A Royal Rebellion

Chapter twelve

The last three weeks passed by far too slow. My days consisted of sleeping, eating, and reading, reading, reading. I'd already read through all of my books four times, the stories the only things keeping me from going crazy. And as much as I hated to admit it, my initial excitement for Virginia had faded, leaving me with as much doubt to fill the entire ocean.

And with just cargo boxes and rats to keep my company, my mind was running wild.

What if when I arrived Josie wouldn't let in; I never had a chance to write her about me coming. What if she'd changed in the last time I read one of her letters? Was she hiding secrets between her words like I was? Had Fiona faked my capture yet? Had Mother found out? Did anyone care? What happened to Greg? Was Charlie in tears or already with some other woman?

As days turned into weeks and I grew weaker and weaker questions spiraled through me like a tornado, twisting and churning up my insides until I felt like a pretzel. All I could was sit and wondering what was going on, fighting intense hunger and slipping in and out of sleep, losing track of time and praying I'd make it out alive.

Throughout the first few weeks I desperately missed the comfort of my mother and brother and the friendship that the Shadow Group provided, for as the conditions wrecked my body it also wrecked my mind. Being alone for a month, with only rats and boxes, had my mind growing more absent and paranoid every day. I even had began to miss Sophia believe it or not, but the person I most missed was Greg.

One thought that kept stimulating through my mind constantly was why Greg had done what he'd done. He was my best friend besides Lila, the only man I knew besides Joseph who understood me and knew when I was done or afraid or scared. He was always there to comfort me, to offer a sympathetic ear or a word of advice, to be my friend.

But that was over now, because I apparently didn't know Greg as much as I thought I did.

And as ashamed as I was to admit it, despite returning to Virginia, I was craving for the luxuries I once had. Suddenly the deluxe dinners and comforts of adoration and a soft bed to lie didn't seem so little anymore, and I would've done anything for a lobster or even a blanket. (I was kicking myself for not bringing a pillow with me on the ship).

The space was also deathly freezing, so I always had to wear all of my cardigans, and water constantly dripped from the ceiling making everything wet, and when I ran out of water that's what I relied on to quench my thirst.

The conditions were miserable, and with every passing day I felt my will to live slip. Last month, when I had a full stomach and was just a walk away from a warm home, the idea of getting on the job to return to my hometown seemed exciting, an incredible adventure. But now that I was here, dying of thirst, filthy as a murderer's hands, and thin as a weed all I wanted to do was for this journey to end.

I was a coward; a slimy, ungrateful, coward. And I knew I had to pull myself together, to do what the Shadow Group had ordered me to do, but it was oh so hard. How could I even muster the strength to check the hatch to see if the journey was over, when I was starving to death and growing sicker and sicker? And that's when I began to spiral out of control.

Now all I did was flit between restless sleeps full of nightmares and let the scarlet fever that had festered inside of me slowly kill me. And there came that dark day where death knocked on my door, where I was so close to the afterlife I could feel the life feel my body. I was used to passing out from hunger every once in a while, but now the fever had overtaken me, and with no doctor or strength left in me all I could do was let it run it's course, and that day I passed out every hour.

I didn't have enough strength to sit up, and my hands, so bony my wrists were showing, shook so hard I could barley move them. I was hot and cold at the same time, sometimes screaming in agony as the fever wrecked my system. Then came the hour when death was so close I could almost touch it. My breathing slowed, my eyes closed, and I fell into a sleep full of light that seemed to suck me in.