Crushed By The Queen I Once Discarded

Blackwe

of putting his assis

wo hundred of the city's most powerful people, his voice amplified through a speaker

ld air would make her cramps unbearable. He claimed she collapsed because of me. That I, eight months pregnant and suf

right, that the baby and I came first, that he had overreacted. I had leaned into his hollow embrac

s a

floor of a glas

ady seeped through my clothes and into my bones before my eyes even opened. My breath came out in thin white plumes, vanishing into

Drugged. He must

color and light outside the glass slowly reso

lding champagne flutes. They were standing in a semicircle around my glass cage, watchin

er of them all

his smile the easy, predatory grin that had once made my heart flutter and no

selfishness had allegedly caused. She wasn't in a hospital gown. She was wearing a backless cocktail dress the color

mirk curved he

rough a speaker somewhere inside my glass prison. The crowd laughed, a

toast. "My wife has been so hot-headed l

e people. I had smiled at them at galas, made small talk at charity events, laughed at their jokes

hatred in them was so pure, so undiluted, that it stole what little breath

rifying. My hands weren't tied. They hadn't taken my purse. I fumbled

widened. He made no move to stop me. T

al walls around me - they weren't just glass, they were insulated, reinf

made me memorize when I was a little girl, pressing it into my memory with the kind of grave seriousn

when his company was liquidated. Not even on the darkest nights of

ropping and my baby's life hang

g once

d, my voice hoars

see the flicker of unease beneath his performance. The socialites

t a booming, theatrical laugh. "Oh, Izzy.

pping with fake sympathy. "Everyone knows that. Bl

y piece, and I had been too blind with grief and love to see it. I had let him do it. I had signed the papers he put in fr

d cold and tight in my chest. Had Austin fooled me so completely? Had I been

" a calm, familiar voic

rld st

that had read me bedtime stories and taught me chess and pro

led. I caught myself against the freezing wall, my palm

locked me in

mine, separated only by the frozen pane. Up close, I could see the wildness in his eyes. The desperation beneath the arrogance

Isolde?" he sneered. "The

"It's over. You have nothing. No father, no compan

urgent, giving me instructions I could barely

rin restored, his showmanship int

y of people who had done this before - who were paid to do this. A heavy door clanked open into my

aring fabric was obscenely loud in the small space. I struggled, kicking, twisting, trying

wear and forced my bare knee

he ice crystals forming against my bare flesh, my skin sticking to the frozen surface lik

partygoers raised their

es and freezing water spread out in a wide puddle at my feet, then they poured directly over

lly. Again and again, until the cold water had soak

between my legs, spreading slowly, terri

oo

ng. I was lo

He was screaming at me to apologize, to tell him I forgave him - because if I forgave him, he wouldn't have to be

s muffled but unmistakable. "Your father

it against my skin. The screen flickered. One bar. Then nothing. Th

for help. I couldn't even pray to a god who, in that

. And my own heartbeat, slowing, slowing, as the wa

ease, God,