“It’s okay, Fabia,” I say despite the nerves twisting my stomach. “I’ll be okay.” Pushing out a smile, I joke, “And if I’m not, you know the first person to kill.”
Her lips tighten as she glances at Nicholas. Looking back at me, she nods. “I’ll talk to you later then.”
“Yeah.” I follow Richard’s brother down the hall. My eyes on my feet, I let the silence thicken between us.
“Do you think he’s right?” I ask softly, not sure if I want to hear his answer. Although I don’t know much about the man beside me, having only interacted with him a handful of times, he makes me comfortable, and I trust him not to lie to me.
“The thing about Dickie,” he says slowly, “is he –welost someone very close to us because of this life. He’s afraid the same thing will happen to you.”
“But we all die.”
“Not like this.” His words, soft and pained, squeeze at the air in my lungs.
“Did they get tortured?”
“No.” He pauses as he knocks on a door and says, “I’m an idiot.”
“No, you’re –”
He holds up a finger, imploring me to wait. A second later, the door opens into a dark room. He gestures for me to enter, and ignoring the twisting of my stomach, I do so without hesitation.
As the door shuts behind me, Nicholas still in the hall, I have a moment of doubt. But then the light flicks on, and I know there’s no darting back outside.
A one-legged woman sits on the floor. A prosthetic leg rests against the wall behind her. “Sit,” she says.
As if given an order by Gallagher, I do so.
“My name’s Evangeline.”
“Bitch.” My eyes widen as I clamp my mouth shut.
She cocks a brow, but my gaze flies to her prosthesis.
Feeling guilty, I remember what I wished would happen to her.I hope she gets into a bad accident and loses a leg or something.
Oh my gods.
“How did you lose your leg?” I squeak.
“A Vylian cut it off when we were at war,” she says, and I sigh in relief.
“Redric?” I ask, recalling the only Vylian I know.
“Who?” Her eyes draw a complete blank.
“Someone Richard said you cursed. You kept shrinking his penis?”
“Oh, yeah. He mentioned him a couple days ago.” She waves a hand. “No. I killed the person who took my leg. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because you have become a threat to the kingdom, and it’s my job to eliminate such threats.”
“Oh, okay.” She said it so casually, the meaning of her words didn’t really click. A second later, they do. I jump to my feet, looking for something to hit her with. Would it be bad if I beat her to death with her own leg?
Reaching forwards, she grabs my ankle and yanks it hard. I yelp as I fall back onto my ass.
“I’m not here to kill you. Your death is the threat, which is why I’ve been guarding you these last five days.”
“You’ve been what?”
“You’ve had twenty-eight attempts on your life since you got here.”
