Empire of Desire by Rina Kent

Yeah, I’m boring that way.

Anyhow, Nate shouldn’t be here when Dad isn’t, and definitely not alone. Is this a trap?

Oh, maybe he knows I’m planning Dad’s birthday and wants to help.

“Where’s Gwyneth?”

My heart jumps at hearing my name in that deep voice of his that always gets me tingly and a bit warm.

He’s asking Martha about me. Me, not my dad. So that means he’s here for me.

Oh, God.

This is bad for my fragile heart. I want to scream that I’m in here, but my voice refuses to come out. Turns out, I don’t need to, because Martha directs him to the kitchen.

I remind myself to breathe as the sound of his strong footsteps echoes through the hall.

You need air, Gwen. Freaking breathe.

It doesn’t work. The breathing part, I mean. Because the moment he steps into the kitchen, he sucks up all the oxygen and leaves me floundering for a taste of air.

Even if it is intoxicated with him.

But the expression on his face makes me pause. Whether it’s my gulping for air or anything really.

I just stop.

Nate has always been a hard man of a few words and a no-nonsense personality. I felt it—breathed it, actually—when I made that reckless decision to kiss him.

But this is the first time I’ve seen his face darkened and his fists clenched. Fists with bruised knuckles as if he hit something solid. That’s rarely happened in all the years he’s boxed with Dad since they’re careful about safety. Or at least, Nate is.

Are you hurt? I want to ask, but the words are stuck in my dry throat, unable to find a way out.

I lost my air and now, my voice, and apparently my motor activity, too, because I’m stuck in place, powerless to move.

“You need to come with me, Gwyneth.”

It’s one sentence. One single sentence, yet I know something is terribly wrong. Nate doesn’t take me anywhere with him.

Ever.

I grab a piece of glass and press it against my cut forefinger, causing droplets of blood to stain the kitchen floor.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

I focus on that and the sting of pain instead of the ominous feeling lurking in the space surrounding us.

“W-where are we going?” I hate the stammer in my voice, but I can’t help it.

Something’s wrong, and I just want to run and hide in a closet.

Maybe sleep there for a while and never come out.

“It’s Kingsley. He had an accident and it’s critical.”

My world tilts off its axis and splinters into bloody pieces.





4





Nathaniel





A coma.

The doctor is telling us that Kingsley is in a vegetative state. He’s saying things about swelling in the brain due to the impact and that he might wake up in the next few days, weeks, or never.

This hotshot surgeon spent hours working on my friend with his people, and yet he still couldn’t bring him back.

He was in the operating room for hours, just to tell us that King might or might not wake up. I don’t miss the fake sympathy or his attempts not to give hope.

But even if I grab and shake him, then punch him in the face, it won’t bring King back, and it sure as fuck won’t serve any purpose. Except for maybe getting rid of some of my pent-up frustration.

Gwyneth listens to the doctor’s words with her lips slightly parted. They’re lifeless and pale, like the rest of her face. She clinks the nails of her thumbs and forefingers together in a frantic, almost manic type of way. It’s a nervous habit she’s had since she was a kid—since she learned the truth about her mother.

She flinches slightly with each of the doctor’s explanations, and I can see the exact moment hope starts dimming from her colorful eyes.

Because she has a tell.

Whenever she’s sad or under the weather, the blue-gray will dim out the green, nearly eating it out like a storm would swallow a bright sky. And just like that, the signs of rain condense in the form of moisture in her reddening lids.

She doesn’t cry, though.

No clue if it’s due to Kingsley’s upbringing or the missing piece she’s been searching for since she learned about her mother, but Gwyneth doesn’t cry in public.

At least, not since she was a pre-teen.

She just keeps jamming her nails against each other, irritating the cut on her forefinger over and over again.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

And with each clink, she’s burying something inside. A needle, a knife, or something sharper and way deadlier. She’s swallowing the poison while being well aware of its lethality.

Due to my line of work, I’ve seen countless people’s reactions to grief. Some have mental breakdowns, others express it in any physical form possible, whether it’s screaming, crying, hitting, or sometimes, straight out murder.

The emotion is so strong that reactions differ from one human to another. But the ones who suffer from it the most are those who pretend everything is fine. Those who stand tall and treat the occurrence like any ordinary day.

Unless they’re psychopaths or have lost their sense of empathy, that’s not normal. Gwyneth sure as hell doesn’t have any antisocial tendencies, so she’s digging her own grave with those bloodied nails right now.

As soon as the doctor finishes his dialogue, he says we can see Kingsley, but only through a window since he’s still in the ICU.