Every day since I left Grayson at Crowne Hall, I thought about that question. How do I save Grayson Crowne? How do I save all of us? I was desperate for word of him, desperate to get word to him—but I had a debt to pay off first.
Until then, I was stuck here with no way to contact him.
No way out of the underworld.
I was told I’d nearly died. The head of the Horsemen, fucking Grim of all people, had saved my life. That if it wasn’t for him, I would have bled out on the beach before they could have even brought me back here to their doctor.
I owed my life to a man named after taking them.
But I knew if it wasn’t for Gemma, the Horsemen never would have been there in the first place. Somehow, she knew to call them.
The Horsemen had saved my life, and until I repaid my debt…I was stuck here.
In the underworld.
“Have you thought of a name for her yet?” Lottie asked.
I glanced at Lottie, who occupied the twin bed next to mine, then back down to my little girl.
I like the name Sonnet for a girl.
“I think Sonnet, at least, that’s what I’ve been calling her.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“Have you?”
“No.”
It had been a little over a month, and while Lottie cared for her baby boy, it was with a distant look. Not without love, just…sad.
Our room had no windows, no furnishings save the stark twin beds—nothing. It was completely bare; it didn’t even have a mirror on the wall.
I think we were in the Horsemen’s lair—or, in a part of it. Everyone knew and had probably been to a party in the underworld, but those were not held where the Horsemen slept.
I don’t think they expected us here. If this was the underworld, it felt a little bit like Lottie and I were in purgatory.
I pulled the coin Grayson gave me out from under its hiding spot—my pillow—and held it between my fingers, the blood now crusted. For a month, I spun this coin in my hand.
“It fell from my brother’s hand,” Lottie said weakly. “Both that, and the locket.”
I looked over. “What?”
“He said, ‘Tell her I didn’t get anything out of this. Tell her this time I didn’t do it for me.’ I think he meant you.”
You’ve never done something for anyone if you didn’t get something out of it, have you West?
“I should have told you earlier. I just…” Her brow pinched. “Everything that happened, you know.”
All these months, West had it?
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “None of this makes any sense to me. Why didn’t he use it?”
I’ve been thinking about his death a lot, because I don’t feel very much of anything. I think I grieved him all the time he was alive, and that night on the beach I finally stopped grieving.
I’m sad he died, because I’m sad he doesn’t get a chance to be a better person.
But I guess…I guess I’m happy he used his last moment to finally be better.
Lottie stared at the gold coin in my hand. “You know, my mother’s first love is the father of my child. I thought she was the only one who loved me. Do you know what she did when I told her it was Jack’s? I should have known then.” She looked at her child, still sleeping soundly. “It was the first time I’ve ever seen my mother flip out. I thought it was because I cheated on Grayson.” She sighed. “She flipped, and I mean flipped. She called me a whore and threw a crystal votive. I really should have known, because she looked me dead in the eye and said Jack could do so much better than me.” Lottie laughed, but it turned into a cry. “The next day, she was much more composed, she told me I had to keep it a secret, or I would ruin everything. Our family, the Crownes, and even Jack.”
Her soft cry turned loud and untamed. Lottie who hadn’t cried in the month we’d been here—not even a tear—was sobbing.
“They all used me. My baby was just another pawn on their chessboard.” She tilted her head, looking at her baby through her tears.
She laughed again, but it was bitter and wet through her tears.
“I still can’t be mad at my mom. What is wrong with me?” She practically screamed it. “Why can’t I hate her?”
Her baby started to cry, and Lottie pulled him into her arms, rocking him. “Everything we’ve done,” she said, breathing heavy. “All of it. Who were we before them? Would we still have become these people? They ruined me, they ruined West.”
Her eyes landed on her still unnamed baby, brows wrinkling as if picturing the future.
Ruined.
“They didn’t ruin you. They won’t ruin us.” I lifted the coin again, looking at it under the low light. “This fucking coin. It destroyed everything.”
“My brother is dead. There is no redemption for him.”
Tears wracked Lottie’s face. I climbed into bed with her, pulling her and her child into a hug. She sobbed into me.
I hugged her for everything they took from us.
For everything we lost.
Until her tears dried on my shirt.
I’d lost count of what day it was, I think Lottie and I both have.
“We’re going to have to leave this room at some point,” Lottie said weakly.
I eyed the black door that separated us from the rest of the underworld. “Yeah.”
Everything I know about the Horsemen was all rumor and myth, sort of like how the Crownes used to be, except with the Horsemen, every fact was twisted in fear and sex.
We had no plan for what to do when we left. We’d been recovering in this dark room with no contact to the outside world, our meals delivered through the door from a person we never saw.
I grasped the gold locket at my neck—Grayson’s heart, beating alongside mine. I had to think it was beating alongside mine.
Grayson sent me away, hoping I would stay away, but I couldn’t just sit and do nothing.
I couldn’t stop imagining what his grandfather could be doing to him. A man like Beryl Crowne with four coins?
Sonnet started to fuss, like she knew, just knew I was worried about Grayson.
Lottie watched me, resting on her side in her twin bed. “You’ve had that look on your face every day since you woke up.”
I glanced at her. “What look?”
She exhaled. “Like you want to take on Beryl Crowne.”
“You want a happily ever after of your own, don’t you?” I asked.
Lottie stared at her sleeping baby. “I’ll settle for just knowing what I want.”
Like clockwork, the door opened, and two meals were placed on the ground.
Lottie stared at them. “I’m so fucking sick of being a prisoner.”
How does a princess locked in a tower, save a prince prisoner in his own castle?
You tear the castle to pieces.
You blow up the world keeping them trapped.
My eyes slowly drifted to Lottie. Months ago, I never would have even considered asking. Maybe that was why we were so trapped. I’d considered her one of the iron bars, but Lottie was one of the four keys to getting out of this world.
“Lottie…I have a favor to ask you. But I don’t think you’re going to want to say yes.”