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He took one look at me and knew exactly what was happening. Lyle pulled out his phone, dialed 911, and laid me in the recovery position. Everything else happened in a blur. He found an EpiPen in his home office and gave me a shot in the thigh. By the time the ambulance arrived, I was stable, but theyloaded me inside anyway. When I asked about the girls, Lyle told me Charlotte had taken them both to the park.
He came with me in the ambulance and was horrified when I suggested that Charlotte could have tampered with my soup. To his credit, he didn’t deny anything, and I felt comfortable enough to broach the subject of their closeness. Lyle assured me that both he and Charlotte only spent so much time together because they were worried about Amy’s mental state. He agreed to spend more time with me in the evening.
The doctors kept me in for observation, saying they needed to monitor the baby for fetal distress. So, for the next several days, they put me through endless tests and observations. Lyle came to visit as much as he could, juggling work and care of the girls, but my suspicions continued to mount.
I didn’t pull that allergic reaction out of my ass. Charlotte poisoned my soup. Probably because she overheard me expressing my concerns with Dr. Forster. She wants my husband. She’s getting her claws into my family.
When I asked the ob-gyn to return home and continue my bed rest there, he said I needed to prioritize the baby. Lyle agrees. He wants to give his son the best start. So, I’m confined to a hospital bed, wondering where I went wrong and mourning the loss of that idyllic home birth.
Meanwhile, I’m going to ask Lyle to find another nanny.
TWENTY-TWO
AMETHYST
My jaw aches from being wedged open. I double over, my stomach muscles contracting with painful spasms. Wave upon wave of nausea have me crashing to my knees. I can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t hear Xero’s words of comfort through a pandemonium of panic.
They could have used a ring gag to wedge my mouth open, but Dolly insisted on something Locke described as a mouth distractor. It looks like a pair of scissors, but with curved hooks instead of blades and a hinge that reminded me of a protractor.
Dolly strapped me to a dentist’s chair while Locke, Seth, and Barrett jerked off into my open mouth. When only one of them managed to come on my tongue, she invited the crew to participate.
After that, they force-fed me the disgusting gruel.
I wish they’d thrown me into that hot bath. The scalding water might have burned away this festering disgust, this nauseating sense of contamination and filth.
“Amethyst.”
Xero’s voice finally breaks through the haze. I draw back, sitting on my heels, letting the padded room return to focus.
What the hell could I have done to Dolly to have earned this insane amount of cruelty? She’s too blinded by her hatred of me to notice that every man in the building also holds her in contempt. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t mistreat her identical twin.
Xero places a cool hand on my cheek, helping me clear my thoughts. “Correct. You’re just her proxy.”
“What am I going to do?”
“It’s time to use Grunt,” Xero says.
“I thought you said he couldn’t be trusted.”
“We’ve run out of choices. While you were dissociating, one of the crew mentioned that the extras are arriving tonight. Delta and Dolly will fly to another island to meet some investors tomorrow at a cocktail reception. They’re shooting the movie in less than thirty-six hours.”
My breath catches, and my mind returns to full alertness. I can’t talk about this out loud. Delta once asked who I was speaking to in the cell. They’re monitoring what I’m saying. But what could the drinks reception even mean for me?
“There might be a chance of escaping the asylum,” Xero replies.
Xero fills me in on everything he overheard while Dolly was filming, including glimpses he caught of Grunt rising from the other set with the bath.
One of the crew members suggested that Delta would fire him for keeping me in a weakened position, while another guessed they were setting him up to be murdered on screen.
That’s the opening I need to get Grunt on my side.
Hours pass in the cell. The screen has turned white, trapping me in a monochromatic hell. The only source of color comes from a stray curl. Even the vomit I left in the corner is pale. Locke comes in to inject me with something that makes my body go limp, and Grunt carries me through the hallway for another round with Delta. I give him the same bullshit answers before my mind turns to mush.
At some point, I’m strapped to a gurney and injected with thick needles before a man in a white coat presses electrodes into my temple.
The sight of him triggers long-forgotten memories of being a child at the mercy of a mad doctor. At least, I don’t think he’s part of the here-and-now. None of Delta’s men have such bright red hair. But I’m not sure if it’s a dream or my mind trying to shield information about Xero’s people from Delta.
The electric current jerks me awake, and I stare into the padded walls.
