Vanished: The Memoirs of Jane E, Friendless Orphan, #3

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.  Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.   

VANISHED:

THE MEMOIRS OF JANE E, FRIENDLESS ORPHAN

BOOK 3

Copyright ©2016 by Erin McCole Cupp

Cover art © 2016 by Fiona Jayde Media

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.  For information, contact the author at emccolecupp@gmail.com.  

For additional information and to order additional copies or request print copies, please visit erinmccolecupp.com.  

First Edition:  December 2016

Contents

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

For All of Jane’s Story...

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CHAPTER 27

Fly:  to depart in haste.  How could I stay here after what had just happened—after what had been happening all along?  How could I leave the only place where I’d ever felt I’d belonged, where I’d ever seemed to mean something to anyone? 

Felt.  Seemed.  Conjectures.  Not truths. 

But aren’t feelings truths in their own way? my heart argued.  I knew for a fact that, if I left Emhain Macha, if I left Thorne, there would be no one else in this world who ever really made me feel cared about.  I’d gone more than two decades without being loved like that.  What were the chances I’d ever feel love again if I left it now? 

But did I have any reason to feel that way here? All this time I’d been in my room, Mrs. Fairfacs had not appeared with any summons.  I was being shunned, like the diseased, disordered girl beaten at the Naomi well.  But so what?  At least if I stayed here, even with Thorne hating me or leaving me himself, returning only to take care of the lunatic in the cabinet, I would at least be surrounded by the only good memories I had.  In that moment, I understood why ghosts haunt. 

Of course I would stay.  No pain could be worse than having Thorne out of sight, out of hearing.  I had no choice. 

There is never only one choice. 

Aidann’s memory harassed me.  I clutched her scroll in my fist and knew... if I stayed I would be living a lie. 

No matter what he had done, I could not suddenly start acting as if Thorne were merely my employer.  My love would morph from intense fire to barren ice, sickening me.  Once filled with joy and hope, I would become a barren husk of myself.  I wanted to give my whole self to him and him alone.  I only had one self to give, and Thorne could accept only one.  But Thorne could not give me what someone else already had.  If I gave myself completely, I deserved to receive completely. 

That’s selfish, I could hear him say. 

Selfish?  No, I knew down to my very cell walls.  Not selfish.  Self-respecting. 

There could be only one first, last, best and only.  I was none of those things—legally or otherwise.  He could not accept me completely under these circumstances.  He was pledged to care for another even with his very life.  No human was going to look out for me but Jane E, and that meant leaving.  I had to suffer the consequences of my needy blindness and surrender this place. 

Fretting without action was a waste of energy, Bhenji Fleuvbleu would always say.  I had to get moving or lose my nerve.  I wriggled up in bed.  Afternoon had come and gone.  Queasy, not caring that my salawar kameeze was rumpled, I slid from the bed, leaning against the mattress to steady my vertigo. 

I looked up at the PLED screen to guess the time. 

ERROR

Hungry, exhausted, broken, I shuffled over to the door.  The floor was liquid beneath my feet.  That icy sweat was back with a vengeance.  I took my duppetta from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around myself, knowing it could not ease this chill.  I pressed my plain perks ring to the door lock and slumped into the hall—right into Thorne. 

He caught me, pressed me to him, and for a second I forgot all that had happened.  I was no longer famished and dehydrated, standing in a brightly lit hall, clutching my betrayer as fiercely as he clutched me.  Oh, no.  All I had to do was close my eyes and all was soothing darkness, I was in his arms and in his bed, and he was my pillow, my comfort, my hope, my joy, my warmth and safety and my only ever love—

He pressed his lips to my forehead.  I blinked at the hall light as if at the sun.  When I remained unresponsive, Thorne brought his face to mine and said, I was going to tell you. 

Tell me what? I almost asked in my delirium.  Then I remembered.  Tell me that I was The Other Woman.  I braced my palms against his chest and pushed myself to my feet.  My stance was unsure, though, and Thorne would not release me. 

I need to go, I said, pushing against him. 

No! Thorne cried.  He grabbed my parting arm in both of his strong hands and pulled, angry, desperate, possessed of a strength I’d never felt against my skin before. 

I fought an instinct to flip him and made myself very, very still.  Haven’t you hurt me enough? I asked. 

Blanching, he loosened his grip.  Look what I’ve done to you, he said, wild-eyed.  I never meant to hurt you like this.  I would’ve killed myself first. 

I held for a moment as his admission of guilt sank in.  I backed away from him slowly, reluctant to lose what connection we had left, fevered as it was.  He clutched at my fingers as if in supplication.

How many lies have you told me? I asked.

He almost crushed my hands in his.  I never lied to you.  Not about this.

