Chapter Nineteen #2
The point of the tour was to make them love us.
The point was to make damn sure that when they see what we went through—or at least the dramatized, declassified version—that their hearts ache with how close Kit and I supposedly came to death.
We need to be real to them so this book and this movie are real, too.
So when the credits roll, or they reach the last page, their tears or smiles of triumph are for friends.
That they feel like they could call us up and invite us over for tea, if they wanted.
Or at least that’s been Astrid’s plan all along. I’m not convinced it worked, and as the sun slowly rises on the day of the premiere, I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying not to picture an entire theater of people dead silent after the movie ends tonight.
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to watch two shiny starlets pretend to be me and Kit and act out every awful thing we went through together, taking razor blades to scars I might not even know are there.
But tonight I have to sit through all of it, wearing a ball gown meant for a princess and pretending none of it bothers me.
Because while the public may think we belong to them now, while they may try to cut Kit’s hair and hold on to me so hard that I can’t breathe, at least they don’t think we’re terrorists anymore.
Kit groans in bed beside me, his arm tightening around my waist as he stretches his legs. “All right?” he whispers.
“No,” I admit softly, turning to bury my face in his shoulder. “Do we really have to go?”
“ ’Fraid so. It’d be taken the wrong way if we didn’t.”
“Yeah, but—” I shake my head. It’s too late to chicken out. Months and months too late. “How are we supposed to take any of it seriously when we know what really happened? When we lived it?”
“Who says we have to take it seriously?” he says. “We can make a game of it. Start with a bucket of popcorn, and eat a kernel whenever something’s off.”
“There’s not enough popcorn in the world for that,” I grumble, and he chuckles.
“We’ll find a way to make it bearable, I promise.”
I want to believe him, but I can’t imagine ever being okay with sitting in a theater full of people all watching the movie unfold, believing every word, every movement, every action happened, like it’s a documentary instead of a piece of propaganda.
Because that’s what it really is. Make them love us, make them pity us, and maybe they’ll forget they ever thought we were murderers.
“Wait until you see my dress,” I mutter. “I think they stole it from a costume shop. Some ostentatious number with so much fabric that I look like an unmade bed—”
“It’s not that bad, Evangeline,” says Tibby, striding through the door without knocking. I sit up straight, and the covers fall down, exposing the oversized T-shirt I’m wearing, but Kit is shirtless.
“Tibby!” I cry. “You need to knock.”
“Why?” she says as she draws the curtains open, and the pink sunrise spills inside. “I heard you speaking. You were awake.”
“We could’ve been—” I shake my head as Kit sits up, too, running his fingers through his messy hair. “Kit isn’t wearing a shirt!”
“You are,” she says pointedly. “Are you wearing pants, Kit?”
He checks under the covers, even though we both know he is. “Seem to be,” he says mildly.
“Then I hardly see the problem,” she says. “Now, do you want the good news?”
I narrow my eyes as Kit climbs out of bed, his pajama bottoms long and perfectly acceptable as he grabs his robe. It may only be September, but it’s still freezing in the castle. “What good news?” I say suspiciously. “Your definition of ‘good,’ or mine?”
“You’ll like it, trust me. I had nothing to do with it,” says Tibby as she steps into the small room that acts as a closet. “Astrid says there’s no reason for the pair of you to stay for the film.”
“Really?” I climb onto my knees as the heaviness in my chest vanishes. “Do you actually mean that, or is this a trick to make sure we’re smiling on the red carpet?”
“Why on earth would you have to watch?” says Tibby, her voice distant as she riffles through my clothes.
“Astrid has already written your comments for you, and there’s no need for either of you to ad-lib.
Besides,” she adds, “I know you both far too well to let you run loose with something as dangerous as an actual opinion.”
I look at Kit, and he looks at me, and we share a grin so wide that my face actually hurts. “Thank you, Tibby,” I call, and I mean it. “Even if you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I’ll happily take the credit for this if you don’t blame me for what else I have to tell you,” she says, walking out with a soft gray sweater and a pair of black trousers.
“What?” I say, my amusement instantly fading, and she hesitates long enough that a pit forms in my stomach.
“Singh rang me first thing this morning, before I’d even had my coffee.” Which is clearly a cardinal sin, according to the look on her face. “Apparently John Phillip Michaels wants to speak to you, Evangeline.”
“No,” says Kit instantly. “Absolutely not.”
