by S. E. Rose
“Feel along the wall, look for a door,” I say to Ashlyn, as I hobble along, pushing against panels.
“The wall? Are you OK?” Ash asks, looking at me like I’m completely insane.
I groan. “Damn it, Ash, just do as I say.”
“Fine,” she huffs like the petulant teenager that she still is. Ash might be almost twenty, but damn if she isn’t still an immature pain in my ass.
“I can’t believe we are arguing at a time like this,” I mutter. The walls have wooden panels on them about two-thirds of the way up the wall. The rest is painted a dark color that I can’t make out clearly, but it looks like blue in the dim light.
There’s a large armoire on one side of the room. My brain tells me to look behind it.
“Help me move this,” I whisper.
“Are you serious? That has to weigh about a ton.”
I glare at my sister. We’ve been kidnapped by my psycho ex-boyfriend and his cousin and she’s worried about the weight of a piece of furniture. She rolls her eyes and pushes as I pull. It makes a little noise, and we freeze.
“Here, push it out a little,” I say.
She does. “Can you feel behind it?”
She nods. I hear a click and her head pops back out from behind it. “There’s a door back here,” she says.
“Yes!” I say a little thank you to the universe, looking up at the ceiling. I shuffle over to her. My ankles are killing me.
“Here,” she says as she holds up her diamond-studded watch.
“What time is it?” I ask as she leans down to saw on the plastic around my wrists and then my ankles.
“Uh, three in the morning. Almost…got it,” she says triumphantly.
“Fuck, we’ve been gone a long time. But they may not realize it until tomorrow morning,” I mumble as I climb through the door. I hear movement downstairs.
“Hurry,” I whisper.
I pull the armoire a bit before shutting the door, hoping they don’t notice it for a while.
It’s pitch black in the tunnel. No lights at all.
“I can’t see anything,” Ashlyn whispers.
“No shit, Sherlock. Feel along the walls.”
We walk slowly, our arms outstretched as we walk. It seems to take long minutes to go only a few feet.
“I feel a door,” Ashlyn whispers. “Should we go in?”
I reach for her, and she grabs my hand, placing it on the door. I lean against it. It’s quiet on the other side. I slowly open the door. I peer into another bedroom. I slowly open it and walk inside toward a window. I grin. Yes. This window is over a small roof that’s next to some bushes. We can get down.
“Ash,” I whisper. She starts to move across the room when suddenly I hear the voices getting louder. The staircase creaks under the weight of whoever is coming this way.
“Fuck. Come on,” I murmur as I push the window open. It’s a tight fit, but it opens farther than the one in the other room. I squeeze through, and Ash follows me. We jump off the roof, landing in prickly bushes.
“Ouch,” Ash whimpers.
“You OK?” I ask her.
She nods. I look around. We need to get to the woods, now. I grab her hand, and we take off running. Just as we get to the edge of the forest, I see lights turn on outside what looks like an old stone house that we’ve just come from. I don’t think, I just drag my sister behind me, and we start running.
Branches scratch my face and arms as we run. I hear Ashlyn yelp with pain.
“Come on,” I urge.
“My ankle,” she sobs.
“Ash, we can’t stop!” I say. I slow slightly but keep us running. I have no idea where we are, the only light is from the moon, which is partly hidden by clouds.
I stop. “Do you hear that?” I ask her.
She freezes and shakes her head.
“It’s a stream,” I say to her.
“So?”
“So, dumbass, it’s going to lead to a bigger source of water and eventually people,” I say as though this is the most obvious thing that I’ve ever said.
We walk toward the sound of the running brook. It takes about a minute to locate it but the sight of it gives me hope. We continue walking along it for long minutes. I lose track of time, but I don’t bother asking Ash for it. At this point, time doesn’t matter, but distance does. And we need to put as much space between us and that old stone house as possible. Eventually, we come to a river, and a few minutes later a road.
