The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)

I was flat on my back. My left arm, my only good arm, had a needle stuck in it. I felt a groan bubbling up in my throat, but I bit it back, trying to compose myself, using my cast to fumble uselessly at the needle taped to my skin…

The door opposite me opened, and my eyes grew wide as I watched two men and a woman enter, their faces all fixated on me. Their voices cut back and forth, their faces blurry… Hands fell on my arms and legs, holding me down, and I wheezed in fear. I could barely feel the tears leaking out of my eyes onto my cheeks, the way my breath was coming shorter and shorter, the way my cries were subsiding into moans. My energy was waning fast, and my limbs began to feel leaden. It would be so easy to stop struggling—but who knew what would happen if I calmly let these strangers have their way with me? I couldn’t stop, couldn’t think, and the pain that shot through my side every time I wrenched my hips was getting to be too much.

The people who held me were talking, but too fast to make any sense and too loud to calm me down. Then I heard a voice, strong, commanding, powerful… I homed in on it, the warm cadence alone slowing my thrashing, making me stop and breathe.

“That’s it, Violet. Just take deep breaths, and listen to my voice.”

I went limp as Viggo’s deep timbre rolled over me, and I sighed and turned toward it. It didn’t stop the pain, but it was enough to make me stop squirming, to get my eyes to focus on what was around me. I looked around, searching for him, but couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see… anything.

“Am I going blind?” I asked.

“Are you having problems with your vision?” came a sharp female voice, and I flinched away from it, trying to hide my face without being able to move.

Viggo’s hands were on my face. I started to lean into them, and then remembered I had been crying, screaming, drooling. Embarrassment flooded me—he shouldn’t have to see me like this. I began to groan as embarrassment added to the stew of helplessness and fear curdling my stomach.

I heard somebody say something, but it was too far away for me to hear. Viggo was whispering in my good ear, trying to soothe me, his hands stroking my face. “It’s going to be okay, Violet. You’re sick, but we’re going to help you. I promise.” There was a pause. “Your cousin is here.”

Panic skittered across my numb limbs, and I jerked. “He can’t be here! He can’t see me. If Lee finds out that he knows, he’ll kill him! Please, Viggo! Please.”

He shushed me, his hands on my hair, trying to soothe me. “You’re safe, Violet. I promise.”

His words didn’t make any sense. How could we be safe? I was trapped in Patrus, trying to fulfill a mission I knew nothing about. “I’m not supposed to tell you,” I gasped. “I tried to fight him. I tried to tell him no, we could find someone else to blame. I didn’t want it to be you! I didn’t want him to hurt you. You’ve been hurt so much, Viggo. And now I have to hurt you too.”

Hot tears spilled over my cheeks, and I saw my brother’s face as he fell into the river, his eyes wide and full of terror. He was only eight! Why did they have to take him away? I began to cry in earnest, harsh, violent sobs that seemed to scrape out of my lungs, making my throat raw.

“Do it,” Viggo said.

Something bit into my arm, sharp and fast, and I turned toward it. I was so drained I couldn’t even react as I looked at the black centipede wrapped around my forearm. Its pincer mouth was dripping blood, and I realized it had bitten me. I let out a shuddering breath and looked down at my feet, realizing I had never been held down. I was still in The Green, hallucinating. Soon I would die, and the eggs the centipede had just planted in me with its bite would feast on my corpse, until there was nothing left but bones.

“Violet?”

Viggo’s beautiful voice shook me from the quiet calm that had fallen over me as I accepted the truth. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice slurring. I licked my lips, noting that they were dry, that my tongue felt swollen and raw.

“What doesn’t matter?” he asked.

“It bit me,” I replied. “I’ll be dead soon.”

I couldn’t say why, but then I laughed. I laughed wildly through the tears, choking on them, until my arms and legs began to feel heavy. Even then I chuckled. Then my eyelids began to droop, and suddenly I was so exhausted I couldn’t even find the energy to speak to Viggo, to tell him not to worry about me, to forgive me. I closed my eyes and drifted into a black sleep, certain in the knowledge I would never wake up again.





13





Viggo





I reeled back on my heels, staring at Violet as she continued to thrash and moan in her sleep despite the sedative Dr. Tierney had administered. Fear for her condition had cut through my exhaustion, sending me into a kind of surreal, hyper-alert state, my focus entirely on her. Dr. Arlan had said the bleeding in her brain would cause her to deteriorate, but I hadn’t expected it to be this fast—or this emotional. This was not normal for her, even on her worst days. She’d been ranting about things already in the past, dead and buried. But somehow, in her mind, they had been happening right now, all over again.

I shuddered, knowing Violet’s history was full of pain and betrayal. The fact she had survived it once was a testament to her inner strength and character. I wasn’t so certain she could survive it all a second time. And in her delirious state, given her final statement before succumbing to the drugs, she had given up hope. As she had said those horrible words, fear had started to creep into my mind, reminding me fate had been cruel enough to rob me of one woman I loved—it wouldn’t hesitate to do the same again. I’d saved her from a quick, brutal death by violence and explosions, but what would it be worth if she stopped breathing again, her beautiful mind and body deteriorating, this time while I watched helplessly?