Content Warning: Death, Direct Mention of Child Abuse (not graphic)

Elizabeth sighed as her gloved hands gripped the rims of her wheels as she pushed herself along, protecting them from the cold night air. 

More or less.

“Lizzie, wait,” Alexander called, hurrying after her, his long legs easily catching up with the push-drift-push of her wheelchair.

“You made your point clear, Alexander. What more do you want?” she asked, lifting her hand to push brown hair out of her face, carefully tucking it behind her ear before she went back to her usual pattern.

“It’s not–”

“It’s not what? Not like that? I’ve heard that before. Usually what Mother would say before she dragged me off to parade me in front of all her socialite friends.”

She shook her head slightly as she carefully came to a stop and turned to face Alexander.

He hadn’t changed. 

All white, rich man, aesthetic in full bloom with his designer tailored dove grey suit and powder pink accents. His artfully tousled auburn hair that was more brown than red, except where the light hit it just right.

“It’s not,” Alexander insisted and Elizabeth resisted the urge to rub her temples with the tips of her fingers before turning.

“Look, Alexander, you can go home and tell your wife I never showed up, and that I stood you up and you can tell our brothers that I spurned all attempts you made to reach out and they’ll believe you and tell Charles I’d never give him money and he’ll leave you alone. There, done, everything solved,” Elizabeth said and turned herself around again to begin the push-drift-push that was her life for the past year.

Since escaping.

“Lizzie,” Alexander called as she slammed her hand on the walk button and maneuvered down the stupid bump ramp to get into the crosswalk when the light changed to let her go.

She must have shocked him since he didn’t even get close enough to stop her when she saw something. She turned her head up the street. The only sign of life were the cars parked along the curbs, leaving her to wonder what she had seen.

She exhaled sharply when she realized what had caught her attention was one car weaving out from those curbs, the lights off despite the night.

It was dark and she could make it to the opposite side of the street.

Alexander wouldn’t.

She gripped her wheels and turned around to focus on Alexander. “Damn it, Alexander, don’t you ever shut up?” she screamed, the feeling making her throat feel like it was being ripped apart and it made Alexander stop dead before he stepped down to follow her.

“All you do, all you ever do, is slap my hand away when I reach for you until suddenly, you need me! Where were you when I needed you, Alexander? You…you’re my big brother! You swore to protect me! Where were you when I needed you, damn it?”

Her eyes burned and she realized her cheeks were wet. “Where were you when Mother locked me in my room and said I needed to rest because I was ‘crippled’ and ‘twisted’ and ‘not fit to be seen’ Alexander? Where were you when I reached out to you and you literally slapped a ten-year-old girl’s hand away?”

She barely heard the shriek of the brakes, even as the lights suddenly flicked on bathing her in their light.

The pain was horrifyingly familiar to the point she heard nothing but the rushing of her own blood and the pounding of her heart as her head thunked against the asphalt like a ripe melon.

She lay there, lights blinding her where her vision wasn’t just leaving her and she found she had managed to land on her back.

Through the light pollution that hazed out the sky, she could see the stars until she couldn’t anymore, a shadow obscuring her vision.

There wasn’t any rain in the forecast, Elizabeth thought to herself as drops of water began to fall on her face.

Her head hurt.

Why couldn’t she remember? She…she had been yelling at Alexander. But…but why?

The…the car.

Her eyes snapped open and she groaned, wincing when she realized it was too bright. She shifted, hissing through her teeth when she felt the telltale tightness that meant she had spent too long in one place.

Only to find that she wasn’t in a hospital.

The room was far too opulent for that and now that she was listening, far too silent. Hospitals were loud, and noisy to the point she could never think in them.

She shifted, her entire body trembling from what she knew to be fatigue from a severe fever. She pushed herself up slowly, having to lay back as she slowly ‘walked’ herself back with her arms only to freeze when golden blonde hair, richer than anything she had ever seen before fell before her eyes.

In the sunlight, some of it even seemed to shimmer as if it wasn't hair grown from her head, but golden thread instead.

“What?” she asked, trembling as she made herself finally get to the point she could sit up in a mostly painless way.

There was no such thing as painless.

She slowly brought her hands up to find that they were pale. Paler than they should be and she slowly looked around.

Really looked around.

She had used the word opulent, but those words truly paled in comparison to what was around her. All the furniture was white with what looked like gold accents. The sky blue curtains to her windows on her right-hand side were drawn back, allowing the sun to fill the room, thus why it was so bright.

Despite the headache it caused, it managed to illuminate everything around her.

Bookcases that were matched for her height in the wheelchair, she assumed, were along the pale green walls patterned with a tree going through the four seasons that framed the window. Sconces of gold stood proudly above the bookcases, drawing attention to the wood paneling that had been painted white to match her furniture, along with the bookcases.

In front of the window were two sofas with sky-blue cloth and they framed a delicate white coffee table that seemed to be made of some sort of white metal and crystal. On the ground by the left sofa was a pale brown almost white woven basket. It was clear as she looked at that side of the room, that everything was set up so she could easily maneuver around in her wheelchair.

If she could do so herself.

Slowly turning her head, pausing when she found that right in front of her bed, more or less, were white doors framing an elegant fireplace of white marble. Both of the doors had golden trees on them, which were only whole because the doors were closed.

She stared, feeling like she should know this, but it was escaping her now. She slowly looked over to the other side of the room.

The only thing over there were landscapes of places she did not know framed by sconces and a closed white door.

And an old-timey wheelchair with pale green cushions and jewels set on the right handrest.

She exhaled shakily at that and looked at her bed and the nearest spaces next.

The bedding was all white and lavender, as well as warm, as if it was an electric blanket, but she couldn’t see any cords. She slumped back against the headboard and pillows, trembling slightly as she looked next to her bed, finding bedside tables. The left-hand one had a silver bell with an amethyst at the top of the handle.

The right-hand bedside table had a tray with a water pitcher and glass in it. She looked around, not recognizing…any of it.

“What?” she said quietly and pressed her palm to her head, burying her fingers into the golden hair that had appeared on her head.

And then her head felt like it was splitting open even more than it had before.

She clung to her head, groaning lowly as she curled up as much as her aching, fatigued, body would let her. Soon, flashes of a life not her own began to rush across her mind, as if she was watching an old movie on a rattling projector.

Lady Odelina Saggita Northsend.

No, no, that…that was impossible.

Lady Odelina Saggita Northsend was her favorite character from the novel she read and reread till it literally fell apart!