Almost Lovers (26 page)

“What did you want with her?” I yelled.

“A snack,” she said through gritted teeth,
“A…royal…snack,”

I snarled at her and growled a deep, low
growl. She hissed a gargled hiss back at me. I grabbed her by the
head and her eyes went wide with the realization of what would come
next but it came faster than her mouth could open to protest. I
crushed her skull and enjoyed watching her face distort into
different levels of pain in the blink of an eye.

The last spray of blood splashed the
crumbling walls of the dank basement. But I stood defeated and my
heart ached at what I had failed to do not only for the Queen but
for Prussia. Never mind the fate of our species. I hadn’t managed
to save her frail life no matter how hard I had tried.

I looked down at Prussia still sitting in
the chair, streaks of blood from feedings so entangled with one
another that she looked dipped in it all. I let a hand touch her
hair and felt the single soft wave by the crown of her head that
wasn’t matted with blood. I gave a light stroke to her cheek.

“The perimeter is secured. Clean sweep has
been completed,” said one of my men, “Do you want to take her with
us?”

“No,” I said, looking down at Prussia’s
blood soaked and chewed body, “I don’t think the Queen would have
any need for a corpse,”

“I mean the one in the chair,” he said, “We
took care of everyone in the freezer already,”

“Is she not still alive?” asked the
guard.

“There is no way she could still be alive
with this much blood,” I said, pointing around on the floor.

I said it with anger in my voice and when I
looked at the guard I saw him take a step back.

“Very true, I’m sorry…” said the guard, “Did
you check for a pulse?”

I wanted to rip his head off. I gave him a
dirty look and a deep growl uttered deep in my throat. His mouth
clamped shut immediately. He had crossed a line he hadn’t known to
be there. He couldn’t see me trying to say goodbye to her? He had
to keep igniting false hopes? A human couldn’t lose that much blood
and survive.

I had been too late. She didn’t stir. She
didn’t move at my touch. She didn’t wake from the noise of what had
gone on around her. As I looked down at her again her skin looked
pearl pale with an ethereal shine.

I let my hand stroke her cheek one more
time. And I felt her exhale. It wasn’t much. It was the smallest
motion but I had felt it. Even if the chances were one in a
billion, it ignited a hopeful spark in me that hurt immediately.
Because I knew it more than likely to be an involuntary reaction of
a decomposing human body than anything else but I still had
hope.

I grabbed her chin with a quick and gentle
hand, tilting her face up to me and into the light. Her eyes were
closed and blood coated much of her face. I saw the slightest
quiver of her eyelashes, the faintest heartbeat I had ever heard
gave a hollow tap and I didn’t need anything else. I ripped away
the bonds that held her to the chair and lifted her, moving as fast
as I could.

“What is it?” called the guard that had
stood solemnly waiting to be reprimanded for what I had made him
believe were absurd ideas.

“She’s alive,” I called behind me as he
began to follow, “She needs a human doctor,”

“She is?” he seemed as disbelieving as I had
been before.

“How did you know? I didn’t even hear her
heart so how did you know?” I asked.

I stopped and turned to the guard, my
curiosity in how he knew she could still be alive outweighing
needing to get her to a doctor. The guard gaped at me for a moment,
his brain slow to catch up with him as he watched me cradle Prussia
in my arms and look intently into his face.

“Her blood,” he finally said after a long
second, “I didn’t hear her heart either but I thought I could hear
her blood moving still. Crazy, I know…and she didn’t smell like
death. Everything else did but she didn’t,” his eyes were amazed
and confused. It sounded good enough to me. I turned and began
running to get Prussia to the car.

With every step that landed I felt Prussia
rustle more to life. After half a dozen steps I could hear her
breathing return to a more steady breath. When I got her into the
car I let the front passenger seat all the way back and tried to
place her as gently as possible. As I snapped a seat belt in front
of her, just in case, then I felt it. I wouldn’t call it a flutter.
If I would call it anything it would be anxiety.

I felt an anxiety return to my chest with a
flood of worries that made me smile. I wasn’t just happy; I cared
for her enough to worry a thousand little things about her. I
wanted Prussia. I wanted to watch her sleep, to keep her safe, and
I counted the minutes until she would open her eyes and look upon
my face and know that I came for her. I wanted her to know she
could be safe with me, that I could keep her that way.

I closed the passenger side door and ran
around to the driver’s side and couldn’t believe my ears when I
started the car and heard her speak. She said it faintly and she
struggled to say it but I had heard.

“Take me home,” she said, again, “to
Robert,” she added this time.

I didn't know how I got into the car but I
was alive and for that I was thankful. My entire body hurt.
Shifting in the seat made me groan in pain. Looking around I
realized that I was in a car but it had taken me a few seconds to
realize whose.

I closed my eyes and wished that it was all
just a bad dream. I wanted to go back to sleep and pretend like
this had never happened. But I knew that I could never go back.
There were things I had seen that could never be unseen. There were
things that I knew now that I could never shake.

“Take me home,” I said to Sebastian.

For a moment I didn't think he had heard me
but the look in his eyes when he looked at me said that he had. And
that I had surprised him. That didn’t make me feel good considering
how much pain I was in. His look confirmed how bad of shape I must
have been in. But one thing gave me hope.

Before we had been attacked, Robert had said
he loved me. And in that moment I was the happiest I had ever been
and if I could get that moment back I could put this all behind me.
I had to find Robert. I needed to know if we still had a
future.

“Take me home,” I said, again, “to Robert,”
I added this time.

