CHAPTER 19
The Princess
I remember seeing an old video once. Of Malek as a toddler, still trying to figure his legs out, and eating a candy cane backwards while some drunk fat guy impersonated Santa Claus at one of Daddy’s old parties.
Daddy never knew I’d watched this old tape, and to tell you the truth…it took me a while to figure out how to use it. Prehistoric technology. But I’ll never forget it. And I’ll never forget why I really watched it.
It’s the only time I ever heard my mother’s voice.
She seemed so opposite what we are. So normal. Graceful, even. All the things that Poe talks about when he describes a woman. The way it should be. The way it should have been for her.
So many people in that room, drinking, laughing…
gambling. But she only had eyes for her baby boy.
I know she would have been that way with me, had she had the chance.
Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up this way.
Maybe I could find it in myself to be like her.
But that’s just not how fate decided it, is it?
Ruth’s arms feel like home.
Her forgiveness is something I don’t feel worthy of.
Her smile awakened something in me again…but it wasn’t love.
It’s hate. God, it’s hate.
I fucking hate them. I hate them for looking at my mother like she was filthy, all because she didn’t have a drop of Irish blood.
I hate them for how they looked at me and Malek the same way, even though we were half.
I hate them for the pain they cause innocent people because they’re stupid enough to believe it matters at the end of the day, what name can hold the weight of the crown.
Well…if it matters so much…I’ll show them.
Leaving Ruth’s room, teary-eyed and not at all myself, I checked my phone and saw that Dec had left a message that they were eating in the hospital courtyard downstairs.
I spotted them before they spotted me.
How can they be so happy?
How do they find it in themselves to smile like that?
All I feel is silent rage.
I wanna join them, and I can’t. I wanna lose myself in Declan…
and I can’t. God, I just wanna be happy with the revenge I served cold and let it be enough…
but I just fucking can’t. I’ve got all the ingredients Malek had to let it go and move on to better things, but I don’t think I can right now.
The sound of hungry demon bellies overpowers everything else.
It’s just a roar in my head that I truly believe will make me crazy.
Or…well…crazier.
I need an outlet, and the only one that satisfies me right now…is blood. I guess this is how it starts. I’ve crossed over some unspoken line, and now there’s no going back. Now it just feels like something I have to do.
For my mother. For Ruth. For my Daddy. For every fucking girl I pulled out of that Hell…and for the ones that never left.
For me.
I pulled my phone from my back pocket and shot off a text.
Me: waiting by the car.
I watched Dec read it, stare at it longer than I thought he would…
and then pull my brother aside. They’re gonna continue to worry about me until I show signs of life.
I really thought I’d be safe from what everybody in that whore house would go through after we burned it to shit…
or at least have more than a few hours before it fucking started sinking its claws into me.
Something like adrenaline is writhing under my skin.
I’m so fucking angry. Why? Why do I wanna rip—
“Gorgeous day out, isn’t it? Almost feels like spring!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, turning to meet the eyes of a pretty nurse that just wanted to scoot past me to go eat her lunch in the courtyard.
“Blow that sunshine out your ass, Nurse Joy.”
She looked at me like I’d just slapped her in the face. I guess I did. I dunno why I fucking said it. I don’t even know where it came from. I have no idea what her name actually is. Embarrassed, I turned and walked as fast as I could, away from that door and down the hall to the parking lot.
I spent the next three days watching The Wizard of Oz on repeat, some trash reality T.V.
, and did a paint-by-numbers project, purposely switching the colors because…
nobody’s gonna tell me what the fuck to do.
Declan has been a saint, keeping my Bugles bottomless, cleaning up after me, and not hovering when I bother to leave the couch.
I bit the pointy tip of said Bugle off my finger while I watched Dorothy slip into oblivion in a field of poppies.
Opiates…that’d be fire right now.
A knock sounded at the door, and Declan trudged through the living room to go answer it. “Don’t answer that. I’m not wearing pants, dude.”
“Baby, you haven’t worn pants in three days. Fix your blanket.”
I did, sitting up straighter while I slid my bun back up to the top of my head. It flopped right back where it came from. “I don’t have makeup on, Declan.”
“And still makin’ my dick hard.”
My head ached from the eye roll. He opened the door, and Seven and Malek walked in, both of them immediately spotting the obvious. I averted my eyes back to the T.V. and bit off another chip.
“The fuck is that smell?” Malek asked, sniffing. “You break down and adopt a cat or somethin’?”
This bastard.
Seven set bags of takeout on the kitchen counter and I pretended to ignore them both. “Yeah, it…kinda smells like old shit. Like the kind that accidentally leaks out of the people in my basement.”
“Get it all outta your system, asshats,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes while I continued to watch the movie. I made it a point to chew obnoxiously loud. “Rub it in.”
A fresh bottle of Sev’s Malibu shampoo landed in my lap, crushing my bag of chips and I snapped my head up at my stupid brother.
“You need to rub it in. In your hair. Under your chicken arms…sure as shite between those bratty arsecheeks.” He plopped down so hard on the couch that I popped into the air, and I snarled at him as he stuck a finger in my face. “Is that a wart on your nose?”
“Yeah, well at least it took me a few days to look this bad, fucker. You favor the flying monkeys all on your own.”
“Eh…she’s not wrong,” Sev shrugged, putting away whatever she bought. Naturally, Dec went behind her to correct every misplaced thing.
