Chapter 90 Run

Chapter 90 Run
Violet's Pov

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after I came back.

The lamp was on. It was always on now. I had stopped thinking about why and started thinking about what it meant that I needed it on. The person it was for was the only person I had who was outside this house, not part of what I had just heard.

We move faster.

I pressed both hands flat on my belly. Eli was moving. Not his usual evening roll. Something more agitated than that. Responding to what he could feel in my body, the specific chemical signal of terror I was working very hard to keep from becoming panic.

"You have to stay calm," I said to him. "I need you to help me stay calm."

He pushed back. One firm push. Then stillness.

I breathed.

I worked through what I had heard.

Stephanie was alive. She had not died. The death had been staged. The accusation had turned on me with a speed that now made complete sense because it had been designed to turn on me. I had been sold to Eric within the week because the sale had been arranged before the death. The whole sequence had been planned before I was any part of it.

Eric had come to Jacob's pack for an alliance. He had met me. He had seen the gift and decided the gift was more valuable than the original plan. So they had adjusted.

Stage Stephanie's death. Blame me. Sell me to Eric. Let Eric use the gift for six months. Then take the child, keep the gift if it was hereditary through Eli, and remove the complication.

I was the complication.

She is the complication. She has always been the complication.

I stood up. Sitting on the edge of the bed was not going to solve anything. I had a very small amount of time before Eric came back to the house. I needed to be in that time what I always was when he returned. A pregnant woman resting.

I walked to the window. The lamp was on. The garden was dark below.

I thought about Jacob. He had been inside this estate last week. He had spoken to me in this room. He had gone back out through the tree at the southwestern corner. He had found a gap Eric had not closed. He had told me he loved me and told me to keep the lamp on.

I pressed my hand against the window glass. Cold. Clear.

I could not leave tonight. Helen had said today or tomorrow. My body was at the end of its preparation. Eli's head was fully engaged. Crossing a fence in the dark at this stage was not surviving. It was dying badly in a field while your child was trying to be born.

But I could get a message out.

I went to the desk and wrote quickly.

Jacob. I need you to listen to every word of this. Stephanie is alive. She is on the estate in the outer building. She and Eric planned all of it. The death, the accusation, the sale. They have been together the entire time. They are planning to take Eli when he is born and remove me as soon as Helen says he is stable enough to survive without me.

I need you to come. Not in a week. Not when the timing is better. Now. Before Eli arrives if possible. If it is not.

I cannot cross the perimeter tonight. My body will not allow it to be safe. But when the time comes I will need a way out that does not go through the main gate. If the southwestern gap is still closed, find another one. Find it before Eli arrives.

The lamp is on. It will stay on. Come when you can.

I folded the letter and sealed it. Eric had said he would be back within the hour. He had left at nine. It was approaching ten.

I had very little time.

I checked the corridor. Empty. The house was quiet. Bette would be finishing in the kitchen. The household staff would be in their rooms.

I took the back stairs near the service corridor. The ones Mira used. I went down them slowly, one hand on the wall. My back was aching in the low specific way Helen had told me to watch for. The way that built rather than released.

I noted it. I did not stop.

The kitchen was empty. I went to the door and opened it. The path was forty feet of gravel between me and the garden gate. I crossed it. Slow. Careful. Each step is deliberate. At the garden gate, I paused. Through the gate and across the outer perimeter grounds to the fence was a hundred yards.

I did not need to go that far tonight. Not and come back.

I needed the small tool storage shed at the northeast corner of the garden. The one that backed up against the boundary fence. The one where the groundskeeping staff left equipment. Caius had mentioned it in his map. He had marked it.

The shed door was unlocked. Inside it smelled of soil and old metal. At the back wall, at the base where it shared the boundary fence, there was a gap. Not large enough for a person. Large enough for a folded letter pushed through to the other side.

He had told me: If you ever need to reach the outside without using the gate. The northeast shed. The back wall. The gap at the base.

I crouched down slowly. My knees protested. Eli protested. My back sent a wave of pressure across my lower spine that peaked and eased. I pushed the letter through the gap. I heard it land on the other side.

I straightened up. I stood in the dark shed and breathed. Somewhere out there, someone would find it by morning. Caius had said he watched the perimeter. Jacob had said he had six wolves on the outside.

They had to find it by morning.

I walked back through the garden and up the back stairs and into my room. I sat on the edge of the bed. My back was aching steadily now. The wave from the shed had not fully gone. Another was building behind it.

I pressed my hand on my belly.

"Not yet," I said to Eli. "Give me a few hours."

He pushed back.

The ache built and peaked and spread across my lower back, wrapped around to the front. This time when it peaked it was sharp rather than heavy. It did not release in the way the false labor had released.

It sat.

"Eli," I said.

He pushed back again. Impatient. Ready.

The door opened.

Eric came in.

He looked at me. He looked at my face. He looked at my hands pressed against my belly.

"Violet," he said.

"I think it is time," I said.

His face went through something I could not fully read before it settled into the warm focused expression. The competent one. The owhohat said he was going to handle this.

"I will send for Helen," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Do that."

He went to the door.

I sat on the edge of the bed and breathed through the next wave and thought about the letter on the other side of the northeast wall and thought about whether Jacob would find it before morning and thought about what came after Eli arrived and I held all of it very carefully and very quietly behind my face.

Eric came back in.

"Helen is coming," he said. "She will be here within twenty minutes."

"Good," I said.

He sat beside me and took my hand and held it. His hand was warm. He looked at me with that expression that I had believed was real for months.

"Everything is going to be fine," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He smiled.

I breathed through another wave and I thought about a letter on the cold ground on the outside of a wall and I thought about a lamp still on in the window and I thought about what it meant that everything I had believed about this house had just changed completely and Eli was arriving tonight regardless.

