40. Knight
Chapter forty
Knight
“Are you sure about this, Snow?” I ask, peering down at the small, brave woman beside me.
Damn. There truly is no denying it.
I am falling for this woman. I know that my brothers all feel the same way, too. Even Prince and Moth.
Still, if I can keep her from further stress, then I will. She does not need to see that man on the other side of the door.
There, she will see a side of us that she won’t like, and I would hate for her to be afraid of us.
It's bad enough she has had to see it in Prince, and that reminds me…
I have a bone to pick with my older cousin. Older by one year, but I will still dig my knife in.
He is not to hurt Snow any more by any means.
The poor thing is terrified of him, and if he sees fit to stick another gun to her head, then he will have to answer to me .
Snow is not our enemy and the quicker he learns that, then the better for him and all of us.
She sucks in a deep breath and now I meet those earnest brown eyes.
They never fail to take my breath away.
“Yes. I’m not exactly a stranger to this room, after all, Knight.”
No. She is not.
And that fact only tears me apart.
Of course, I didn’t know her then, but the idea of my psychotic cousin unleashing his pent-up rage on this sweet, doe-eyed woman just brings out the maniac in me.
I take her hand and lead her into the room. My brothers fall silent the moment they spy her.
Hunter’s face pales, and there’s no missing the specks of blood on his face.
There’s no missing it on all their faces.
Casper has even used our prisoner’s blood to smear war paint onto his face, and it looks like he’s still in character.
He's still in his feathers. But his cape is gone.
Said cape is currently being used to ‘drown’ our guest.
It looks as if one of my brothers soaked it up with water after wrapping it around his head, and the poor guy is drowning now.
Well, it only mimics drowning.
Snow gasps beside me, and Casper quickly removes his drenched cape from Ferdinand, tossing it to one side with a wet slap.
On second thoughts, it may have been better they kept it on.
Wow… my brothers never fail to disappoint.
They’ve really done a number on this guy’s face. I can’t even recognize him anymore.
His nose is gone, and his ears are gone. Nothing more than just bleeding holes, and it doesn’t look as if he has long left.
I just hope they got enough answers from him.
We all know this guy is disposable.
Regina will not be coming to his aid, but in the end, he tried to kill my baby brother.
And anyone who tries to end the life of me and mine deserves to slowly bleed out in a chair.
“S-Snow…” Hunter whispers, hiding the bloody tool in his hands.
They looked like pliers.
Seems Hunter was playing ‘dentist’ again.
When I spy the bloodied molars in a bowl to one side, I see that I’m right.
While the gory sights aren’t new for me, they will be for Snow. Yet to my surprise, she steps into the room, coming right up to Ferdinand.
The twins watch her with bated breath. Angel’s sole eye gleams in anticipation, and it seems he approves of this version of Snow.
She’s almost as dark as one of us, and the light has almost gone from her shining eyes.
No…
While I’m prepared to damn my own soul, I won’t let Snow damn hers.
I meet Prince’s eyes, and he hikes up a brow when he sees the anger simmering in mine. I point a finger at him.
“You.”
“Me what?”
I crook a finger, beckoning him forward.
Prince looks to his brother, Moth, where they both lean against the far wall with all the chains.
Moth shrugs, and Prince sighs, stepping forward.
Not a single hair out of place. Even his bespoke suit barely has a drop of blood, and how I hate him in that very moment.
Well, we all know that he isn’t always so put together.
I know he’s just as batshit as the rest of us.
Just as trigger-happy…
“Yes, brother?”
Time freezes as I stare at my cousin. At my own chiseled, aquiline nose as it sits center on Prince’s face.
None of us are really that similar. Well, maybe for Saint and Angel, who are twins, which goes without saying.
We’re all different in terms of looks, yet we do all have the same nose.
The same nose our fathers inherited from our grandfather.
The Diamante nose.
And it’s that nose I aim for now as punch Prince, smiling when the blood gushes from his nostrils.
His green eye beams as he glares up at me, holding his nose, but I am not done. I keep on punching him until he is almost as black and blue as our guest.
No one comes to his aid.
In fact, I hear Angel giggling like a psycho behind me as it’s all just a game to him, and Saint shushes him.
Moth just watches with a deadpan expression, and Hunter tugs Casper back as if to protect him from my ire.
Even though Casper doesn’t need any protection with his own bloodied tools in hand.
Casper is just as fucked as the rest of us. He's just so goddamn adorable that you forget.
Still, I remember how I used to put a Band-Aid on his knee when he scraped it when he was little.
He's my brother. They all are, and I vow to fight for them and our family’s honor.
But just after I make an example of our so-called don.
