I think the best thing I can do for everyone is leave. Maybe that would make them all happier. Maybe there’s a scrap of happiness somewhere out there for me too, but I doubt it. I’m stuck in my feelings when the ceremony ends, and there’s a small opening for me to see Elena one last time. I know we aren’t staying for the celebration after, and that sucks, but I can tell it’s because Judge doesn’t want anyone to see what’s beneath my dress. He’s been on edge the entire time we’ve been here, his eyes scanning the crowd as if someone’s going to notice it at any second. If I don’t get out of his hold soon, I know he won’t let me go anywhere for fear of someone finding out.

Setting those thoughts aside, I join Santiago and Ivy briefly to offer them my gift, and then I stroke Elena’s soft little cheek. It’s all I have time for before Judge drags me back out into the courtyard and then back to the prison of his house.

Darkness settles over me, and I curl into myself for the duration of the ride. When we arrive, I don’t bother to say anything else to Judge. I don’t even look at him as I walk to my room, strip off my clothes, get into the shower, and cry.

9

Judge

Betrayed. That is the single word I come to at the end of the day every single day.

She is pregnant. And she has kept it from me knowingly from the beginning. From the moment she didn’t swallow the pill she put into her mouth right before my eyes.

I tap Kentucky Lightning and click my tongue. She takes off, galloping toward the jump I barely stopped Mercedes from taking that day so long ago that it feels like another lifetime.

She lives in her room now and I in my study. I go upstairs to my bedroom to shower and change. As much as I don’t want to, I often catch myself slowing at her door. And sometimes when I do, I hear her cry quietly. I allow myself to place my forehead against the door. I’ve even closed my hand over the doorknob. But I’ve stopped short of opening it. And as I stand there, I let myself feel the agony of it all wash through me. The impossibility. Because there’s only one way this can go. And we will both lose.

What the hell did she expect to happen? What did she want out of this? Marriage? I won’t. I can’t. I swore it to myself a long time ago. Only I know my reasons. She thinks she does, but she only understands the very surface of it all.

But time is running out. I need to talk to Santiago and soon.