About what, then? I demanded, snapping my hands free.  That you ‘loved’ me?  Was I just another in your very long line of human blow up dolls, novel for my ugliness? 

His eyes narrowed.  You accuse me of shallowness?  Putting on this virgin act to seduce me into giving you a health plan?  Or was it more money you wanted—mine’s not enough?  Is that why you contacted that lawyer and started this disaster? 

I recoiled with shame-strangled tears.  How can you think that about me?  You’re the only person I’ve ever loved!  I loved you before you would even look at me.  Even now, if you don’t love me back and never did—

As my ire rose, my vision blackened from stress, hunger, dehydration.  I hated my weakness as I slumped forward, and I hated my body’s response as Thorne caught me in his arms, murmuring, Sorry, sorry, God, I’m sorry. 

I let Thorne carry me to the study and install me on our couch.  He summoned food, pressed a glass of iced tea to my mouth.  I took it and drank.  Neither of us spoke.  He kept his eyes trained on me.  I could not bear to look at him. 

God, Jane, he cried at last, say something! 

I brought my eyes to his, blinking until I gathered enough courage to speak.  If you had succeeded in making me Wife Number Two and then I went crazy, would I go in a capsule, too?

Thorne coughed out a deep, guttural sound of anguish, misery, regret.  No, Jane, even if you tried to kill me like she has.  Jane, she is—this is all just a horrible mistake. 

How do you know I’m not a horrible mistake?

"Because I know you, Jane.  Your only relation to her is that you are her complete opposite—that you are everything I’ve ever wanted—needed in my life.  If you had to be in that capsule then so would I.  You’d have to kill me before I would stop taking care of you."

So would she, I observed, cold, wouldn’t she?

I never loved her, Janee.  I love you. 

The softness he used on my name melted my forced ice, and I began to cry more, not caring that I did.  What more did I have to lose, now that I had to leave him?  Thorne wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair.  My tears heated the fabric of his jacket, making it stick to my skin. 

Tell me you don’t love me, he said against my ear.

The lie would not come.  I only wept more.

I knew it.  He barked a cry of relief, brushing the tears from my face.  That’s all that matters then.  God knows I never meant to hurt you.  Jane, please forgive me.  I just wanted to make everything right...

He dropped his head, and his shoulders started to quake.  Seeing him bent with shame like this made me realize that he was in earnest.  He’d meant well—more than well.  He’d wanted somehow to take care of everyone and me at the same time.  And he would have, too, if the truth hadn’t come out. 

And yet, moved as I was by his sorrow, I still felt betrayed.  Were you ever going to tell me?

His eyes were at once bright with pain and dark with ardor.  I was, when I knew you wouldn’t doubt me for it.  I didn’t want to make you more insecure than you already were.  Can’t you forgive me for trying to do right by you? 

At the glow of barely checked tears I saw in his wild eyes, I reached out and ran my fingers over his close-cropped hair. 

I forgive you, I said.

He grasped my reaching hand in both of his, pressed it to his cheek.  Were those my tears or his that I felt there?  Did it matter?

I forgive you, I repeated, but forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. 

You just don’t know the whole story, that’s all, he murmured.  Let me explain, and you’ll understand.

Slowly, I took my hand back.  All I understand is that your mad wife is locked in a closet, and you wanted to cheat on her with me. 

He looked up.  It’s no cheat, Jane.  I was never her husband.  I was a bargaining chip.

Pulling from his hungry grip, I perched on the edge of the couch, willing to listen, ready to flee. 

He pressed his hand to his eyes a moment, and then he began.  It was all part of a deal between the Senator and Rozbeh-Bedros.  I was nineteen—just a stupid kid.  My own father drugged me.  Can you believe that?  He drugged me so I would sign the papers—papers, still, back in those days—and say ‘I do’ at all the right places.  I’d never even met her before that night.  They didn’t want me to see her when I was sober.

Why did the Senator do this to you both?  I could not bring myself to call him your father.  If this story were true, no man could do this to his child and be called father for it. 

Thorne breathed a leaden sigh.  "It was all about lobbying.  And money.  He didn’t want to split his will between his real kid and the bastard.  Around the time my mother blackmailed him into getting me into school, The Senator had been speaking out against federal research funding the pharm companies wanted—cloning, I think.  Something like that. 

Bedros went to the Senator to strike up a deal—an arranged marriage.  The Senator would push through the funding for RBP, if they’d give me, by virtue of my ‘relationship’ to Lara, her trust fund.  After we were signed, sealed, and I was sobered up, they told me that if this hit daylight, RBP would lose their grants, and millions of people who need their drugs to survive would be up a creek and no paddle in sight.  So I agreed to keep it secret.

I could tell by his steady if pained gaze that he was telling the truth.  But if she were in a capsule, I