“Knight, stop!” Snow shouts, and I finally stop.
When I shove him against the wall, my smile widens, and there he is, the grinning maniac. I grab Prince’s tie, cutting off his airflow.
“You put another gun to her head, Prince, then I will make it so you won’t even be able to shit when I’m through with you…”
And I’m a doctor, too, so I know how to mess up a man’s anatomy. Know what muscles are responsible for what, so Prince better stay off my shit list.
Prince’s face is a mask of calm as he merely glares at me through his swollen eye. Blood still trickles down his nose.
“You hear me?”
I sense my brothers’ wrath around the room, and know they all feel the same way.
If Prince wants to shoot her, he will have to get through all of us.
“Duly noted, brother,” Prince seethes through his blood-stained teeth, and I let him go.
The smile doesn’t leave my face, and I’ve gone full-on Joker mode now.
This is why they really call me the happy one.
Angel is still tittering, and I round on him. He stops when he sees my manic grin, and now he snorts quietly.
It’s only when I look at Snow that my smile vanishes, and I become Knight the laidback doctor again.
Yet Snow doesn’t look scared. I spy no fear in her eyes and perhaps she’s not as sweet and delicate as I thought.
Perhaps she’s a secret maniac, too.
“Snow,” Prince remarks, snorting blood from his nose, and I smile when a bit gets on his clean shirt. “So glad you could join us.”
“Yeah, why are you here?” Hunter asks. “You don’t need to see this.”
He points at Ferdinand bleeding on the chair in question.
Snow shakes her head. “No, I do. This man tried to kill me on my stepmother’s orders. So, I want to look him in the eyes again.”
We all exchange a wary glance. It’s only Angel who watches her proudly, and I realize that maybe there is a whole side of Snow we have yet to see.
She steps toward Ferdinand.
Casper joins her, angling his body as if to protect her from him, but Snow smiles up at my brother.
“It’s okay, Casper. He can’t harm me.”
Casper blushes beneath all that blood on his face, and I hope he never changes. In my eyes, he is still three as I place a Band-Aid on his knee. It’s no surprise I became a doctor.
My younger brothers were always getting themselves into scrapes.
“I’m so glad you’re safe, Casper,” Snow whispers, and my brother turns even redder.
“You… you too, Snow.”
My eyes fall on Prince as he watches the two of them, and if he still thinks she’s the enemy, then I have nothing to say to him.
His bruised eye finds mine, and then his jaw clenches as he watches from the shadows.
Now Snow faces her enemy head-on. Hunter steps forward and yanks him up by the hair so he can look into her eyes.
It takes Ferdinand a few moments to register her presence, and when he finally does, a shit-eating smile spreads across his face, one with a few missing teeth.
“Ah, Snow… w-was wondering when you would show…”
She stiffens, and I bet she is remembering the night he led her into the woods and lied about helping her, and my fist curls.
If he had succeeded, then I never would have gotten to meet this woman, and one way or other, this bastard is dying.
“Why?” she whispers.
Ferdinand laughs, and the sound rattles in his wheezing chest. “You know fucking why. My queen wanted you dead… My only regret was that I failed to uphold my duty. You should be dead, whore .”
I catch movement in the corner of my eye, and Angel slinks forward. At once, I spy those invisible angel wings as he becomes the Angel of Death.
Saint grabs his shoulder, and Angel relaxes.
Saint always had a way of soothing Angel in ways that I never could.
Snow folds her arms. “So, you’re in love with her? Is that it?”
Ferdinand smiles. “She is my queen. I’d do anything for her.”
Moth scoffs, shaking his head.
Prince, however, is quiet as he keeps his good eye on Ferdinand. His other is swelling.
Hopefully, now he can finally see that Snow is just as much as Regina’s enemy as we are.
“Also… I did it to avenge my father.”
Ferdinand glares up at Snow, and a shudder skitters down my spine.
So, Ferdinand was just another victim of King Leroy White. The grief-stricken son who lost his father too soon.
My own never even got to see me become a man. He wasn’t even there at my graduation as he should have been.
Yet I still never held Snow accountable for the actions of her father.
She’s just his daughter, after all.
Just another innocent caught up in a frivolous war.
It's time all this hate and suffering was put aside. It would be almost poetic if we all accepted Snow and let her into the family.
A way to broker peace between our families.
I don’t believe in the afterlife. Not really.
But sometimes, I used to see things when I was still doing my residency at the hospital.
One old man smiled just before the breath left his lungs. His gaze lingered on someone in the corner of the room, someone who wasn’t there.
And then he whispered the name of his late wife who had passed years before, the one whose picture was inside the photo frame on his bedside.
