Ariana’s jaw dropped, and she shook her head in disbelief. Her mother had actually been relieved to think she was dead. Her mother was so short-sighted, so entrenched in the society of the sector, that part of her thought dead was better than socially ruined. Ariana was appalled.
Her mother was still babbling. “So, I thought, a dinner party. I thought that I’d show everyone that you were all right, and they’d see that you were strong, and perhaps they’d forget about all the nonsense. Perhaps, if you could be charming enough, they’d find it all exciting, and it would actually help your chances. I see I was wrong. You’ve been warped by everything that’s happened. My poor little girl.” And then she got out of her chair and tried to put her arms around Ariana.
Ariana recoiled. “Don’t touch me.”
“Ariana!” scolded her father.
Her mother straightened. “No, it’s not her fault, dear. She’s been scarred by all this. I see it now. We can’t blame her for the way she’s acting.”
“The way I’m acting?” Ariana stood up. “Marrying Risciter would have been the most disastrous thing that ever happened to me. He was a horrible man. You have no idea how absolutely disturbed he was. And you have no idea what he did to me. Everything about this place is upside down. You only look at the surface. How things look to the outside world. Not how things really are.”
“You’re confused, darling,” said her mother. “It wasn’t Risciter who did those terrible things. It was that awful man Transman that they arrested. And he’s going to pay for what he did, don’t worry about that.”
“Keirth never hurt me,” said Ariana. “Keirth protected me.”
Her father put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I’ve heard about this before, actually. Sometimes victims begin to sympathize with their kidnappers. You’re right. She has been warped.”
“I’m not warped,” said Ariana. “Not because I want to show the truth instead of covering it all up in pretty lies.”
“Perhaps she needs some time to relax. She needs a little spell away,” her mother said to her father.
Ariana’s heart sank. Whenever people in the sector talked about having a “little spell away,” they almost always meant Winfield.
“Winfield is on Risciter,” said her father. “It’s quite convenient.”
Ariana swallowed. She sat back down in her chair. “I don’t need to go Winfield. I’m fine, really. I’m a little excited, but I’m sure that if you give me some time, I’ll be fine.” Winfield was a mental health hospital. It was worse than a jail. She’d never be able to help Keirth from inside there.
“It will only be for your own good,” said her mother. “I’ll call and make the arrangements immediately.”
They were going to do it. They were going to send her away. She couldn’t let this happen. Ariana leapt to her feet, gathering her skirts in one hand, and dashed for the door. She was out of the study and into the next room in seconds, paying no heed to her parents’ shouts from behind her.
She careened into the parlor and made a beeline through it for the foyer, dodging furniture as she ran. The front door was just beyond the foyer.
She skidded into the room, the front door in sight. Only a few feet left to go. She doubled her pace, clutching her skirts and pumping as hard as she could.
And a valet stepped into her path. “I’m afraid we can’t let you do this, miss,” he said.
She swerved to go around him, but another valet appeared.
Ariana screamed in frustration, determined to barrel through them anyway.
But they grabbed her arms and pulled her back, and she simply wasn’t as strong as they were.
Chapter Sixteen
Keirth didn’t sleep that night. He was exhausted, bone-weary, and every part of his body hurt, from the ache of his muscles to the sting of the cuts and wounds the police had inflicted on him. But a man doesn’t sleep when he knows that this is his last night on earth. That he’s going to die in the morning.
Keirth wanted the night to stretch out long. He wanted it to drag by. But anticipation of bad things never works that way, and he felt each moment slipping away from him, going too quickly, gone.
He wished he could see Ariana. He didn’t know where they’d taken her. She’d been fighting the last time he saw her, and they’d been threatening to arrest her. If she were in custody somewhere, holed up in a cell like his, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. He had to hope that, given her station, she’d been taken back to her family. He knew that was the last thing she’d wanted, but it was better than jail. He wanted her to be free, to be unharmed. He couldn’t bear it if he brought her trouble.