“We should stay off to the side, in case they come looking for us,” I say to her like I’m some sort of professional wilderness guide who can lead us to the safety of a nearby village.
By the time the road widens, the early morning light is beginning to change the color of the sky on the horizon. “Damn, what time is it?” I ask her.
“Almost six,” she says.
I’m about to ask another question when I see a car approaching us. I drag Ash into the woods; we can’t take a chance.
August
The few times I saw action while in the military; we were a unified unit, ready to surround and take down the enemy. In this moment, I feel no different; we are about to go to motherfucking war. Pete, our head of security, Jack, and Anna have formulated a rescue mission within minutes. My father barks orders. My military training throws me into that mindset immediately.
Within thirty minutes, we are boarding helicopters. Chris stays behind with the president and Jessica. Logan, Anna, my father, and our security are on board one military helicopter. We fly in silence. It’s only a five-minute flight to the property. We are in a stealth helicopter. No sound comes from the helicopter blades. We cut through the night sky like a predator in the dark.
“I’m coming for you, Kate,” I think to myself as I hold on to the bar alongside my seat.
“We’re going to set down over there,” Jack yells as he lands the helicopter in a field near the property. Yeah, Jack can fly a helicopter, too. I shake my head in disbelief. He’s the ultimate international man of mystery. We are out of the helicopter and ushered into armored cars within seconds.
“You will remain here,” he commands.
“Like fuck, I will,” I say as I grab a Kevlar vest from the seat behind me.
“August,” Jack barks. “My mission, my rules.”
“With all due respect, Jack, my country, my rules.” I look to my dad for support.
“Go,” is all he says.
I get out of the car as we approach the house. The cars stay back a good eighth of a mile as we surround the property. Everyone wears night vision goggles as we close in around the perimeter. We move in silence.
Jack motions with his hand to a back door. He grabs the knob, and it turns. A moment later, we are inside. It only takes a few minutes to clear the property. They aren’t here. My heart sinks.
“Ross?” A voice comes over our radios. “I have something. Second floor, third door on the right.”
“Roger,” Jack says as he speaks into a small receiver on his vest.
We take the steps two at a time. Entering the room, I don’t see anything at first, but then I see it. Duct tape by the bed.
“And here,” one of Jack’s men says. We walk around the bed and by the armoire, we find cable ties. The piece of furniture is pushed back, and I push it farther to reveal a door.
“Fuck,” Jack says.
“Fuck?” I ask.
“Yeah, if Kate’s half as smart as I think she is, they got out of there,” he says.
I like to pride myself on being savvy and intelligent, but Jack is like next-level scary insightful.
“Where does this go?” he says, crouching to get inside. We follow it and open the first door. There’s a window open in the corner of the bedroom. Jack turns to me, a grim look on his face. They aren’t here, but they were.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kate
* * *
There’s a house up the road. I walk a little faster. I know my ankles are a bloody m
ess, but I keep moving, hoping that someone is home. I don’t even know who to call, except the police. All my numbers are on my phone…except Jackie’s. She made me memorize it.
A rumble on the road has me halting. I look both ways but see nothing. A moment later though, an armored military vehicle barrels down the road.
“Kate,” Ash whispers pointing.
“I know,” I say to her as I step into the road and hold up a hand.
The vehicle comes to a stop. The driver's side door opens. I hold my breath praying it’s a good guy.
A man emerges from the vehicle. Even in the early morning light, I know who it is the second he steps onto the ground. Auggie. Everything goes silent. All I see is Auggie, like a prince in a fairy tale, a prince in a black Kevlar vest. He runs toward me, and I’m encircled by his arms. I wrap mine slowly around him, almost afraid that I’ll find out he’s a mirage.
He kisses the top of my head. “Are you OK?” he asks, finally pulling back slightly so that he can look down into my eyes. I nod.
“Ashlyn?” he asks my sister. She nods but loses her footing on her bad ankle. He releases me just in time to catch her.