Violet's Pov

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after I came back.

The lamp was on. It was always on now. I had stopped thinking about why and started thinking about what it meant that I needed it on. The person it was for was the only person I had who was outside this house, not part of what I had just heard.

We move faster.

I pressed both hands flat on my belly. Eli was moving. Not his usual evening roll. Something more agitated than that. Responding to what he could feel in my body, the specific chemical signal of terror I was working very hard to keep from becoming panic.

"You have to stay calm," I said to him. "I need you to help me stay calm."

He pushed back. One firm push. Then stillness.

I breathed.

I worked through what I had heard.

Stephanie was alive. She had not died. The death had been staged. The accusation had turned on me with a speed that now made complete sense because it had been designed to turn on me. I had been sold to Eric within the week because the sale had been arranged before the death. The whole sequence had been planned before I was any part of it.

Eric had come to Jacob's pack for an alliance. He had met me. He had seen the gift and decided the gift was more valuable than the original plan. So they had adjusted.

Stage Stephanie's death. Blame me. Sell me to Eric. Let Eric use the gift for six months. Then take the child, keep the gift if it was hereditary through Eli, and remove the complication.

I was the complication.

She is the complication. She has always been the complication.

I stood up. Sitting on the edge of the bed was not going to solve anything. I had a very small amount of time before Eric came back to the house. I needed to be in that time what I always was when he returned. A pregnant woman resting.

I walked to the window. The lamp was on. The garden was dark below.

I thought about Jacob. He had been inside this estate last week. He had spoken to me in this room. He had gone back out through the tree at the southwestern corner. He had found a gap Eric had not closed. He had told me he loved me and told me to keep the lamp on.

I pressed my hand against the window glass. Cold. Clear.

I could not leave tonight. Helen had said today or tomorrow. My body was at the end of its preparation. Eli's head was fully engaged. Crossing a fence in the dark at this stage was not surviving. It was dying badly in a field while your child was trying to be born.

But I could get a message out.

I went to the desk and wrote quickly.

Jacob. I need you to listen to every word of this. Stephanie is alive. She is on the estate in the outer building. She and Eric planned all of it. The death, the accusation, the sale. They have been together the entire time. They are planning to take Eli when he is born and remove me as soon as Helen says he is stable enough to survive without me.

I need you to come. Not in a week. Not when the timing is better. Now. Before Eli arrives if possible. If it is not.

I cannot cross the perimeter tonight. My body will not allow it to be safe. But when the time comes I will need a way out that does not go through the main gate. If the southwestern gap is still closed, find another one. Find it before Eli arrives.

The lamp is on. It will stay on. Come when you can.

I folded the letter and sealed it. Eric had said he would be back within the hour. He had left at nine. It was approaching ten.

I had very little time.

I checked the corridor. Empty. The house was quiet. Bette would be finishing in the kitchen. The household staff would be in their rooms.

I took the back stairs near the service corridor. The ones Mira used. I went down them slowly, one hand on the wall. My back was aching in the low specific way Helen had told me to watch for. The way that built rather than released.

I noted it. I did not stop.

The kitchen was empty. I went to the door and opened it. The path was forty feet of gravel between me and the garden gate. I crossed it. Slow. Careful. Each step is deliberate. At the garden gate, I paused. Through the gate and across the outer perimeter grounds to the fence was a hundred yards.

I did not need to go that far tonight. Not and come back.

I needed the small tool storage shed at the northeast corner of the garden. The one that backed up against the boundary fence. The one where the groundskeeping staff left equipment. Caius had mentioned it in his map. He had marked it.

The shed door was unlocked. Inside it smelled of soil and old metal. At the back wall, at the base where it shared the boundary fence, there was a gap. Not large enough for a person. Large enough for a folded letter pushed through to the other side.

He had told me: If you ever need to reach the outside without using the gate. The northeast shed. The back wall. The gap at the base.

I crouched down slowly. My knees protested. Eli protested. My back sent a wave of pressure across my lower spine that peaked and eased. I pushed the letter through the gap. I heard it land on the other side.

I straightened up. I stood in the dark shed and breathed. Somewhere out there, someone would find it by morning. Caius had said he watched the perimeter. Jacob had said he had six wolves on the outside.

They had to find it by morning.

I walked back through the garden and up the back stairs and into my room. I sat on the edge of the bed. My back was aching steadily now. The wave from the shed had not fully gone. Another was building behind it.

I pressed my hand on my belly.

"Not yet," I said to Eli. "Give me a few hours."

He pushed back.

The ache built and peaked and spread across my lower back, wrapped around to the front. This time when it peaked it was sharp rather than heavy. It did not release in the way the false labor had released.

It sat.

"Eli," I said.

He pushed back again. Impatient. Ready.

The door opened.

Eric came in.

He looked at me. He looked at my face. He looked at my hands pressed against my belly.

"Violet," he said.

"I think it is time," I said.

His face went through something I could not fully read before it settled into the warm focused expression. The competent one. The owhohat said he was going to handle this.

"I will send for Helen," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Do that."

He went to the door.

I sat on the edge of the bed and breathed through the next wave and thought about the letter on the other side of the northeast wall and thought about whether Jacob would find it before morning and thought about what came after Eli arrived and I held all of it very carefully and very quietly behind my face.

Eric came back in.

"Helen is coming," he said. "She will be here within twenty minutes."

"Good," I said.

He sat beside me and took my hand and held it. His hand was warm. He looked at me with that expression that I had believed was real for months.

"Everything is going to be fine," he said.

"Yes," I said.

He smiled.

I breathed through another wave and I thought about a letter on the cold ground on the outside of a wall and I thought about a lamp still on in the window and I thought about what it meant that everything I had believed about this house had just changed completely and Eli was arriving tonight regardless.