“What’s eatin’ ya, brat? Besides fleas.”
I put some space between us and jerked my blanket over me. “What is this some kinda intervention? Can’t I have a mental breakdown in fucking peace, like every other normal person? I just wanna eat junk food, swoon over Tin Man, and bask in my own filth. Is that too much to ask?”
“Sorry, little sister…Tin Man don’t want you.”
I rolled my eyes…again. “I’m not oily enough for him?”
Malek lost himself in his idiot giggles. “No, stupid…he’s gay.”
“He is not!” I threw my bag of Bugles at him and…dude, I don’t even know where it came from…I couldn’t stop it. I burst into manic depressant tears. How fucking gross. “He’s just sensitive and wanted a fucking hearrrttt,” I sobbed, covering my face and burying it into the couch pillow.
“Ooookaaaay, that’s enough.” Seven appeared outta nowhere and shoved Mal onto the floor, the fool still laughing at me as she helped me off the couch. “Come on. Shower time.”
“Don’t forget your shampoo, Bridget!”
I hate that motherfucker sometimes. God, it’d feel good to scratch his pretty eyes out.
“When she snaps your neck, the mystery of how I’d dispose of your body will be her pot-a-gold. Can it, Dexter.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I sat on the floor in the shower, letting it all out while Sev finished off my Bugles on the toilet seat. It’s hard to believe that the outlet I ended up needing was a good soul-shattering cry, an imbecile of a sibling, and my best friend. Tell anybody…and I’ll cut your tits off.
“So…you wanna talk about it?” she asked, her blurry figure a weird comfort. “If you don’t, I’m fine with being silent company, too. But I’m here, Bridge.”
I don’t know how she does it. How she keeps it together enough to even care when she’s got a mother in the hospital, a funeral home that’s in ruins, and had it in her to help rescue me again, along with a dozen kidnapped girls?
I wasn’t here for her this way after what happened to us last year.
Violation or not, she went through Hell, and still did it with her head held high and her attitude in check.
“Why do you love me, Sev?” I pulled my knees up and clutched my arms around them, pressing my cheek down and staring at her through fogged glass.
“Hmm…you know…I don’t know. I don’t think you or Malek ever gave me much choice, but when it comes to you…
I think it’s because I learned to love all the weird parts about myself that make me who I am.
The best me. And I see a lot of myself in you, Bridget Byrne.
Whether it’s a good thing or not…it’s a thing that fits my crooked-ass mold, babes.
” I could tell she was smiling, and I know it’s genuine.
“But at least I got one thing right. You don’t question it. You know I love you.”
“I love you too,” I wept, pitifully.
“So…would it help if you said it out loud?”
Yes. No. Maybe…
I can’t look at her if I’m gonna try, though.
I turned my head, resting my chin on my forearm and stared at the wall.
“They didn’t fuck me. But I had to give Romanov head.
Just once. I gagged myself after he left, but…
why do I feel so fucked up, Seven?” My lip wobbled and I bit down on it, letting the tears wash away in the stream of the shower.
“Every girl in there went through so much worse. For so long. Why is this one small thing fucking me up like this?”
Her bare feet appeared next to me under sopping wet jeans and a band t-shirt. Two tattooed arms wrapped around me, and I leaned into her while she sat down in the shower.
“No fucking rape is smaller than another, Bridget. You don’t compare it to anyone else’s trauma.
You fight through it. Because no human being should ever be forced to serve tea against their will, let alone a part of their fucking body.
You told me once that you’ve done bad things.
Malek spent his adult life killing people.
Neither one of you did it for the sick joy of slowly ripping someone’s soul apart.
That’s a different kind of fucking evil. And they deserved to die.”
I coiled my arm around hers and pressed my forehead into her shirt. I feel like my chest is caving in. I’ve never cried so hard. Not even over Daddy.
“There’s no shame in feeling it, Bridge.
The pain is human. It means you’re alive.
You survived, babe. You all did. And they’ll never hurt any of you again.
” She rocked me back and forth, her voice cracking as she sniffled.
“Don’t shut us out. It does more harm than good.
We’re tougher than we look…and that stubborn fucker in the kitchen would love nothing more than to be your punching bag.
Fill all the dark parts with something better. ”
We rocked there for a few minutes until the water started to get cold. She didn’t move an inch. I finally got my bearings and palmed my hair back.
“It feels…I dunno…unfinished.”
“I don’t think it gets more finished than a bunch of blown-up body parts,” she smiled.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like having that feeling like somebody’s watching you. A weird itch. A heavy dread, or…bad Chinese.”
Sev stood up, turning the water off and reaching over the glass door for a towel. We wrapped up and faced each other.
“You’ve been through a lot. You’re still Bridget. They say when you break a bone, it grows back stronger than it was before. Sometimes we have to shatter completely before we can build ourselves into something unbreakable. It’s over. The Byrnes remain whole.”
The Byrnes.
Everything she said is right, but…we’re not whole. Not yet.
Something unbreakable.
My Daddy was right all along.
There’s no out of this life. It’s who we are. Empires rise and empires fall…
Dec is a pawn. Malek’s a knight. Daddy…obviously. But…Seven’s right. I did survive. The queen is still standing on the board.
…and the Queen will stand at the end of it all…