“My ankle,” she whimpers.
“I got you. Let’s go get that looked at,” he says to her gently, looking over at me. I feel like we exchange an entire conversation in just looks.
We walk to the vehicle in silence. Auggie helps Ashlyn in the car. Nico sits by him.
“I radioed in. We need to head back to the palace, now,” he says to Auggie.
Auggie nods and we take off, breaking several driving rules, speed amongst them.
Auggie turns his attention back to me. “What happened?” he growls as he expertly steers us through the winding country roads.
“It’s all my fault,” Ashlyn says on a sob. I wrap an arm around her, rubbing her shoulder.
“It’s not,” I sigh. “Ashlyn met a boy on our trip. He messaged her and said to meet him in the village by the palace, that he was here. She was sneaking out of the palace, and I decided I should go with her. I had no idea…the boy was Bill, it’s Jared’s cousin. Ash never met him before. They drugged us, and we woke up in this house and managed to get out.”
“And that’s it?” Auggie says, his voice clipped. “What the fuck were you thinking? You could have been killed. You knew how dangerous things were.” He continues without letting me get a word in edgewise.
“Auggie, I thought they were two kids meeting up to have a night out. How was I supposed to know?” I yell, stopping his rant.
“Fuck! Well, for one, Jared is over here. Two, we know someone wants to mess with both our families. Three, you are the president’s daughters, you can’t just go gallivanting around Europe.”
I growl; an actual animal sound of frustration escapes my lips. “Listen, I admit I didn’t use my best judgment, but shit, I didn’t know things were so bad, so…dangerous.”
“Well, they are,” Auggie clips as he continues driving, not bothering to turn around to look at me. I can see his hands flex on the steering wheel. He’s pissed. I sigh. I can’t do this right now. I’m pissed off, tired, and probably still in shock from the events of last night.
Thirty minutes later, we pull into the palace. Everything is quiet for a moment before everyone shuffles out of the front doors toward us.
“Oh god!” my mother cries out as she runs to us, wrapping her arms around both of us at one time.
“Mom,” Ash cries into Mom’s shoulder.
“Are you OK?” my father asks from behind us. I grimace at his voice. I feel like I don’t even know this man.
“My ankle,” Ash says to him, pulling back from my mother.
My father snaps his finger at one of his Secret Service agents. “Get a doctor,” he commands.
I can’t even bring myself to look him in the eyes.
“Everyone in the study, now,” a very tall, muscled man with reddish-brown hair dotted with gray commands as he walks back inside. One by one, we all follow him, until we are seated on each piece of furniture. I see Jackie across the room, she glares at me. Shit, she’s gonna kill me.
“I’m Jack. I’m here to assist with the investigation. Tell us exactly what happened,” Jack says as he leans against the king’s desk. The king sits behind him. I wonder who this Jack is exactly.
“I wanted to meet up with Will…I mean Bill,” Ash whispers from the sofa, where she sits next to my father. “Kate wouldn’t let me go alone. It’s my fault.”
I raise a hand. “When we got into the village, she started running to a man. I recognized him as Bill Farrington, Jared’s cousin. A second later, Jared was behind me. He injected me with something. The next thing I remember was waking up in a house, a bedroom. He told me it was all a trap. They wanted to kidnap Ash, I was just a bonus, I guess. They used the diamond to get to Auggie. There’s more going on. They have people over here working for them. I don’t know who them is exactly, some sort of anti-monarchy society, but it’s not just about the presidency.”
Jack nods. “How’d you get out?”
“He left us alone in the room. I found a door hidden in the wall,” I say, but from Jack’s expression he already knows this.
Jack turns on the computer screen.
