The Crown cannot Help You

Chapter 31: The Loss

Flynn stared up at the ceiling, letting his eyes trace over the cracks as he attempted to keep himself entertained.

The room was hot, thick with the stench of sweat and filled with the noise of Lily snoring.

He let out an annoyed sigh before reaching his arms under his pillow to grab the knife he kept under it. He balanced the blade carefully against his pinkie, amused at how well weighted the knife was. Flynn then twisted the knife across his fingers, making it jump from hand to hand.

Lily then let out another loud snore and Flynn snapped his head to her. He stared at her through his hooded lids as he stopped twisting the knife. He knew it would only take one swift movement of his hand and she would bleed out in a few minutes.

He watched as her chest rose slowly, her face completely neutral as she found herself in a deep sleep. Her hair had fallen across her face and chestnut brown strands perched upon her defined Cupid's bow. She was a beautiful woman, a fact that even Flynn could admit despite all the hatred he felt towards her.

He leaned towards her; his hand still tightly clenched around his knife.

He thought he loved her once, back when they dated as children. She helped him find a bit of happiness when everything else in his life seemed bleak. But the happiness was fake. Lily wasn't happy, neither was Flynn, they just permitted one another to live in a child-like fantasy so they could continue efficiently killing people. And when that method no longer worked for Flynn, he switched off all his emotions and broke up with her.

Lily never changed. She still chose to keep her head in the clouds.

He stared harder at her, remembering the life they'd had, and it only made him realise how far he'd come and how he could never go back.

He stuffed the knife back under the pillow and turned away from her. Lily wasn't his to kill.

Flynn then attempted to get comfortable again, he wriggled around in the bed, trying a multitude of different positions to get back to sleep, but he couldn't relax. Not with Lily snoring next to him.

He needed to get out of this room.

Flynn sat up and slinked away from the bed as silently as he could to not wake Lily. He scooped up his shirt and trousers from the floor and slid them on as he left the room.

He crept down the hall, glaring at Max's bedroom as he passed it, before leaving the house and heading for a run.

The sky was clear, making the stars stand out against the black colour of space. He started jogging down the street, twisting his head around to spot the moon. Eventually, he found it sitting just above the roof of a house. It was a crescent moon, he thought. Remembering the time his mum had taken him and his sister from their beds and led them out to the fields behind their house so she could tell them all about stars and space. She was a smart woman.

Ever since, he'd been obsessed with the sky. It's stars, the sun, the sun. He couldn't understand why people didn't look up more.

From the place of the moon, Flynn concluded it must have been around a few hours away from midnight.

He turned the corner and ended up running past the inn. The inside was completely dark, and it made him wonder what Audelia was doing right now. He hoped Tabitha had sprinted back to the inn with urgency to warn Audelia, which he then hoped meant they were thinking up a plan of attack right now.

Part of him wanted to turn back towards the inn and run to them both. He wanted to join in with their planning, but he knew he already had a role to play and that was getting back to Lily.