“The only person Maleficent Drache fears.”
The answer is written across Marlin’s face. Fitting, really, considering he’s the only person in this room who is familiar with the other half of the party.
The mad love their riddles, so they say.
And nobody loves riddles more than Chester Shoreshire.
Except his brother.
Chapter 29
CHRISTOPHER
I can count on one hand the number of dress shirts I’ve worn in my life.
There are countless reasons why I steer clear of anything elegant when it comes to clothes. The ripping hazard, for one, and don’t get me started on the guilt I would feel if I stained the bloody thing.
But the main reason I don’t dress up?
I can’t be fucking bothered.
Rubbing some gel through my hair, I’m grumbling under my breath as I fidget and play with the sleek black dress shirt pressed tight against my body. It feels like it was made for me in the worse way, a projection of who I might have become had I tucked my tail between my legs and gone crawling back to mum.
If it weren’t for the wolf snarling over the top of my collar, I wouldn’t even recognize the guy in the mirror. Dressedin designer labels from head-to-toe, I’m the perfect accessory to Cruella Deville’s outfit for the evening – a skintight dress covered by a lush fur coat.
The white to my black.
“Oh, good. I was worried you would show up wearing those ratty cargo pants you always have on.”
Cupping the end of her cigarette, Cruella lights it and takes a long drag. Her fake eyelashes flutter as she casts an assessing look over me, looking for minuscule imperfections she can easily fix.
If only she approached motherhood with as much care and concern.
“I wouldn’t want to offend your aesthetic with my particular shade of grey.”
Rolling up my shirt sleeves, I rub my thumb along the jagged branches covering my forearms. The past bulges up through murals of ink, the familiar texture serving as a reminder of how far I’ve come.
The surface can break but no one has to know how deep it goes.
The words I whispered to Mae all those years ago bounce around the space between my ears. It was before our first tattoo appointment, the first test to see whether body art could ever repair the scars of the past.
It didn’t heal a damn thing but it did change the way people looked at us. First impressions became wild and reckless instead of broken and vulnerable. We got to change the narrative of our stories, erasing the past and redefining the marks on our bodies until they became something beautiful.
Something worth keeping.
“It is rare I get to see you looking like my son.” Blowing out a perfect ring of smoke, Cruella sighs, “You really ought to do something with that hair. It’s gotten terribly unruly.”
“Your opinion is the one I treasure most in this world.”
She snorts, flicking ash onto the marble floors, “Still feeling snarky, I see.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I glance at my reflection one last time.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Together, we venture out into the front courtyard and climb into the neo-classic luxury vehicle my mum shipped from England. Painted in a fitting aesthetic, the black and white automobile sits low to the ground with a long nose and a tire fitted to the back.
It’s one of Cruella’s many signatures, and one that aligns tragically with her inability to drive in a straight line.
