99 | ACT VII, SCENE X

P R E V I O U S L Y

And when I placed the heavy object in his palm, the widowed High King of Endollon only nodded before he set out to hunt his Queen.

THE BLOOMSBURY CLUB, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, LONDON.

ASPEN HILL

THE NOISY LONDON STREETS MELTED away behind the mahogany doors as I shut them behind me, plopping into a chair backed with velvet.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips as the blast of cool, pleasant air conditioned breeze hit my cheeks. Eyes closed, I sunk deeper into the cushions behind me. The dim, mellow lights of the Bloomsbury seemed to invite me farther in to sleep.

"Miss Hill?"

Eyes snapping open, I found the platinum haired bartender regarding me with big blue eyes.

"I'll have the usual, please. And make it strong."

She nodded as my damned cell phone beeped again from somewhere in the depths of my countless leather pockets, leaving me to pointedly ignore it. The other patrons turned their heads towards the continuous blaring.

"Shit - sorry," I cursed under my breath, fingers fumbling around to retrieve it. Sleep deprivation clearly won over in the end as the platinum hard case went tumbling down to the marble tiled floor.

Great, now I had the attention of every goddamn person in the fucking room.

Wordlessly, I bent down and grabbed hold of the stupid thing, turning it off to silent. If I went at this rate, the sheer pressure of work was going to split me in half before the weekend even rolled around.

As if, my thoughts taunted me. What weekend?

Weekends didn't exist. Not for the Hills.

A smug bastard looked at me from the corner of the room, dressed impeccably in an Armani suit that seemed to be the customary uniform of all the males on Russell street. He gave me a knowing smile, lips twitching. I noticed the faint golden stubble dusting his cheeks as he raised the glass of bourbon in his hand ever so slightly in acknowledgment.

I glared sullenly at him, lips twisting in the thinnest line possible, making the annoying smile on his face grow wider.

Men, for fuck's sake.

I put down my head, letting it rest on the cool counter for what I promised myself would only be a minute. The numbers reeling in my head begged for reprieve as I closed my eyes for a bit.

"Miss?"

Rolling up the sleeves of my white shirt, I grabbed hold of the glass with two hands as if it were a lifesaver, feeling the whiskey burn down my throat. Ah. This was good.

I was so, so tired.

Exhaustion seemed to be the only thing fueling me as I downed another glass after the first, and then another... and then another. How many was it? The alcohol tasted so damn good, numbing the lack of sleep as it curled at the bottom of my belly. So, so good, almost better than coffee. The delirious mix of sheer tiredness and strong whiskey made for a different kind of high - maybe we all should just fuck cocaine and live on this... this sheer rush of adrenaline, this exultation.

This was what the verge of making a medical breakthrough felt like.

The cure for Alzheimer's.

Just one more night. I needed just one more night.

I'd be done by tomorrow morning. I knew it. I was positive.

I was Aspen Hill, child prodigy who graduated from Harvard at fifteen, daughter of the man who ran the CERN, and the woman who was the most famous lawyer in the world.

If I said I needed one night, it meant I only needed one night.

The fuzziness clouded my brain, but I had to get up. Get up and get out. I had to make it back to the lab, make it back as soon as humanly possible. Evading the ever annoying security was hard enough, I wasn't going to go missing for so long that my mother sent a search team to haunt me across the streets.

I fumbled with the keys before nearly tripping over a nearby barstool as I got up, as that long arm shot out to steady me.

"I must say you look a tad... unsteady, Miss Hill. Mind if I offer you a ride?"

That smug baboon. Again.

"Get out of my way before I call the police or thrash you myself, punk."

He only cocked a golden eyebrow in surprise, before stepping aside smoothly. A ghost of a laugh danced on his lips as he watched me go.

I glared again at him before making my way out, idling back to the sleek black Mercedes that had been a precious birthday gift from my parents last June.

Just one more night. It'd be done.

I rolled up the white shirt to my elbows as the stifling heat trickled down my temples in drops of sweat. I was tired, gods - I was so, so tired, I was going to hibernate for a year when I was done with this.

I jammed the key in and twisted it, jerking the vehicle to life as I impatiently skimmed the road for obstacles, eyelids drooping with unmet sleep.

Regally cultivated London rose around me, a carefully watered garden of lush pink blooms. The summer sky loomed high, high above, clouds melting into the blue warmth like butter.

The car sped ahead, faster, as I accelerated. The deadline. I made to make the deadline. I tapped the wheel impatiently at an intersection, noticing the splotch of ultramarine ink on my one - two... or was it three fingers?

I blinked once. Twice.

One finger.

The edges of my vision slightly blurred with millions of unnamed colors, dancing in front of me like a fucking piñata.

Shouldn't have drunk so much, fool.

I regretted having those three odd glasses of whiskey as I contemplated resting my head on the steering for a second.

A moment later, my head whipped up again as I looked at my hands tightly gripping the leather - then at the landscape outside the window. Bile burned the back of my throat as multiple windows seemed to tilt around in my colorful vision.

Had I taken the right?

Had I taken the left?

There used to be a collection of coffee shops here, a voice tugged at the edges of my mind.

Coffee shops.

Certainly not that imposing bridge, overlooking cerulean blue waters that glimmered in the rays of the sun.

Water. There used to be no water here.

Now there was panic, and fear - real fear coursing down those veins.

The hazy tiredness threatened to put me to sleep again even as I struggled to keep awake, to calculate how far I'd gone off the wrong turning, to find my bearings again as the Volkswagen sped ahead further.

The cloud floating in my brain was warmer than before, filling me with an unnatural sense of peace, a wrong, strange sense of peace.

There used to be no bridge here.

Again, and again, and again - the steering twisted under my hands as I checked the rear view, whipping then to the front.

I tried to stop the car.

The Mercedes refused to stop.

I tore off my leather boot, tossed it to the side and slammed down on the breaks again.

The Volkswagen was still going at sixty five miles per hour.

Again, I tried. Again. My foot thrust down but the expensive vehicle had a mind of its own.

Death.

Fear.

It reared its head, sniffing.

The brakes stopped working as the car sharply slid towards the edge of the bridge, never stopping, never relenting.

A sharp jerk cracked in my spine.

Sleep, my aching body whispered, and never wake again.

The end of the bridge loomed closer, just as the force of my thrust pulled the wheels to the other side, avoiding a collision off the edge. But the Volkswagen swerved sharply over to the other end, now completely out of my control.

The other end was ten feet away.

Five.

Prayer after prayer left my soul like caged birds.

Three.

Two.

One.

The Volkswagen crashed into the granite and cement of the bridge as rocks erupted from the juncture.

Sharp, sharp wind whistled past my ear in a death rattle as my body slammed into the windshield. Warm, warm wetness trickled down my punctured neck as I fought, struggling hard to escape that tightening grip around my throat, only to have the last breaths of precious life fade from my body.

The last thing I knew was that darkness, and after that darkness, I knew no more.

• • • • •

New character, who dis?

Cosmo? Titania? Guess who?

So sorry for not updating soon, but I promise I'll try to do it more often! We're nearly at the end, lol. I want to see your reaction ;) See y'all next time with a chapter that'll surely give you more heart attacks lol xx stay golden, chicas!!