The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

chilled my veins. Thax was right, there was never any tea—Yara and Yarrow had drugged us—I’d just been unwilling to accept it because…why? Because I couldn’t bear the thought of watching my future bestselling success evaporate like a cloud before my eyes? And what about Thax—what had his quest for truth led him into?

I moved to the next shelf, hurriedly, only partially set with vials in slots, some still unlabeled.

The next writers.

I plucked the first vial and read the label.

Shock barreled through my body and I dropped the vial as tears sprung to my eyes. “No.”

My hand shaking, I picked up the next vial. R. W.

Without thinking, I launched the delicate vial across the room and it shattered in a thousand pieces. Eyes on the ground where Thax’s vial was broken and leaking clear liquid, rage began to cycle through me as I realized I probably wasn't looking for Thax anymore, I was now looking for his grave.

Then, a line of the poem in Lilies of the Cellar came back to me:

The seventh little lily ran to cliff’s edge, and the eighth little lily is already dead

The unnerving feeling that I was meant to be here now washed through me. Zara, pointing out the window as if in warning—Nate’s code-breaking book and Zara’s key and journal. I fought tears as I crossed the room, hands pressed against the white plaster as I searched for another way out.

My hands searched the roughened spackling until a hinge, painted white like the plaster, was visible under my fingertips. I paused, searching up and down, and found another hinge. I pushed again, this time with more strength, and was surprised when it swung with heavy weight. A dim light lit a stainless-steel room, everything surgically pristine, except for the man that lay prone on an old hospital bed in the corner.

“Thax!” I screeched and ran to him, fingertips at his throat in search of a pulse. It beat weakly, the feathering of a hummingbird's wings against my fingertips. “Thax, I'm here, please wake up.”

I clamped down on my bottom lip, forcing myself to feel the pain just to know this horrible nightmare was all too real.

“Thax, we’ve gotta get out of here. Can you hear me?” I leaned to his ear, shaking him softly, begging him to wake up.

My mind crashed back to the broken vials, Thax’s initials inked on the side.

“Thax…” Hot tears lodged in my throat painfully. “Thax, we have to get help, please.”

I heard the shuffle before the voice stopped me cold. “No help left.”

Yarrow’s graveled words were clipped.

“What did you do?” I stood to face him.

He ignored me, pushing a broom along the floor.

“He’s going to die, tell me the fastest exit at least.”

Yarrow continued to ignore me, his long silver hair shining in the small spotlight beams that hung above the center table in the room.

The center table that, upon closer inspection, was obviously a stainless surgical table. “What is going on here?”

Yarrow grumbled something incoherent, brooming around the edges of my feet. “She won’t like the broken glass.”

I fumed then, losing my cool and overpowering the old man easily. I pushed him against the wall with the handle of the broom. His eyes narrowed on me, a thick layer of tobacco spit stained at one corner of his lips. He licked them once, grinned widely and then gestured to his top pocket. “It’s all in there.”

I held him still, yanking whatever he held in his pocket out to find the capped end of a syringe. “What is this?”

Yarrow licked his lips again and then spit at my feet. “Death.”

“Is this what you gave him?”

Yarrow shook his head, not even bothering to fight me.

“Then what’s wrong with him?”

“Paralyzed.”

“From what?” Frantic agitation laced my words.

Yarrow didn’t reply, only nodded to the shelf above Thax’s hospital bed. I snagged the only thing on it, a tiny brown glass bottle labeled with three letters I had seen before.

PLt

“PLt? What is PLt? Why does everyone talk in code around here?” I shook the bottle, its contents light as air.

“Peace lilies.”

“Peace lilies?”

“Toxic bulbs.”

Shivers of blind fear raced through me. Lilies in the Cellar. Her little lilies. It wasn’t the bulbs they were storing and shipping, it was what was inside of them. “How long will it last?”

“How long won’t it?” came Yarrow’s riddled reply.

“How can we reverse it?” I was at Yarrow’s throat again.

He shook his head once. “Death.”

Anger surged and before I could stop myself, I uncapped the tiny syringe from Yarrow’s pocket and shoved it in his neck. His eyes bulged wide for a moment before he crumpled to the floor, weak body landing with a soft thud at my feet.

I returned to Thax, working at the binds that held his wrists on the hospital bed before the quiet creak of a doorway made every hair on the back of my neck stand to attention.

I didn’t need to ask who it was. Every fiber in my body knew. I swallowed and without missing a beat, I turned, steeling my spine and smiling deeply. “Yara, I’ve been waiting for you.”

FIFTEEN

Ryn

“What did you do?” Yara’s eyes grew wide. She crossed the room, the swish of her soft satin skirts almost comforting, if they didn’t carry such evil with them.

I cringed, but refused to leave Thax’s side.

Yara ignored me, only dropping to her knees at her twin’s side and holding fingertips to his neck. “You gave him PLt?”

I didn’t answer, eyes searching for some tool to take her out while she wasn’t looking.

“The newest batch is double the dosage and it’s still in trials.” She stood, turning on me fully then. “You’ve probably just killed him.”

I shook my head, disbelief freezing me. “I only meant to—”

“How did you find the key to the chest?” She seethed. “I plastered over it four times when I hid it in that statue.”

“That’s not the only key I had.” I declared.

Her glare was hard enough to cut glass. I had the feeling few got the best of