Free Web NovelChapter 90: Chapter 90 Doomed for real
_Author’s POV_
Nana Seraphine found out about the whole thing at noon.
She had been in the morning room of the Ashthorne mansion working through a stack of correspondence that had accumulated over the week, the kind of administrative task she found satisfying in the specific way that orderly progress through a list was satisfying. Her tea was fresh. The morning had been quiet and wonderful, unknown to her that her granddaughter was out almost killing herself.
One of the staff came in with the expression of someone who had been standing in the corridor for two minutes deciding whether to knock.
She knocked eventually.
She delivered the information about Rowena.
Nana Seraphine set down her pen and turned the TV on. Seeing Rowena, she almost had a heart attack.
She had not been following the competition broadcast. She had known it was happening and had made a decision several days ago not to watch it, because the decision not to watch it was the mechanism by which she had been managing her anxiety about it.
If she didn’t watch she didn’t have to feel what she would feel while watching. It was not her most rational approach to a situation and she knew it and she had made it anyway.
Now she sat in the morning room with the information delivered directly and the mechanism no longer functioning.
Her granddaughter had gotten into a racing car.
Her mind did what minds did when they received information about someone they loved being in danger. It went immediately to the worst version of the outcome. Not the version that had actually occurred, in which Rowena had won comprehensively and was standing in the staging area receiving the appreciation of a crowd that had just watched something remarkable.
The version where the car had hit the barrier differently. Where the speed had been slightly higher. Where the safety systems had been asked to do more than safety systems could guarantee.
She thought about her daughter.
She thought about her son-in-law and her grandsons.
She thought about standing at three graves and understanding what was left and what was not.
Her hand found the edge of the desk.
She sat with it for a moment. If something happened to Rowena, she would never recover. She would die as well.
With that thought, she stood up and gave instructions to the head of the household guard in a voice that was very steady and very clear and left no room for interpretation.
“Go straight to that competition and drag Rowena back home! Lock her up and don’t let her go out to take her own life again!” Her voice thundered and instantly, the guards moved.
Rowena herself saw them coming across the compound, she saw the logo on their uniform. Four guards in Ashthorne household uniform, moving towards her with determined expression. She frowned already guessing what was happening, and she was right after all. They came for her.
Kasper appeared from the direction of the media area. Pierre took a step forward. Two of the competition officials who had been nearby looked at each other.
Rowena held up one hand and everyone who had been about to intervene stopped.
She looked at the lead guard.
"Nana sent you, am I right?” Rowena asked. The guards moved was impressed. She was sharp and he respected her for that. And he also hoped she wouldn’t protest.
"Yes, my lady." He nodded.
She was quiet for a moment then sighed and handed Kasper her helmet.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. frёewebηovel.cѳm
"Take care of the car," she said. "Make sure it’s stored properly and that the maintenance check is done before the next round." She paused. "I’ll be back for it."
"Rowena," Kasper said.
"It’s my grandmother," she said simply. "Take care of the car. It cost $250k.”
“Holy shit?!” Kasper screamed. That amount was crazy.
Then she turned towards the guard and nodded. "Alright."
She got into the vehicle without being asked and she sat in the back and she looked out the window as they pulled through the main gate of the Starlight compound and the arena and the crowd and the red Ferrari all moved further away and eventually disappeared.
The drive back to the mansion was quiet.
She looked at the city moving past the window and she thought carefully. Not about what had just happened but about what needed to happen next.
The competition schedule. The remaining rounds. The reason she had entered in the first place and whether one afternoon in a household room was going to change any of it.
It wasn’t.
She would have a small talk with Nana, convince her and then return to the competition.
The car pulled through the Ashthorne gate and the mansion came up around her. She got out and walked inside, the staff bowed when she walked in and she smiled in acknowledgement. One thing about Rowena, she would always acknowledge her people.
But to Rowena’s surprise, she was taken to her room.
Then the door was not locked.
She blinked in shock. House arrest?
Nana was going that far?
Unable to handle her emotions, she just sat on the edge of the bed.
The window showed the garden in late afternoon light. The same view she had looked at from this room more times than she could count, from when she was a child visiting this house and from the periods she had lived here and from every return since.
Now she thought about it, the garden didn’t change much. The light moved across it differently at different times of year but the garden itself was consistent. If she hadn’t been house arrested, she would have noticed earlier. She almost laughed at herself.
She looked at it and she thought.
But her mind returned to the competition. It still had two more rounds before the qualifying phase closed. Missing them would not eliminate her entirely but it would cost points she couldn’t easily recover. She needed to be back on that track and she needed it to happen before the schedule moved past the window.
She also needed to deal with the fact that she was in her bedroom with guards outside the door and her grandmother somewhere in the mansion feeling things that Rowena was going to have to take seriously because Nana was not someone she was capable of dismissing, regardless of what else was happening.
She sighed, “Kyra, we’re doomed.”
