Chapter 14 – Ferrin
FERRIN
It’s my fault. I woke up at the sound of the door clicking shut. I was annoyed she managed to sneak out without waking me, and even more annoyed that she took my phone. I knew she’d be back. Her stuff was here. But I didn’t follow her. I let her walk out.
Last night in the shower after I came in two fucking seconds, I stood there trying to figure out what it is about her that has me so affected when no one’s affected me since my parents.
No one’s gotten in. I didn’t come up with much other than it has to be from the insane situation we’re in.
It can’t be her because I don’t do that. Not with anyone.
But I don’t know how to handle her.
One minute she’s driving me up a wall in the best and worst of ways, and the next she’s pulling at strings inside me that don’t need or want to be pulled.
Last night with her was a mistake. A mistake that nearly had me coming in my briefs without even touching myself.
A mistake that had me up late, way into the wee hours of the morning, watching her sleep and debating my next steps and plan.
I was going to leave her. I planned to take her out for breakfast, tell her I was using the washroom, and slip out the back. I was going to stalk her mother, figure out her motive, and possibly kill her. I wouldn’t feel remorse about that either. She deserves what’s coming to her.
I’d get my necklace somehow, get the fucking tiara from whoever has it, sell the lot, and never look back.
I told myself that’s how it had to be. That I don’t care about the girl because caring about someone only fucks you in the end.
She’s a means to an end. Someone I’ll never see or think about again. That’s how this goes.
I made it another eight, maybe ten minutes before I lost the battle with myself and went to find her. But that’s all it took, isn’t it? Ten minutes. If I had gone after her sooner, she wouldn’t be shivering and bleeding and crying in the bathroom.
I’m barely holding it together. A hot minute from losing my fucking mind.
I want to go back out there, find that guy, and literally eviscerate him. I’d cut him slowly. Make sure he feels every slice.
A ragged breath heaves past my lungs, and my fist clenches tighter.
I press it into the wall when what I really want to do is punch straight through it.
But that’s not what she needs, and I don’t want to scare her more than she already is.
I return to the tiny bathroom, shaking like a goddamn leaf, and set everything down on the counter.
I can’t look at her, though I don’t have to, to know she’s an absolute mess.
“We need to get you warm.” I meet her eyes in the reflection of the mirror, and my jaw instantly locks. That motherfucker was lucky she was standing there. “Do you think you can shower?”
She nods, her arms wrapped around her chest, her expression stoic to the point of troubling as her focus stays on the countertop.
She lost it on the guy too, and I give her credit for that.
She didn’t cower. But now she’s in her head, and I know from experience that can be a dangerous and dark place to get trapped.
“Look at me.”
Slowly her gaze pulls up.
“I’m worried about your head. Are you dizzy at all? Seeing double?”
She shakes her head ever so subtly.
“Do you think you can shower? I need words.”
“Yes. I can shower.” She wipes furiously at a tear that falls as if it offended her when she’s already drenched in them.
I face her. “I’ll bring you your bag, and I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything.”
She blinks, a slow-rolling sort of thing that comes with a puzzled expression. I’m being nice to her when I told her I’m not, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. I don’t either. Before she can question me, I leave the bathroom, grab her bag, set it on the counter, and close the door behind me.
I don’t relax until I hear the water turning on. Then I strip out of my soaked clothes and change. The guns and knife go back into my knapsack. Jesus, he was trying to take her. What would have happened to her if I hadn’t come out there?
A shudder rolls through me.
She’s safe now, and the extent of the relief that comes with that is gripping.
I saved her. He can’t hurt her again. But others can.
Others are. It hits me with a hard truth and a fresh spike of protectiveness.
Yes, she’s sad. Yes, she’s likely been suicidal.
But it’s not what she wants to be. It’s not who she is.
She’s sunshine.
She’s smiles and giggles and sass and strength and caring.
It’s genuine. And in the two and a half days I’ve been around her, she’s brought out elements of me I would have sworn were dead. No one should hurt this girl. Not ever.
That includes me.
I run my hand through my hair, working out the excess rainwater, and glance out the window.
Sure enough, there are two police cars with lights flashing parked down the block.
He could describe me to the police, though I doubt he saw much of me before I hit him.