I could tell that Sebastian was distraught.
But I had no sympathy to spare for him. At this moment I could only
look at him as a monster. I didn't care how distraught he was. I
just wanted to find Robert and I wanted to put all of this insanity
behind me. I didn't know where I could go or who I could trust but
I needed to get as far away from these people as I possibly could,
if you could even call them people.

"Of course," said Sebastian, in a quiet
rumble.

He didn't seem pleased about it. Maybe it
was because I asked for Robert. But after having been through what
I had been through, putting Sebastian's feelings aside and focusing
on me was more than fair.

The car purred to life as Sebastian turned
the key in the ignition and within a few minutes we were parked
outside of my apartment building. I had barely had enough time to
assess my injuries. I could tell that I was covered in blood and
had bite marks that bordered into chew marks everywhere I looked.
The pain had become excruciating.

I couldn't tell if I had stopped bleeding.
The amount of blood terrified me. I couldn’t imagine how much I
actually had left. Even being conscience didn't seem possible. It
looked like someone had dumped large buckets of blood over me.

Most of it was dry but that added to my
pain. Each time I shifted in the seat the mostly dry blood would
peel away from the leather and send shooting pain through my body.
And whatever blood I had left felt as if it were on fire and racing
through my veins.

My entire body screamed in agony almost to
the point where I couldn't feel anything. Any more and I think my
brain would just shut down, unable to process anymore. I tried to
ignore the pain. I felt exhausted. I just wanted to sleep.

Sebastian parked the car and came around to
my door. Being so close to a monster in sheep's clothing shook me.
I didn't want him to touch me but I knew that I couldn't get out of
the car on my own and I needed to get into my apartment. I had a
pounding in my chest wondering if Robert had found his way back and
was safe.

I winced but I didn't object when Sebastian
began to scoop me up from the seat. I couldn't stifle my scream as
all of my skin that touched the seat felt as though it had been
ripped away all at once. The pain blinded me as it rushed my
senses. My scream must have terrified Sebastian because he squeezed
me close and that made the pain worse.

I felt tears streaming out of my eyes and
down my cheeks onto his shirt. I had latched onto his shirt and my
hands had balls of the soft fabric. He must've realized that by
simply touching me caused me pain because he released his grip and
held his arms out. For anyone else it would have been impossible to
hold me in this position for more than a few seconds but he didn't
even bat an eye.

"What can I do?" Sebastian asked, concern
clear on his face.

"I need to lay down," I said, "Inside. The
sofa,"

I spoke with labored breathing. The burning
sensation running through my veins became worse with every moment.
Everything felt like it was on fire. It hurt to touch anything at
all. Just his breath too close on my skin was enough to trigger the
pain. I had never felt anything like this in my entire life. I felt
as though I were dying, being burned alive from the inside out.

I didn't need to say anything else. He ran
as if I weighed nothing. Through the entrance of the apartment
building, Sebastian ran and carried me up every flight of stairs to
my floor. He was barely winded when we got to my door.

It concerned me how fast and easily he could
run. Just one more unnatural detail though not nearly as
distressing as the detail that followed. He shifted the way he
carried me into one arm and, while that on its own was amazing,
what terrified me the most is when he reached into his pocket and
pulled out a set of keys. One key in particular fit perfectly into
my apartment door lock.

I glared at him. But I still let him help me
into the apartment. With his hand under my elbow he helped me walk
through the door. I pulled my elbow away from his grip and headed
through the linoleum floored entry into the kitchen area towards
the sofa in the living room.

There were no lights on in the apartment. It
may have been dark but I knew my home and exactly where everything
was, or so I had thought. Sebastian turned around to close the
front door when I tripped on something. I fell into something
slippery and I fell hard. That was when Sebastian found the light
switch and illuminated my situation for me.

There I lay on the linoleum sprawled out and
covered in a thick sludge. When Sebastian turned the light on it
was immediately clear what I had tripped over, or rather whom. I
knew that gaze best in my nightmares, even if it only kept me
company when unconscious.

His eyes were exactly the way I remembered
them. They looked deep into mine and at the same time they didn't
look at me at all. His blood had pooled around him and coagulated,
sickening and thick, which is exactly what I had landed in. I
couldn't hear anything. I kept trying to scream as I looked into
those eyes. Each time I screamed and couldn't hear anything. I
tried to scream again harder, louder. My entire hope lay in front
of me dead, without a doubt dead. Which is exactly how I felt
inside.

Sebastian stood over me in an awkward
stance. I don't think any shoes are built to hold traction in pools
of blood. His shoes were no different. They had no grip or
traction. He tried to lift me up out of the blood. And while I
couldn't hear hardly anything his reactions seemed to suggest that
I made plenty of noise.

I could hear again after Sebastian tried to
cover my mouth. But even with my mouth covered and my hearing
returned, I continued to stare at Robert – our eyes locked. I
couldn’t feel the pain at all anymore. I’d gone numb. I couldn't
feel and I didn't care. Maybe it was all for the best. Maybe I
would be next.

I kept eye contact with Robert even as
Sebastian scooped me up and began carrying me out of my apartment.
Sebastian had said something to me. I could hear the vibrations in
his chest but I didn't look at him. I just kept looking at Robert.
Those haunting eyes followed me all the way out of the apartment.
And when we finally left I could still see them.

I closed my eyes as we headed down the
stairs. Wherever we were going, it didn't matter. Attacked in the
park, kidnapped at Victoria's home, bodies dumped on my apartment
floor, and keys to my apartment floating around. I didn’t consider
any place safe anymore so it certainly didn’t matter where we were
going. It just didn't matter. And so I slept and dreamed of
Robert’s eyes.