound of their breathing over the rumble of the engine.
To my left, another voice speaks, low and rushed, but the words are completely muffled, drowning in the heavy static filling my ears.
I try to form a single, coherent thought, but it’s almost impossible. My mind keeps slipping on the edges of the drugs Leon injected into me. Where are they taking me? Who are these people? Did Leon hand me over to my family, or did he sell me out to someone else?
"Everyone who is someone has been dragged into it."
Leon’s warning echoes in the silence of my mind. The syndicate. The powerful families of high society. The sharks circling the courtyard. They all wanted a piece of the Vassilis empire, and now, I’m the glittering target wrapped in a neat little bow.
I can tell by the steady, high-pitched hum of the tires that we are speeding down a major highway.
The car sways slightly as it changes lanes, the force pulling at my heavy, unresponsive body. I feel a sudden, terrifying wave of helplessness.
I’m completely at their mercy. I’m being transported like cargo, a helpless prize stolen right from under Orion’s nose at his own cousin’s engagement party.
I wonder if Orion knows yet.
I wonder if he has walked into the restroom, looking for his missing fiancé, only to find an empty hallway and a discarded syringe.
The thought of his reaction sends a weird, chilling spike of adrenaline through my veins. He will be furious. He will turn the entire city upside down, tearing through every high-society mansion and underworld den until he finds the people who took what belongs to him.
But will he find me in time?
The brief spark of adrenaline fades, leaving me cold and empty. I don’t even know where I am. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. Minutes? Hours?
The unknown is a suffocating weight, pressing down on my chest until I can barely swallow. I want to panic, I want to scream and thrash against the hands holding me, but the sedative is a cruel bitch of a thing, keeping my body locked in a state of paralysis.
The person beside me shifts, their weight pressing closer against my side. I can feel the expensive material of their coat brushing against my hand.
They are quiet, entirely too quiet, moving with a calm precision that tells me they are professionals.
This isn’t a sloppy, rushed kidnapping. This was planned down to the very minute. They knew exactly where I would be, they knew Leon would deliver me, and they knew how to get me out of the church without triggering a single alarm.
I try to force my eyes open, just a fraction, just enough to see a silhouette or a shadow. But my eyelids refuse to cooperate, remaining firmly shut against the dim light of the car interior.
The frustration is driving me insane, a hot, burning anger that flares up in my chest before being immediately smothered by the heavy wave of the drug. I can’t believe that I’m being trapped in my own flesh, a spectator to my own abduction.
My head slips off the person’s shoulder as the car takes a sharp, sudden turn.
The movement is violent enough to roll my torso across the leather seat, my shoulder slamming against the hard plastic of the interior door panel.
The pain is a sharp, grounding sting, but it vanishes almost instantly, swallowed by the numbing sludge in my bloodstream. The person next to me reaches out, their large, heavy hand grasping my jacket and pulling me back into an upright position with a rough, careless tug.
They don’t care about my comfort. They only care that I’m a living, breathing currency to be traded in whatever sick game they are playing.
I try to listen to the voices in the front seat again. The static in my ears is starting to clear, just a little, letting through the low, gravelly tones of the driver.
They are speaking in short, clipped sentences, the rhythm of their words unfamiliar and sharp.
I try to match the sounds to any language I know, searching through my memories of high-society functions and international business meetings, but my brain is too slow, the words melt together before I can identify them.
The weight of the situation begins to settle heavily on my chest. I’m no longer the runaway runt living in the gutter where no one cares enough to notice me.
Louise’s venomous words from earlier tonight return to haunt me, each word dripping with a cold, brutal truth. By taking Orion’s ring, I put a massive, neon target on my back.
I thought I was just fighting him, just playing a dangerous game of rebellion against a man who wanted to own me. But the world outside our private war is much bigger, much hungrier, and full of crazily rich fucks who don’t care about our history.
They just want the power that comes with my destruction.
The high-pitched hum of the highway tires abruptly changes into a rougher, lower vibration. The continuous roar of passing traffic begins to quieten, fading away until there is nothing left but the sound of our own engine laboring against the road.
We’ve left the main highway.
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