“Once upon a time, there was a princess,” I say to my aunt Ellie as we sit in the bed and she holds a book in front of me with pictures of a princess and a castle on it. “And she was the prettiest in all of the land.”
“And the smartest,” my aunt adds as she turns the page.
“She is?” I ask, and my aunt smiles at me as she nods.
“She was fearless, too,” she adds as she leans back against the headboard of my bed.
She’s reading me a bedtime story before I go to bed, and my parents aren’t home, so it’s a great night.
“She was?” I peer up at her. “Why?”
“Because she had a lot of darkness she was going to have to face,” my aunt explained with a frown.
“Like dragons?” I wonder. “And monsters?”
“Monsters for sure,” she tells me. “But she also was going to have to carry a curse so heavy she’d have to be the strongest princess in the world to endure it.”
I’m so confused. “Doesn’t the prince just save her?”
She shakes her. “No, the princess is going to save herself. She’s going to save all of the princesses and princes and everyone in the world. She has to. But remember, she’s strong. Maybe the strongest person in the world.” She smooths her hand over my head.
“That’s a terrible story,” I tell her. “She sounds like she’ll be lonely and scared all the time.”
“She won’t be,” she assures me. “She’ll never be alone. And like I said before, she is the bravest princess to ever exist. It’swhy one day she’ll be back on the throne with her crown, taking care of the world again so that all of the people can be cared for and not just some.”
“Even the people in northside?” I ask with doubt.
She nods. “Even the people in northside.”
I wake up groggy and disoriented. My limbs are heavy, and my body feels overly warm, like I have a fever. I worry I do, but then consciousness plucks me from my dream enough that I can make sense of my surroundings; that I’m in a room in a bed that’s not mine, and someone is pressed up against me, spooning me from behind with their arm draped over my waist. For a split second, I flip out, but then all the events of what occurred prior to when I dozed off rush back to me, and I calm down.
Well, sort of.
I feel sick to my stomach so much that I sit up and frantically see who’s curled up behind me. I exhale in relief when I see a halo of blood hair that belongs to Finn.
His eyes are closed and he’s lying on his side with his lips slightly parted. He’s changed his clothes and is wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt, and he smells like soap, so I’m assuming he took a shower at some point. I desperately want to take one, and I really need to pee. When I spot a doorway across from the bed, I cross my fingers that it’s a bathroom.
Careful not to wake up Finn, I climb out of the bed and shuffle across the room. Every one of my muscles aches with each step I take, and my stomach, while empty, is lurching. When I step through the doorway and spot the toilet, I jog over, drop to my knees, and dry heave until my stomach muscles get so sore I have to stop.
The pain in my limbs is worse than if I’ve run fifteen miles, I’m thirsty, and I’m pretty sure the doctor who examined me injected some sort of drug in me that made me drowsy because it feels like my head is filled with cotton balls.
For a while, I simply kneel on the tile floor with my head resting on the toilet seat, wishing I were dead. But conclusively, I drag my ass off the floor and focus on getting in the shower. Then once I’m out, I’ll figure out a way to get Finn and me out of here. Because I’m not a quitter.
I am strong.
I always have been.
I’ve gotten through tough shit before, and I can get through it again.
I just need a plan.
The shower is spacious, and the water warms up quicker than even at the Academy. As I strip my clothes off, the painful realization that my watch is gone smacks me across the face.
That was my last tie to the real world, to River.
Tears burn in my eyes as I step under it and scrub my body down until my skin is raw in an attempt to wash away what happened. By the time I’m finished, I’ve managed to make myself bleed in a few places due to scrubbing too hard.
“Maddy?” Finn’s voice rises over the sound of the water pouring out of the showerhead.
