“But…” I say.
“But,” she answers. “The thing was that for all the King’s good qualities, the princess had none.”
“Bollocks,” I tell her.
She is quiet for a while after that, lost in thought. I don’t press her, and eventually she comes around on her own.
“Rory,” she whispers against my skin.
“Aye?”
“I think she might’ve given him her heart. If she still had one to give.”
“The story isn’t over,” I remind her.
She nods and allows herself to relax into me, breathing me in the same way I do to her.
“Tenly.”
She doesn’t answer, and I don’t expect her to. So I just tell her what needs to be said.
“They’re dead, sweetheart. They just don’t know it yet.”
Twenty
Scarlett
Some people arenobody's enemies but their own- Charles Dickens
Istill recall quite vividly, the discussion we had in our English Lit class that fateful day. We were reading Hamlet. The topic of discussion was how he had sacrificed his relationship with Ophelia in favor of his descent into madness.
It is exactly this thought that I wake up to. Tangled up in Rory.
I have my own descent into madness to pursue, and sacrifices will need to be made.
There are only two days now.
Two days and I have not told Rory about Alexander.
Nothing I do is without intention. I was not vulnerable last night. I was prepared to sacrifice. Sometimes the truth is better motivation than a trick.
And it was with intention that I told Rory that tale. He volunteered to avenge me, just as I knew he would.
That’s when things took a left turn.
The trap had been set. All I had to do was tell him about Alexander AKA Agent Royce.
A girl like me doesn’t ask for help.
She sets it up in a way that someone offers instead.
Rory did offer, in his own way.
I know that I can’t take down Royce by myself. He’s well aware of my modus operandi, and I don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of drugging him. A physical altercation is out of the question because I’m not Mack and I can’t take him down alone.
Adding to that is the fact that he’s a federal agent. Which means he needs to disappear without a trace. Literally.
No DNA. No blood. No breadcrumbs leading back to me.