“John who?” I say before it clicks. “Wait—Guy Fawkes? He wants to talk to me?”
Tibby nods. “As soon as possible, which he seems to think translates into today, of all days. He claims it’s important, and he’s apparently gone on a hunger strike until—”
Before she can finish, my phone on the nightstand vibrates. Frowning, I glance at the caller ID. Lady Primrose Chesterfield-Bishop, who hasn’t written a word to me since accepting my thanks for Poppy’s collar seven months ago. And, as far as I know, is still at the top of Maisie’s shit list.
I look at Kit, who can’t see my screen from his angle. “Rosie,” I say, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Why would she be calling me?”
“At this time of morning, no less,” he says, his shoulders still tight from the mention of John Phillip Michaels. “Only one way to find out.”
I suck in a breath and reach for the ringing phone, the cloud of dread hanging over this day only growing. “Rosie?” I say, switching the call to speaker. “Is everything okay?”
“He did it,” sobs Rosie, her voice thick and almost unintelligible.
“He finally posted the pictures. I thought—it’s been so long, and I thought maybe he wasn’t going to, or maybe—maybe he thought I could still be useful to him, but—a boy I dated this summer texted me a screenshot from this awful website.
It’s me. They even have my face in some of them, and the freckles on my—”
“The photos Ben was blackmailing you with?” I say, struggling to keep up. But there’s only one person “he” could be. “Today? Just now?”
Rosie cries even harder. “I haven’t spoken to him since January! I swear, Evan, I’ve stayed out of his way completely. I don’t answer unknown numbers or emails, and I’ve got my security locked down—”
“I believe you,” I say hastily. On the other side of the bed, Kit’s arms are crossed tightly over his chest, and his jaw is clenched like he’s ready to punch something. He and I both. “Can you text me the site? Maybe we can find the originals.”
“That’s—that’s not all,” says Rosie, and she pauses to blow her nose. “I—I took Snickers for—for a jog in the park just now, and—and someone was following me, I’m sure of it. I had to—to stop and catch a cab, I was so scared.”
I freeze, and once again, I lock eyes with Kit. Neither of us says a word, but I can tell he’s thinking exactly the same thing.
Dylan.
I shift my gaze to Tibby and mouth, Stephens? She shakes her head, and I know why. Rosie isn’t royal, and Victor Stephens won’t lift a pinky to help her, even if it is Dylan. “Did you see their face?” I say urgently. “Was it paparazzi, maybe? Did you notice anything at all?”
“Nothing,” says Rosie miserably. “Just shadows and a silhouette, but I swear someone was there, Evan.”
“I believe you,” I repeat, and she lets out another soft sob.
“Listen—I’m going to send someone to talk to you, all right?
It might be police, or it might be MI5. And I’m going to see if there’s anything palace security can do for you.
” Tibby’s opinion be damned. “Just do me a favor and don’t open the door to anyone without a badge.
And if you see anything else suspicious, call 9-1—I mean 9-9-9, okay? ”
“Okay,” says Rosie with a miserable little sniff. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
“I know you are,” I say with all the gentleness I can muster. “Don’t take any chances. I’ll be in touch, all right?”
It takes another minute or so of reassurance for her to hang up, and once she does, I glare at Tibby. “Whatever you have to tell Stephens, get him to send someone over there. And let Singh know that Dylan might be stalking Rosie.”
Tibby sighs. “You can’t just wave your hand and make things so, Evan, especially on a day like today—”
“Singh will want to talk to her anyway,” says Kit. “And if Stephens isn’t willing to send someone, then I’ll hire security for her.”
“Just make it happen, Tibby. Please,” I say.
And with my phone still clutched in my hand, I hurry out of the bedroom, through the sitting room and library Kit and I now share, and out into the main corridor, which is bustling despite the early hour.
I have to duck around two housekeepers and a footman before I finally reach the door I’m interested in, but when I see who’s standing in front of it, I skid to a halt in my bare feet.
A Secret Service agent.
“She didn’t,” I mutter, and flashing the muscled man a tight smile, I knock hard on my sister’s door. Sure enough, it opens seconds later, but it isn’t Maisie who greets me.
Instead, it’s a tall, handsome teenage boy with black hair and a jaw that could cut diamond, and as soon as he sees me, he breaks out into a massive smile.
Thaddeus Park, President Park’s son.