He shows us an image on the screen, and I stop breathing. I’ve seen this before. When I first moved here, I began researching for my thesis paper. I was fascinated by how monarchies use intelligence and undercover agents. I came across an article by a government official, Conrad Johansen. He had formerly worked as an analyst for Norddale’s intelligence ministry. I found the article interesting because he had left the intelligence field to pursue politics. He claimed he only had an entry-level security clearance, but I had found a document made public which had copied him as a high-level analyst, which would have required him to have high-level security clearance. I always wondered why he had lied, and now I was sure of the answer. Conrad Johansen didn’t want the public to know he was cleared at the highest level, a level that would have had him knowing intelligence such as the investigation into Queen Louisa’s death because then he would have been scrutinized by the press and the public. My mind continued connecting invisible dots. The crown.
“Why would he take the crown?” I ask Jack.
I can hear everyone in the room simultaneously gasp at my statement.
Jack’s lips twitch with a smile. “You’re smart, very smart. Don’t let the world know how smart you are.” I’m uncertain of how to take that comment.
My father stands and everyone’s heads turn toward him. “I think I know why,” he says, his face shows guilt and regret, but his voice maintains the authoritarian leader vibrato that he’s known for and I wonder for a split second how he can do that. He clears his throat before continuing. “When I first met Senator Farrington, I was in a meeting at the World Bank. The meeting was discussing economic relations between North America and smaller principalities. Conrad Johansen was there as one of the representatives for Norddale. They invited me out to a private dinner, just the three of us. I found that a bit odd as I hadn’t announced my candidacy yet. They talked about power regimes and asked my opinions. I remember they were both wearing the same ring. It had a forty-four engraved on it and small diamonds on either side of it. The diamonds were pink and unusually shaped for a men’s ring. I remember noting that, but at the time I didn’t ask. Later, after Farrington had blackmailed me, I was surprised when he mentioned his clear political intentions that no one person holds too much power. He held up his hand and pointed to his ring. He said something about it reminding him of a mission started by his father, the late Senator Farrington Sr. Douglas Farrington Sr. was extremely anti-monarchy. I believe those diamonds were from Queen Louisa’s crown, and I believe the senior senator was at the gala before her accident. I believe he was involved and also took her crown as a trophy, assuming her death would bring down the monarchy of Norddale and cascade into the other monarchies of Europe, creating a domino effect.”<
br />
My father pauses. I look around the room. My mother’s face is pale as is Ashlyn’s. Everyone looks surprised, except Jack, but Jack’s poker face is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before in my life.
“That would make sense,” King Michael says on a sigh. “John, I hold no grudge against you. I too have kept quiet because of blackmail.”
The silence in the room is deafening. “What?!” Auggie, Chris, and Anna all say simultaneously.
I look to Jack, his jaw clenches, the only sign that perhaps, he doesn’t have a poker face after all. I want to know more about his man.
The king looks pensive as he gazes upon each person in the room. “I live with the regret every day that I didn’t speak up, that I didn’t act upon my suspicions, that…well, I was younger and felt invincible. Conrad had come to me, asking if I would consider being the one to end the monarchy and allow our country to become a full democracy. I told him that we were a democracy, and for all intents and purposes, I was a figurehead that helped represent us to the international community. He didn’t agree. A few weeks later, we were at a meeting. He pulled me aside and said he had a proposition for me. He proposed to have me absolve the monarchy in exchange he would not dispel to the public about a drunk one-night stand I had with the princess of another monarchy in Europe while I was in college. It was after I was dating Louisa. She knew and had forgiven me, so I called his bluff and told him to go to hell. The next day, it was in the tabloids. For years, I wondered about that night. Princess Alice seemed not with it and I was feeling weird. I often wondered if someone had drugged us, I am now guessing that it was set up, that it was all a plan from the beginning.”
If I thought the silence in the room was deafening before, it has taken on a vacuum effect that has essentially sucked all the air out of the space. I realize that I haven’t breathed in over a minute as everyone gapes at the king.
Jack turns back to the president and shakes his head. “I’ll never understand politicians as long as I live.”
Chris curses under his breath. “Fuck, I thought we dealt with this issue.”
