Page 29 of The Harbinger

“Thank you. And where is your office?”

“On the first floor, next to the kitchen.”

Did that mean he’d heard my conversation with Francesco?

Sacha tipped his head forward slightly. “Tomorrow, Ivan and Katya will take you to the stores in town to buy clothes.”

And with that, he disappeared behind his bedroom door and shut it behind him, leaving my questions unanswered.

Chapter 7

Mia

“Isthatitthen?”I pressed my ear to his door, but I’d only been met with silence on the other side. My shoulders sagged as I turned, rested my head on the door, and then looked down the hallway.

Was it so wrong that I’d wanted a full explanation of what he wanted me for? Why was I here?

The door remained closed, but the bubble in my chest nearly burst as my hand shook by my side.

This would be one hell of a night if I didn’t get my hands on something to calm the itch.

I turned on my heel, passing a dark painting of a woman wearing a long white gown. She lay sprawled on a daybed, her head and arms dangling off the edge. Either she was dead, or she slept like it. Either way, she should have noticed the monkey-like being sitting on her chest and the horse-like dragon staring over her. The name of the painting sat below it, attached to the wall on a gold plate.

“The Nightmare1781 by Henry Fuseli.”

I worked the words around in my mouth like hard candy as I tore my focus from the painting and made my way back down the stairs and into the now-empty kitchen.

If it hadn’t been for the residual smell of soup and the leftover suds bursting in the sink, I’d have thought I’d lost my mind that he was never here.

Crap.

My hand slid down the door frame as I turned around and headed outside.

The sun worked its way further down the trees as I shuffled through the garden, my feet bare and scraping against the pebbles.

Calmness eased my mind as the scent of roses filled the surrounding air. The garden swirled with pinks and reds, some oranges and yellows as flowers bloomed and let off their fragrance. Someone had gone to a lot of work to make the garden immaculate.

How could I ask someone to destroy something so beautiful just for me? How could one decide which section to dig up?

I rotated my hand, examining my broken nails, imagining dirt crusted under them from a hard day’s work, then scoffed.

If I’d ever done a hard day’s work, there wasn’t evidence of it. There weren’t even calluses on my palms, only scratches from the numerous falls. But then again, how much work can someone do while being held captive?

I stuck my nose in the air and closed my eyes, taking in the scent of sun-warmed soil and a sugary sweet floral perfume floating in the air. A note of nostalgia danced along with it.

Where had I smelled that before?

I followed my nose to a seven-foot-tall flowering bush-like tree situated in the center of the left plot. The purple coned flowers covered the tree from top to bottom.

Or was it a bush?

I pressed my nose into the flower and inhaled deeply.

The odoriferous fragrance caused a buzzing in my ears, freezing me in place. A bright blinding light shot bolts of lightning from my retinas into my temples. “Argh.“ I pressed the heel of my palms into my forehead, the pitch from my cries intensifying the hum.

My knees buckled, and I landed on the sandy ground below as claws dug deeper into my brain, wiggling around as if searching for something elusive. My elbows hit my thighs as I hunched my back, but it did little to stay the imaginary scalpel, pruning back the layers.

The tension in my chest imploded, and my eyes rolled up to the sky.