Even I felt her presence, and it still gives me shivers.
If there is more to this shitty life, and our fathers are still living on somewhere, be that heaven or Valhalla, then maybe they’d made a pact—to right all their wrongs and the misery they wrought unto themselves and others.
Maybe they agreed that their children should meet and bring peace between our feuding families.
“Leroy the fucking king White died before I could ever get my hands on him. So, I’ll be damned if I don’t get to off his daughter!”
Ferdinand’s scream rebounds through the cell, and all my brothers rise to the challenge.
He threatened Snow.
A woman we have all come to care about.
Even Moth is cleaning his brass knuckles with an old rag.
Prince stares at Ferdinand like he is seeing a ghost, and it must be funny to see himself in his enemy of all things.
After all, Ferdinand sounds an awful lot like he does.
Did he not bring her into our lives for the exact same purpose? To exact revenge on Leroy?”
“Did you hear that, Prince?” Saint taunts on the other side of the cell. “Maybe we should leave you and Ferdinand alone so you can compare notes on who Leroy fucked over the worst. Must be like seeing double …”
Prince snaps his head around, glaring at Saint with his green eye. “Shut the fuck up!”
Looks like my brother hit a nerve, but maybe this was just what Prince needed.
I bet he sees himself in that chair right now, his own arms and legs manacled as we torture him too for daring to hurt Snow.
“Stop it. Prince is nothing like Ferdinand!” Snow scolds. He really doesn’t deserve her.
I see my cousin wince, and I know he is having the exact same thoughts.
Snow is just too pure and good for this world.
She’s too pure for all of us.
Yet she can still smile at us and look us in the eye… she may just be our saving grace.
Snow never looks away from Ferdinand’s eyes. All the while, he sneers at her, death and retribution shining in his eyes.
Suddenly, she throws a right hook at his cheek, and we all jump in surprise.
Angel is practically drooling at the sight of her. Even when she shakes off her knuckles in pain, he still looks as if he wants to fuck her against the wall.
Perhaps even fasten her to some chains.
Still, Snow throws another punch and then another. She even grips Ferdinand’s greasy hair in her fingers, thrusting her knee into his stomach.
Angel starts jumping around like a monkey on crack as he laughs nonstop, and it’s time we chained him up.
Tears streak down Snow’s face as she sends another flurry of blows at Ferdinand like a blizzard, and it may be time one of us stepped in.
After all, this isn’t her, and it’s going to damage her soul.
Before I get to do the honors, Moth comes forward, and to my surprise, he hands her his brass knuckles.
She whispers thank you and fastens them to her knuckles.
Her own knuckles are bleeding, and they need to be looked at.
“It’s all right, Snow,” Moth says, and lo and behold…he actually smiles for once.
Holy shit.
Hunter stares like he has seen the Holy Grail.
Snow runs her finger over Moth’s brass knuckles, and then with one final battle cry, she punches him in the face, knocking him out cold along with a few of his teeth.
Her heavy breathing echoes through the room when she’s done, and none of us know quite what to say.
Prince looks as if he’s about to be sick, sweat dripping down his pale face, and it may be time I looked at his bruises.
Surely, he must see it now.
Snow is ours.
She shuts her eyes, handing Moth back his brass knuckles before she storms out the cell with a whimper.
My brothers are all hot on her tail. They only stop at the sound of my voice.
“No. Moth’s got this,” I say, pointing at my cousin.
He's the only one who hasn’t spent any time with her.
After all, I got him to confess the other day. Why he has been down in the dumps.
Moth has been in love with Snow since he was seven. Ever since he first laid eyes on her on Leroy’s estate when his dad took him as a kid.
He has just been so wracked with guilt and grief, knowing that Prince would eventually kill her.
But he has nothing to worry about now because we all have his back.
Prince won’t harm another hair on Snow’s head.
Lest he wants to end up like Ferdinand, who I am pretty sure has stopped breathing.
When I check his pulse, my blood runs cold.
“He’s dead.”
My brothers fall silent.
Even Angel doesn’t laugh now, and I bow my head.
Whether he died as a result of Snow’s final blow, who knows, but either way, it seems she’d finished him off.
Snow has become a killer.
“Fuck,” Hunter breaths, running his head through his brown hair.
Prince slips down the wall, burying his face in his hands when he reaches the ground, and it seems he has finally seen what Snow is prepared to do for us.
She just damned her soul.
She killed the man who tried to kill the youngest of us.
Snow is one of us.
“Who fucking cares,” Moth sneers at last, spitting at Ferdinand’s dead body, and then he runs after Snow.
I just hope he catches her in time.
This may well destroy her.