The owner of the inn could easily see the cops and put two and two together.
Not to mention, my hand is busted up pretty good, and then there’s Genevieve’s face.
We need to get out of here.
That pulls me up short. We? I glance at the closed bathroom door, and a sinking sensation fills my gut.
I should bring her home and leave all of this behind.
It’s been one thing after another with her, and the more time I spend with her, the more I’m risking.
But the thought of doing that, of walking away from her after what she just went through, after what I know is happening with her mother…
I push that away for now. I have to do what’s best for me. Always and with no exception. That’s been my mantra since I was seven.
I check a few things on my phone and realize that when she borrowed it, she was searching for the curse of Messalina.
The curse on the royal family. The stolen princess.
I stare at the picture of the little girl that she had up on my screen.
It’s a photograph of the royal family but…
I glance at the door, my heart starting to hammer.
Does she think she’s the stolen princess? Worse yet, is it possible she is?
Didn’t Genevieve say she had been kidnapped and that her mother found her at the princess’s festival?
That it’s her birthday night? Why would her mother not only know about but also go to great lengths to steal the tiara—Princess Desta’s tiara—if Genevieve isn’t her?
Why hide Genevieve the way she has, never allowing her to leave, if she isn’t?
The water is still running, and I knock lightly. “You okay in there?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she calls back, and I return to my phone. I grip the back of my neck, but I can’t stop staring at the little girl. At the blonde-haired and gray-eyed little girl.
Before I continue my thread of thought, the water shuts off, and I hear her moving around inside the bathroom. The toilet flushes, the tap turns on, and a few minutes later, the door finally opens, and there she is. Her hair is brushed, and her clothes are clean and dry, but I hardly register that.
The cut on her right temple is still dribbling blood, and her cheek is swollen and bruised. Fury strikes a fresh path through me, and the urge to kill that man hits me anew. Instead I release a tense breath and take her hand to bring her to the bed.
She has the same curious look she gave me before the shower that I continue to ignore. “Lie down,” I instruct, and to my amazement, she does.
I grab the first aid kit and a clean hand towel and join her on the bed, sitting beside her as I lay everything in the kit out. She likely needs stitches, but that’s not happening. Thankfully there are some Steri-Strips in here that’ll have to do.
“This may burn,” I warn as I open the antiseptic wipe and clean up her cut. She hisses in a breath, her eyes pinching closed, but I don’t stop until it’s as good as it’s going to get.
“Your hand is cut up.”
I glance down at it, and yeah, it is. Not the first time, and I don’t think I broke anything. Honestly, with all the adrenaline, I hardly registered it. “It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as I apply the strips, making sure the wound is approximated and closed beneath them.
“Don’t be sorry. That wasn’t your fault. It was mine, and it was his.”
Her gray eyes blink open. “How was it your fault?”
“I let you leave. I heard the door close behind you. I should have gone with you. There was no excuse for that, so I’m sorry.”
I get a sly smirk. “Don’t start being nice to me.”
I chuckle. “Never.” I sober, touching her cheek and measuring her response as I apply light pressure to make sure she doesn’t have a fracture. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got struck in the face by a gun.”
“Smile for me.”
“Why?”
I roll my eyes. “To check your muscles and bones.”
She smiles, and I continue to press around.
“Any headaches, nausea, or dizziness?”
“Are you a doctor now?”
“No, but I’ve had a few concussions in my time. The latest from you,” I tease, pointing to the top of my head.
“Nothing too bad,” she tells me, and I shift until I’m hovering over her. “Though I wish I had gotten him from the start. I’m not as tough as I thought I was.”
“You weren’t so bad.”
“I cried,” she argues.
“I have that effect on women.” I wink, trying to distract her from the way her thoughts are spiraling, but it’s no use.
“I fought him, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Darlin’, look at me.” With some reluctance, she does. “He was a lot bigger than you, a lot stronger, and not only did he hit you in the head more than once, the way he had you… There was no fighting or stopping that. That wasn’t your fault. Okay? Tell me you know that.”
She swallows and nods ever so slightly.
“Good. Follow my finger with just your eyes.”
I make an H with my finger in front of her face, and her eyes track. That’s a relief. She may have a concussion, but I don’t think it’s anything too bad. She blinks up at me, and I stare down at her, my hand dropping to her hair, where I brush some wet strands off her forehead.
This would be so much easier if she weren’t the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. If she weren’t the sweetest thing on the planet. A spark of light in an otherwise dull world.
I clear my throat and sit back on the other side of the bed, cleaning up the supplies and throwing everything in the nearby waste bin.
“The police are going to be asking questions. It won’t take long before they come here or someone points them in our direction. There were likely witnesses. We need to get going. Leave here and—”
“I think I should go back,” she whispers, her voice low and empty.
That pulls me up short. “Why are you saying that?”
She emits a bitter laugh, tossing her hands up in the air before she flops heavily back on the bed.
“Look at me. My first time leaving home, and I get attacked on the street in under a day. My mother was right. The world is a dangerous place filled with dangerous people who want to not only hurt me but also kidnap me. I’m not meant to be in it. ”
“What about your dream of seeing the sea and the lights at the festival?”
She shrugs limply. “Where was that dream going to get me? I have nothing. No last name. No ID. No real money. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I can’t survive out here. You know it as well as I do. I should go back before I make this worse than it already is.”
I stare down at my hands. This is exactly what I wanted her to say from the start.
It’s what I’ve been after. I was going to leave her today.
But now… Now I don’t know. Taking her back feels as though I’m marching her to death.
To hopelessness. To nothing. To a woman who might have stolen her or stolen her from someone who stole her.
To a woman who may be the most dangerous person of all.
It’s not my business. It’s her choice. I should grab my necklace and get the fuck away from all of this. But…
“Give me until the festival.”
“What?”
She’s as shocked as I am that I’m saying this, but it feels right.
Like the first right thing I’ve ever done.
If I bring her back there, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
I don’t know why or how I know that, but I do.
That truth is in my bones. That’s how set it is.
It’s not about using her or revenge. It’s something else.
I meet her baffled silver-gray eyes. I’m playing with fire, but something is urging me on, whispering in my ear that it’ll be worth it.
“Give me through your birthday. I’ll take you to the coast. I’ll take you to the festival. Then I’ll take you home. I’ll keep you safe,” I promise, my voice rising with ferocity. “I fucking swear, no one will hurt you.” I hold her eyes. “Not even me. What do you say?”
Her head tilts on the bed, her hair sliding beneath her as she studies me. “Why would you do that? You’ve been trying to get rid of me since you opened your eyes after I knocked you out.”
I rub the back of my head, where I still have a small bump. What if she is truly a princess? People will kill to keep that secret. To bury the truth. She’s sweet and feisty and fierce and funny and sexy. She’s so many incredible things, and I’m positive, given the chance, she’d be a million more.
I’m not a hero.
I’m one of the monsters her mother warned her about.
I don’t set people free, and I don’t do things that don’t benefit me in some way.
But if it is her, and I get the tiara and return the princess, maybe I’ll be rewarded.
Pardoned for my crimes and handsomely compensated.
I seem to remember there was a reward for the safe return of the princess. Perhaps I can cash in on it.
Either way, I’m going to take her mother down if for no other reason than she’s after me. I’m not dumb. There will be no trade. She’ll kill me the moment she gets her shot. Everything has gone to shit, but this could be what saves us both.
Until then, I can’t let her out of my sight. Not again.
“I don’t have a real answer. It’s just something I want to do. I’ll get you there safely, and I’ll make sure you get home if you decide that’s still what you want.”
She swallows thickly. “This isn’t another lie or prank or whatever, is it?”
Shit, I’m such a bastard, aren’t I? She’ll hate me when this is over, and I won’t blame her for that. But it won’t matter, will it? She’ll be where she needs to be, and I’ll be where I need to be.
I run my knuckles along her good cheek, her skin so soft and smooth. “No, darlin’, it’s not.”
She studies me for a very long moment before she finally utters, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
I clear my throat and pull my hand away.
Taking her there doesn’t change anything. I can’t touch her. I won’t touch her. She’s not the sort of girl you mess about. She’d give me her heart, and I wouldn’t know the first thing to do with that, nor is it something she should give to a man like me.
I’ll do right by her, and then I’ll let her go.